The Linden Avenue, a monumental green corridor, connects the residential town of Albrecht von Wallenstein to his summer palace, the so-called Loggia. The original design also included the Carthusian monastery in Valdice and the Church of St. Joseph. With its dominant central pathway and two side routes bordered by four rows of linden trees, the avenue evokes the image of a triumphal arch. The prominent starting point of the avenue was framed, at least since the 18th century, by two small pavilions or niche chapels. These structures disappeared by the early 19th century. In 1906, a statue of Karel Havlíček Borovský was installed in the middle of the main pathway, and the section of Lipová Street from Žižkov Square to the monument was renamed Havlíčkova Street. The area surrounding the newly erected monument, which transformed the impression of Valdice Suburb, saw significant construction activity.
On the eastern side of the avenue, a road to Lomnice nad Popelkou and Semily was built in 1829. Among the residential houses, typically one- or two-story buildings, some retained their historicist (No. 182) and Art Nouveau facades. A notable property, not for its architecture but for its historical significance, is house No. 139. A memorial plaque on its facade commemorates the fact that Josef Lepař (1831–1899), a classical philologist, tourism advocate, and director of Jičín Grammar School, spent his final years there. Coincidentally, this house and its neighbors were built by Václav Fejfar, a builder and grandfather of writer Václav Čtvrtek. Fejfar’s company also constructed part of the barracks complex in the 1880s, consisting of four three-story buildings. This example of Neo-Renaissance architecture in Jičín was partially demolished between 2011 and 2013. The remaining structures are now in a state of disrepair due to an unsuccessful development project.
At the northwest corner of the avenue, near the barracks and today’s Bolzanova Street leading to the main hospital entrance, stood the district poorhouse, built in 1908. This two-story building with prominent gables was reconstructed in 1953. In mid-1999, it was demolished, and a similarly tall new building with comparable gables was constructed in its place. Some stone elements from the original structure were reused on the new facade.
The Havlíček monument was removed during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1943. After World War II, it was relocated to a park between Argonská and Kukulova Streets, leaving the starting point of the Linden Avenue empty until 1952. On September 21, 1952, a monument to Josef V. Stalin was unveiled there. The monument was initiated by communist officials of the district and town as a tribute to the Soviet army’s liberation of Jičín. Students from the Secondary School of Sculpture and Stonemasonry in Hořice created the statue based on an enlarged model of Nikolai Tomsky’s design. The four-meter-tall figure of Stalin, dressed in a military coat and peaked cap, was made from Boháň sandstone. Stalin stood with his left foot slightly forward, his right hand tucked into his coat, and his left hand holding a scroll slightly behind his body. The surrounding area was landscaped, with a low tiled podium for the statue, two rear flower containers, and a truncated pyramid base featuring a relief of a five-pointed star, hammer, and sickle.
Less than a decade later, the monument was removed. In November 1961, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ordered local organizations to dismantle Stalin statues as part of the deconstruction of the cult of personality. The Jičín monument was dismantled in 1962, stored, and later broken into pieces at the Hořice School of Sculpture. A metal sculpture of a five-pointed star, hammer, and sickle was installed on the original pedestal but gradually decayed due to poor maintenance. The symbols of the labor movement were removed in November 1989.
The site underwent its third major transformation in 1998 when several linden trees were cut down, and a roundabout was constructed.
(ECH)