Pomnik Czynu Powstańczego Xawerego Dunikowski - artystyczna interpretacja historii Ziem Zachodnich wobec komunistycznej władzyego z lat 1946–1955

Abstract

Xawery Dunikowski’s Insurgent Monument from the years 1946–1955 — an artistic interpretation of the history of Western Territories in the face of Communist rule

Xawery Dunikowski’s monuments (1875–1964) devoted to the history of the Recovered Territories can be understood as an expression of the difficult relationship between the prominent Polish sculptor and the Communist regime. The complex history surrounding the creation of the Insurgent Monument on St. Anna’s Mountain and its semantic-formal value show Dunikowski’s individual artistic vision of the fate of the Western and Northern ands and their inhabitants – although this vision is not entirely consistent with the historical fact-finding and corresponds to the world view of the communist rule. The issue of the monument concerns many aspects of the situation that had exacerbated, especially the relationships between the artist’s distance from the historical discourse of that time consequently imposed upon him by the authorities, and the “national” vision of history popularized by the artist, and epithets on the pylons of the monument depicting the centuries-old history of the Upper Silesia and Communist ceremonies held there that ideologically integrated the multicultural society of these lands. Dunikowski’s formal autonomy towards the oppressive canon of social realism is best expressed by the sacred body of the piece of work that consists of four dolmens centred around a candle, which refers to ancient cult buildings (ziggurat, megalith), pagan temples and chapels, and shows critical paraphrases of Nazi architecture.