The statue, called Light in the Nation or Torch, is located on the terrace of the building in front of the entrance facade. The dynamic figure of a woman with a torch in her hand symbolically expresses the mission of the Matica slovenská organisation and the National Library not only in the past but also in the present. The sculpture is 3.5 meters tall and is cast in bronze. The placement of the statue in front of the main entrance was part of the original architectural design of the third Matica slovenská building (today’s Slovak National Library). According to architect Dušan Kuzma, at the time of the opening ceremony, the statue was nearly removed because its sculptor, Jozef Kostka, had been forced out of his teaching post at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava for political reasons. 

Jozef Kostka was born in Stupava (present-day Slovakia) on 29 January 1912. He attended the School of Applied Arts in Brno from 1929 to 1932. He continued his studies at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. In 1938 he participated in an exhibition of Slovak art in New York. From 1938 to 1939 he studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. After returning from abroad, he worked as a teacher in the Department of Drawing and Painting of the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava and later at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, where he was the rector from 1955 to 1959. He was forced to retire for political reasons in 1972. He subsequently worked as a freelance artist. Jozef Kostka is one of the outstanding personalities of Slovak sculpture. He is considered by many to be Slovakia’s first truly modern sculptor. His work embodies the history, tradition and modernity of Slovak sculpture. His art is classical and modern at the same time. He died on 30 September 1996 in Bratislava.