The huge monument depicts victorious Hussite warriors and Protestants who were forced into exile 200 years after Hus in the wake of the lost Battle of the White Mountain during the Thirty Years' War, and a young mother who symbolises national rebirth.

The monument was so large that the sculptor designed and built his own villa and studio where the work could be carried out.

Accordingly, the Czech patriot Hus believed that mass should be given in the vernacular, or local language, rather than in Latin.

In the following century, Hus was followed by many other reformers - e.g. Martin Luther, John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli.

[1] In 1918, a Marian Column that had been erected in the square shortly after the Thirty Years' War was demolished in celebration of independence from the Habsburg monarchy.