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Dominika Czarnecka
the invader triggered extremely strong emotions among the Polish community.‘
According to Tazbir’s report, German historians claimed that, it is “our [Polish] his¬
tory that provides an extreme example of national identification with (...) monu¬
ments. In no other country was there such a unique sphere of struggle surrounding
them, a sphere within which patriotic sentiments had to battle against the brutal
violence of the partitioners” (Tazbir 2000: 20). A sacred national space was taking
shape around monuments (for example Sigismund’s Column in Warsaw). Demon¬
strations were organised near them and the speeches delivered during such rallies
became something like sermons which helped maintain belief in regaining national
independence. The monuments erected by the invaders, recognised by the Poles as
memorials of “national shame and derision”, were spat upon and jeered at as the
symbols of the Polish nation’s enslavement and of Russian imperialism.>
After WWI, the monuments became an important element of communist
propaganda, both in the Soviet Union itself, and in all the countries of the Eastern
Bloc. In the 1940s, as a result of ineffective policy of the Allied Forces towards
Poland and adverse actions on the part of Stalin, Poland was subordinated to the
Soviet Union and the Soviet Union took over more than a half of Poland’s pre-war
eastern territories. Hostile attitudes towards the USSR presented by a part of Polish
society deepened as a result of the economic exploitation of the country, the ban
on the return of the legal Polish authority from war exile, terror against members
of the Polish Underground State, and unauthorised stationing of a foreign army
on Polish territory. In effect, until the 1950s, when the communists finally man¬
aged to establish influence, Poland witnesses a period of certain diarchy. The com¬
munists, and those who stood behind them, functioned on the basis of an alliance
with the Soviet Union, using the support of the Soviet army and secret service,
spreading terror among the opposition and those who were deemed enemies of
the Polish People’s state. On the other side of the barricade were those in Polish
society who did not accept the post-war status quo and which accepted as legal the
Polish authorities remaining on emigration in London. They condemned the com¬
munists’ policy, treated the Soviet Union as a hostile country and the Red Army as
an occupying force.
After the WWII, the Soviets initiated in Poland a nationwide monument cam¬
paign, the aim of which was to erect several hundred monuments glorifying the
Red Army. Its executors, apart from Red Army soldiers, were the communist au¬
thorities. The costs were charged to the Polish state without asking for consent. No
‘The Partitions of Poland took place at the end of the 18" century (1772, 1793, 1795). They ended the
existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the suspension of sovereign Poland for
123 years. Three partitions were conducted by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Habsburg
Austria.
> In 1832 the Russian tsar issued a strict ban on erecting public monuments. The ban was a consequence
of the November Uprising. After the ban, monuments were solely erected after authorisation from the
partitioner.