Ronald Reagan monument in Warsaw

On 21 November 2011, former Solidarity leader and former Polish President Lech Walesa unveiled a monument to President Ronald Reagan in Warsaw. A ceremony featuring Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first non-Communist prime minister in post-war Poland, eight American Senators, and many of Poland’s political elites accompanied the unveiling.

Former Polish President and anti-communist leader Lech Walesa looks up at a statue to former US president Ronald Reagan after unveiled it on November 21, 2011 in Warsaw

In 2008, Warsaw’s City Council accepted Janusz K. Dorosiewicz’s proposal to erect a monument to Ronald Reagan in the Polish capital. The statue was intended to be the first honoring Reagan in Europe, yet due to conflicts related to the difference in artistic visions between Dorosiewicz, the president of the Ronald Reagan Foundation, and Adam Myjak, the former dean of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and sculptor of the monument, the monument’s creation was pushed back in time. As a result, this will be the third monument to Reagan in Europe. Monuments honoring Reagan were unveiled in Budapest and London in June and July of this year.

The Warsaw statue is 3.5 meters tall (about 11.5 feet) and faces the United States Embassy in Poland. It can be found alongside Warsaw’s Traktat Krolewski (“Royal Route”), which contains the country’s Parliament as well as many embassies.

It depicts a smiling Reagan in a historic moment – June 1987, when he delivered a speech in Berlin in which he challenged then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”
Reagan was referring to the Berlin Wall, which came to define the Cold War and the division between eastern and western Europe.

This will probably not be the only monument to Reagan in Poland. In Gdansk, former Solidarity activists and Communist era political prisoners have petitioned municipal authorities to erect a monument of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II walking side by side in the Przymorze Park. Thus far the idea has received the support of local Church officials as well as of Pawel Adamowicz, the mayor of Gdansk.

Meanwhile, Stanislaw Rachwal, a member of Krakow’s city council, proposed the erection of an obelisk honoring Reagan in the exact place where Poland’s most grandiose statue of Lenin once stood. The city council announced it will take into consideration Rachwal’s idea.

Twenty-two years after the collapse of Communism, Ronald Reagan remains a profoundly popular historical figure in Poland. Because of his financial and moral support of the Solidarity trade union in the 1980s, as well as his tough stand against the Soviet Union, perhaps best symbolized by his Strategic Defense Initiative, many Poles believe that Reagan greatly contributed to the fall of Communism in their country and in the world. The recent rush to build monuments honoring the American leader in Poland attest to this sentiment.

Other eastern European nations, including Hungary, have also unveiled monuments to Reagan this year, commemorating what would have been his 100th birthday.

Sigismund III Vasa Column

(Polish version)
A natural spot from which to start exploring the Old Town is triangular Castle Square (Plac Zamkowy). Attracting snap-happy tourists by the hundreds each day is the square's centrepiece, the Sigismund III Vasa Column.

This lofty 22m-high monument to the king who moved the capital from Kraków to Warsaw was erected by the king's son in 1644 and is Poland's second-oldest secular monument (after Gdańsk's Neptune). It was knocked down during WWII, but the statue survived and was placed on a new column four years after the war. The original, shrapnel-scarred granite column now lies along the south wall of the Royal Castle.

 

 

The Royal Castle in Warsaw is the royal palace and official residence of the Polish monarchs Zamek Krolewski or Royal Castle with its Red Baroque Tower drew me back time after time. The Castle is a prime monument of national history and culture. Each year hundreds of thousands of visitors enrich their knowledge of history and deepen their aesthetic appreciation within its walls. It provides the setting for cultural events and official state ceremonies, as well as visits.

 

Royal Castle was built in the years 1589-1619 for the King Sigmund III Vasa, ruling Poland at the time. Italian architects Giovanni Trevano, Giacomo Rodondo, Paolo del Corte, Mateo Castelli incorporated the old gothic castle of the Mazovian Princes into a new early baroque structure, imposing itself upon the bank of the river Vistula. Royal Castle was further rebuilt by the Kings – August III Strong from the Saxon dynasty and Stanislaw August Poniatowski in the 18th century. It is also here, that during the November Uprising, in 1831 Polish Sejm removed Tsar of Russia Nicholas I from the Polish throne. Russians rebuilt the castle in the years afterwards, demolishing Sejm halls, trying to uproot all traces of Polish democracy. The building that visitors enter today is thus a remarkable reconstruction, carried out in the 1970s, with only a few parts of the interior salvaged from the ruins. Neo-Baroque rooms are filled with museum pieces, including period furniture, porcelain, tapestries, and Oriental rugs.

The Royal Castle in Warsaw burning after being hit by German shellfire, 17 September 1939. 

Chopin munument

Dzieło Wacława Szymanowskiego, wystawiony na obecnym miejscu w 1927 r. Projekt nagrodzony w 1909 r., lecz dopiero po odzyskaniu przez Polskę niepodległości mógł zostać zrealizowany. Utrzymany w stylu secesji, odznacza się malarską ekspresją.

Był pierwszym pomnikiem zniszczonym przez hitlerowców w 1940 r. - pociętym na kawałki i wysłanym do hut. Obecna rekonstrukcja została odsłonięta w 1958 r.

Nieodłączną częścią pomnika stał się również okrągły basen wodny z czerwonego piaskowca a także oddalone nieco tło naturalnej zieleni. W sezonie letnim w każdą niedzielę odbywają się tu bezpłatne koncerty na wolnym powietrzu.

Napoleon's Monument Unveiled in Warsaw

A monument to Napoleon I was unveiled in Warsaw's Powstancow Square on 5 May 2011, on the 190th anniversary of the emperor's death thanks to the initiative of Jean Caillot, president of the Polish Section of the League of Honor Members Association.

• Coordinates 52°14′04″N 21°00′49″E
• plac Powstańców Warszawy 2A
• Location Warsaw Uprising Square, Warsaw, Poland
• Designer Michał Kamieński
• Completion date 5 May 2011

Like time, the site was not accidental. Before WW2 the square was named after Napoleon I and 90 years ago a monument of Napoleon sculptured by Jan Antoni Biernacki was erected there, but later destroyed during the war.

The ceremony was attended by French Ambassador to Poland Francois Barry Delongchamps and Warsaw city authorities.