Warsaw Monuments
Monuments in Warsaw
There are numerous monuments to be found in Warsaw, many of them being located along the Royal Route. Poles do like to erect monuments and why not? They have plenty to be proud of and lots of history to remember. Below you will find some of the more popular monuments to be found in the City.
King Sigismund's Column
Address: Castle Square, Old Town
Zygmunt's Column or Sigismund's Column (Polish: Kolumna Zygmunta), erected in 1644, is one of Warsaw's most famous landmarks and one of the oldest secular monuments in northern Europe. The column and statue commemorate King Zygmunt III Waza, who in 1596 had moved Poland's capital from Krakow to Warsaw. Erected between 1643 and 1644, the column was constructed on the orders of Zygmunt's son...
Jan Kilinski Statue
Address: Podwale
Jan Kilinski (1760-1819) was one of the commanders of the Kosciuszko Uprising. A shoemaker by trade, he commanded the Warsaw Uprising of 1794, an uprising against the Russian garrison in Warsaw. He became a member of Polish provisional government as well.
The Tomb of The Unknown Soldier
Address: The Pilsudski Square
In 1923, a group of unknown Varsovians placed, before Warsaw's Saxon Palace and the adjacent Saxon Garden, a stone tablet commemorating all the unknown Polish soldiers who had fallen in World War I and the subsequent Polish-Soviet War. On April 4, 1925, the Polish Ministry of War selected a battlefield from which the ashes of an unknown soldier would be brought to Warsaw.
Frederic Chopin Monument
Waclaw Szymanowski (August 23, 1859 - July 22, 1930) was a Polish sculptor and painter. He is best known for his statue of composer Frédéric Chopin in Warsaw's Lazienki Park. In 1907 Szymanowski designed the bronze statue of Frédéric Chopin that now stands in the upper part of Warsaw's Lazienki Park, adjacent to Aleje Ujazdowskie (Ujazdów Avenue). The statue was originally to have been erected in 1910, on the centennial of Chopin's birth, but its execution was delayed by controversy about the design, then by the outbreak of World War I. The statue was finally cast and erected after the war, in 1926. During World War II, the statue was destroyed by the occupying Germans on May 31, 1940. It was reconstructed after the war, in 1958. At the statue's base, since 1959, on summer Sunday afternoons are performed free piano recitals of Chopin's compositions.
The Heroes of the Warsaw Uprising Monument
In 1980 the start of the Solidarity movement allowed for a committee to be created, whose purpose was to erect a monument of the Warsaw Uprising. The money was to be gathered from private sponsors since the party still did not want to participate in such an initiative. Many prominent members of the Solidarity joined the committee, but it was banned after the Martial Law was imposed in 1981. However, the communist authorities understood that the memory of the Uprising will not fade in peoples' minds and agreed to prepare a project of the monument. On July 20, 1984 an erection act was prepared. The date was chosen to blur the connection with the uprising and the feast was officially connected to July 22, the anniversary of signing the PKWN manifesto. No Armia Krajowa members were invited and the construction never started. After the peaceful dissolution of communist system in Poland in 1989, the committee was recreated. The project by Jacek Budyna was already prepared and construction begun immediately. The Heroes of the Warsaw Uprising monument (Pomnik Bohaterów Powstania Warszawskiego) was erected on Krasinski square, close to the place where one of the sewer communication lines with Starówka, Zoliborz and the city centre was located. The monument was revealed on August 1, 1989.