Slovenian Garden

Originally the Yugoslav Cultural Garden, the Slovenian Garden is located near the intersection of St. Clair Avenue and East Boulevard, adjacent to the Polish Garden.

Over 100,000 people paraded in support of the Yugoslav Garden’s dedication on a rainy morning in May 1938. Dignitaries included Mayor Harold Burton, Governor Martin Davey, Senator Robert Bulkley, Judge Frank J. Lausche (later a United States Senator), United States Representatives Martin L. Sweeney, Robert Crosser and Anthony Fleger, Chief Ohio Supreme Court Justice Carl V. Weygandt, WPA Director Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, and Dr. Konstantin Fotic, the Yugoslavian Envoy in Washington.

The garden reflected the culture of Cleveland’s Croatians, Serbians, and Slovenians, and their sometimes conflicted past, which occasionally erupting into conflict among their delegation to the Cultural Gardens League. As Yugoslavia dissolved in the 1980s and 1990s, so too did the ideal of a unified Yugoslavian Cultural Garden. In 1991, the garden was rechristened the Slovenian Cultural Garden. Statues of Serbian cultural figures were relocated to a church in Parma and a separate Serbian Garden Delegation emerged.

Over the years, statuary in the Garden has included Bishop Frederick Barago, Ivan Cankar, Simon Gregorcic, General Meister, Petar Petrovich Njegos, and Ivan Zorman.

Clare Lederer described the garden’s design as follows “A circular fountain and pool are the central features of a paved court. Two stately linden trees, the typical Slovenian “lipa”, whose sweet-scented, delicate blossoms are used in the brewing of a delightful tea, tower at either side of the garden entrance. The Jugoslav Garden slopes in three levels between the upper and lower boulevards. To the left of the entrance is a reposeful, formal, sunken garden to the right, a semi-circular section. A semi-circular stairway leads to the halfway lower level, and a wide stairway from the mid-level to the lower level, where there extends a spacious, stage-like paved court. Encircling this setting is a beautiful, natural amphitheatre formed of massive shade trees and the cooling stream of Doan Brook.”