In 1892 Celje got a monument to Emperor Franz Joseph I, one of a series of 3D depictions the man that was being erected across the Empire.
Prussian, Imperial and Styrian flags were displayed around the city, eight of them hanging from the just bell tower of St. Mary's Church. The unveiling of the statue was accompanied by drums, speeches and wreath laying. The Emperor was being celebrated, they said, because “he ruled liberally and centralised as well as Germanised the peoples”.
After the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy, the Emperor’s statue was already missing his nose, wearing an old torn raincoat and a helmet on his head in November 1918. A month later the statue “lost its balance and fell on the ground”. On the same day the statue was taken away and sold as scrap.
Similar things happened with monuments to Franz Joseph across the country. The full life-sized bronze Emperor that was standing in Maribor since 1899 was removed in 1918, while the pedestal that bore Franz Joseph’s bust remained where it was in Ljubljana, in Miklošič Park in front of the court palace, although the Emperor was replaced by the Slovenian linguist Franc Miklošič.
