The Adam Mickiewicz Monument, also known as the Adam Mickiewicz Column, (

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

: ''Kolumna Adama Mickiewicza we Lwowie'',

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

: ''Пам'ятник Адамові Міцкевичу''), is a Neo-classical column commemorating the Polish Romantic poet

Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Ro ...

(1798–1855) located at the Mickiewicz Square in the centre of

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, and opened in 1904.

History

In 1897, a committee headed by Władysław Łoziński and devoted to the construction of a monument in Lviv,

Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria,, ; pl, Królestwo Galicji i Lodomerii, ; uk, Королівство Галичини та Володимирії, Korolivstvo Halychyny ta Volodymyrii; la, Rēgnum Galiciae et Lodomeriae also known as ...

, dedicated to Romantic-era poet Adam Mickiewicz was established. In 1898, a contest to design it was launched and, out of 28 projects, the jury selected the one designed by Polish sculptor

Antoni Popiel Antoni Popiel (13 June 1865, in Szczakowa, Galicia (now Jaworzno) – 7 July 1910, in Velykyi Liubin near Lviv) was a Polish sculptor. Life He studied at the School of Fine Arts, Kraków from 1882 to 1884, with Izydor Jabłoński, Władys� ...

. On the initiative of Adam Krechowiecki, it was agreed that the monument should take the form of a

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

. The monument was built between 1902-1904 and was officially unveiled on 30 October, 1904. It features the

national poet A national poet or national bard is a poet held by tradition and popular acclaim to represent the identity, beliefs and principles of a particular national culture. The national poet as culture hero is a long-standing symbo ...

of Poland Adam Mickiewicz at the foot of the column above whom there is a sculpture of a winged Genius of Poetry handing a lyre to the poet. A large candle light is located at the top of the 21-metre tall column. The monument was erected at the Mariacki Square (currently Mickiewicz Square) near the figure of

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...

. The

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

shaft of the column was transported from the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...

while the bronze elements were cast in Teodor Serpek's factory in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. The figure of Adam Mickiewicz is 3.3 metres (10.8 ft) tall and the flame atop the candle light is

gilded Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was tradi ...

. The monument emerged completely unscathed after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The column is one of the Polish national monuments which remained in Lviv after the war, unlike the John III Sobieski Monument or Aleksander Fredro Monument, which were transferred to

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

and

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

respectively, based on an additional protocol to the 1944 agreement between the

Polish Committee of National Liberation The Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polish: ''Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego'', ''PKWN''), also known as the Lublin Committee, was an executive governing authority established by the Soviet-backed communists in Poland at the lat ...

(''Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego'', PKWN) and the

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...

signed in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

(1945), which allowed to hand over to the Polish government the national monuments in Lviv connected to

Polish culture The culture of Poland ( pl, Kultura Polski ) is the product of its geography and distinct historical evolution, which is closely connected to an intricate thousand-year history. Polish culture forms an important part of western civilization and ...

and

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

with the exception of the Adam Mickiewicz Monument which "enjoys great popularity and is loved by the Ukrainian nation". At the time of installation, the monument was almost the most expensive monument. Money was collected for it for 6 years.

Gallery

File:Dobrowolski Pomnik Mickiewicza we Lwowie litografia 1915.jpg, Odo Dobrowolski's litography depicting the Adam Mickiewicz Column, 1915 File:Adam Mickiewicz tér, Adam Mickiewicz lengyel költő emlékműve. Fortepan 31126.jpg, View of the column before the outbreak of WWII, 1939 File:46-101-4007 Пам'ятник А. Міцкевичу.jpg, Adam Mickiewicz Monument, 2017 File:Mic 1600.jpg, Adam Mickiewicz and the winged figure of Genius of Poetry

References

{{authority control Adam Mickiewicz Buildings and structures in Lviv Monuments and memorials in Ukraine

History

Gallery

See also

References