Abstract

DOI

This article, devoted to the Citadel Park-cum-Monument of Brotherhood in Arms and Friendship between the USSR and Poland in Poznań, is inspired by the current Polish debate about the fate of monuments.¹ It presents the park-cum-monument as a form of commemoration in the Polish People’s Republic that offered an alternative to traditional monuments. Studies devoted to this complex conducted so far include articles by monument conservators as well as art and architecture historians from Poznań: Grażyna Kodym-Kozaczko, Joanna Figuła-Czech, and Jarosław Mulczyński, and the author of the monograph devoted to Monuments of Gratitude, Dominika Czarnecka. The results of their research are confronted here with studies concerning public art by such scholars as W. J. T. Mitchell and Łukasz Zaremba, and by researchers of socialist spaces, David Crowley and Susan E. Reid, as well as Claire Shaw. The article poses a question about the mutual relations between the historical and social policies pursued in the space of the Park-cum-Monument, which make themselves manifest in the combination of its uses as a monument and a public amenity. The text also analyzes the way it has functioned since 1989.

Although the political conditions of the establishment and functioning of the complex are crucial, the article also draws attention to its social functions. It thus conforms to the postulates of the revisionist paradigm, which opposes the totalitarian paradigm in studies on the history of former Eastern Bloc states. Following Sheila Fitzpatrick, the totalitarian paradigm is understood here in terms of reducing the history of the Eastern Bloc to the relation between authoritarian power and passive society, the latter being merely an object of control. According to the scholar, the revisionist paradigm concentrates to a greater extent on social history and questioning the monolithism of the system.² In the light of this principle, analysis of the Park-cum-Monument’s construction points at the role played not only by political decision-makers, but also urban planners, architects, builders, artists, and users.³

An important element of the reflection pursued in this text consists of juxtaposing top-down strategies with the perspectives of the Park-cum-Monument’s users. Proposed by David Crowley and Susan E. Reid, the definition of socialist space – a field of interaction between its organization, expression, and use⁴ – allows for addressing individual stories preserved in the family archives of a city’s residents. The text seeks to answer the question concerning the spatial practices and role of the Poznań complex’s users. Including them within the scope of studies on the Park-cum-Monument serves to consider whether certain aspects of the way this form of commemoration functions – which were not designed top-down – respond to Łukasz Zaremba’s proposal concerning a reformulation of the genre of the monument that would render it possible “not to commemorate individuals or spectacular moments, but to represent groups, communities, or processes.”⁵

The Heroes Monument

The first commemoration site was established on the Citadel grounds as early as in 1945 – soon after the end of the struggles waged there between the Red Army and the residents of Poznań on one side, and German soldiers on the other.⁶ Dominika Czarnecka, author of the monograph devoted to Monuments of Gratitude to the Red Army, published by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), argues that the erection of monuments to the Red Army immediately after the war – temporary structures at first, followed by permanent forms – bore relation to the implementation of the Soviet propaganda guidelines on Polish territories.⁷ However, Mischa Gabowitsch points out that the process of establishing commemorative sites in the USSR and its satellite states did not have a centralized character, and the construction of the monuments was frequently initiated by local activists and, above all, army members. Aside from top-down pressure – Gabowitsch writes – the process in question was mostly shaped by informal patron-client networks, social expectations, and chance.⁸

According to Dominika Czarnecka, the construction of the cemetery and the Heroes Monument on the southern slope of the Citadel in Poznań was decided by the Soviet military authorities. The decision was taken in March 1945 during a council of the war command in Poznań, with the participation of “representatives of the communist administration”; the design was to be accepted by Marshal Zhukov, and the completion date was to correspond to the arrival of a representative of the Soviet government. The cemetery and the planned Heroes Monument were moved from their temporary location near the Castle to the Citadel, where the battle had been fought – a more prestigious site that allowed for the organization of official state ceremonies. In the city’s urban composition, the monument complex was supposed to close the perspective of Poznań’s main street, leading from the city center to the Citadel. Such a role was stated in the guidelines of the competition announced on August 4, 1945. As determined by Joanna Figuła-Czech, the monument was to “provide a proper closing of the perspective of Wały Leszczyńskiego Avenue and an appropriate landmark in this part of the city.”⁹ Since the Citadel was the culmination point of the city’s panorama, the “landmark” situated here acquired double importance. Beyond doubt, the location of the monument in a place associated with the German occupation of the 19th-century Winiary Fort also had symbolic meaning.

Further guidelines of the competition discussed by Joanna Figuła-Czech stipulated that the monument was to “bear testimony to the remembrance of the fallen and symbolize the victory.”¹⁰ The main competition prize was not awarded. The second award was granted ex aequo to the team headed by Tadeusz Płończak and Stanisław Pogórski and to the Soviet Major Michail Belavencev. Płończak and Pogórski proposed to erect a monument in the form of a triumphal arch, with an immense grave lantern situated inside. Belavencev designed an obelisk crowned with a five-pointed star, situated on an extensive plinth with two tanks. The third prize was awarded to the architect Jan Cieśliński and the sculptor Bazyli Wojtowicz, who proposed a structure on a semicircular plan with pillars topped with a simple entablature; in the center, on a high plinth, was a winged figure, probably Nike. Figuła-Czech notes that all the proposals were monumental in character. It is noteworthy, however, that among the awarded submissions only the design by Major Belavencev featured unambiguous Soviet symbols and military references that emphasized the might of the Red Army. Aside from the five-pointed star and the tanks on the plinth, the stairs in the lower and upper part of the structure were framed by two pairs of plinths with further tanks and cannons. Although the final implementation combined elements of different submissions, its ideological expression was shaped by Belavencev’s vision.

A high obelisk with a reinforced concrete structure was eventually raised on the Citadel slope. It was covered with granite slabs and crowned with a five-pointed star made of ruby glass. At the foot of the obelisk was a relief by Bazyli Wojtowicz and Czesław Woźniak that portrayed Polish and Soviet soldiers. The side walls of the plinth featured plaques with Stalin’s order, given after Poznań was seized, engraved in Polish and Russian. Leading to the monument were monumental granite stairs, which – as Małgorzata Praczyk writes – were supposed to “strengthen the impression of the monument’s grandeur and loftiness,”¹¹ while its military character was highlighted by howitzers flanking the entrance.

Inhabitants of Poznań participated in the construction of the Heroes Monument. According to Dominika Czarnecka, they were forced to do so by the communist authorities – all men aged between 18–60 who were able to work were called upon to donate a day of work or the equivalent of 50 zlotys to the construction.¹² Moreover, Joanna Figuła-Czech points out that the municipal authorities not only struggled to raise the expected sum from citizens’ contributions, but also the proper number of volunteers for unpaid construction work on the monument,¹³ which was unveiled on November 18, 1945.

Preserved documents unarguably show that the construction of the Poznań Heroes Monument was not a grassroots initiative, but the level of social support or opposition to it in 1945 is difficult to assess. The fundraising campaigns and unpaid work bear testimony to the former, whereas documents indicating difficulties in collecting funds and gathering volunteers testify to the latter. We need to remember, however, the needs and problems suffered by the population of destroyed cities immediately after the war, which were much more urgent than erecting monuments.

Małgorzata Praczyk lists the obelisk in the Citadel among the monuments that highlighted the role of the Red Army and the Soviet Union as dominant powers in the struggle with Nazism. According to the scholar, such a vision failed to appeal to numerous inhabitants of Poznań, who began to struggle for a different kind of national identity expressed through monuments.¹⁴ Her argument can be supported by Florian Znaniecki’s studies, conducted in the inter-war period, which showed the strong attachment of the people of Poznań to national identification.¹⁵ Regardless of the attitude of the city’s residents to the construction of the monument in 1945, an incident that happened several years later clearly testified to the opposition to the structure and what it represented during the era of Stalinist terror, at least for part of the local population. Joanna Figuła-Czech states, on the basis of documents preserved at the IPN, that two students sought to blow up the monument in 1953. Their attempt failed, and the obelisk crowned with a red star towered above the north-western part of Poznań in the years to follow.

The Heroes Monument was undoubtedly an example of public art that monumentalized violence, as discussed by W. J. T. Mitchell,¹⁶ who notes that monuments, triumphal arches, obelisks, columns, and statues often feature direct references to violence perpetrated during war and conquest. With regard to the Poznań monument, this can be seen in several of the aspects mentioned by Mitchell. Firstly, the image (as understood broadly by Mitchell; in this case as a work of public art) can constitute an act of violence in itself or become the object of violence. The Heroes Monument became such an object for the first time with the attempt to blow it up in 1953. In later years, such activities concentrated on the red star crowning it. According to the second meaning indicated by Mitchell – the very image of public art as a tool of violence – the Heroes Monument became a tool of the enslavement and appropriation of public space with the placement of symbols that highlighted the military power of the Red Army, stationed in Poland until as late as the 1990s. Thirdly – Mitchell writes – public art may represent past violence, regardless of whether it adopts the form of a realistic imitation of a violent act or that of an abstract monument. According to the intentions of the competition organizers, the Heroes Monument was supposed to underscore victory in battle and preserve the memory of the fallen. Press reports also discussed it in terms of a commemoration of wrongs suffered under the occupation. It therefore represents past violence, addressing both the occupation period and the struggles waged by the Red Army and the soldiers of Poznań’s Citadel against the Germans. This is also highlighted by the location of the monument and the cemetery, in the place where the German army was stationed during the occupation and which later became a battlefield.

It is worth evoking here Mitchell’s statement that public art never monumentalizes violence more powerfully than when it presents the victor as a man of peace. As was written before the unveiling of the Heroes Monument, it was intended to serve as a reminder of the “undisputed truth that only with the support of our mighty ally can we live and work in peace.”¹⁷ This political-spatial context would accompany the construction of the Park-cum-Monument in subsequent years.

The decision to build the Park-cum-Monument

Green areas on Winiary Hill had been planned prior to the war.¹⁸ After 1945, a park was to be located there, according to both the Socialist Realist concept from 1953 and the plan from 1961.¹⁹ The latter concerned a green area with a large-scale services center on the Citadel.²⁰ The social demand for such an amenity would also increase with the construction of the Winogrady housing estate, launched in 1968²¹ for more than 70,000 members of the Poznań Housing Cooperative.²² In turn, the decision to build the Park-cum-Monument was taken after the Municipal Board of the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society (TPPR) sent a letter to Head of the Presidium of the Municipal National Council (MRN) Jerzy Kusiak in 1961, which stated that:

With the participation of the broad masses of city residents, social organizations, and the Presidium of the Municipal National Council, under the leadership of the Municipal Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, [the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society – KR] wishes to undertake within a community action the transformation of the former Citadel – the site of heroic struggle and brotherhood in arms between Soviet soldiers and Poznań’s Citadel soldiers, who shed blood together and perished on the field of glory during the liberation of Poznań – to the Park of Friendship and Brotherhood in Arms.²³

The Social Committee for the Construction of the Park-cum-Monument of Brotherhood in Arms and Friendship between the USSR and Poland in Poznań was registered in 1962.²⁴ At that point, the planned park was granted both the status of a monument and political significance. Grażyna Kodym-Kozaczko argues that this was one of the attempts to improve the image of Poznań in the eyes of state authorities and the Soviet Union following the events of 1956.²⁵ The TPPR’s initiative can also be interpreted using the categories suggested by Mitchell. The Poznań Park-cum-Monument was to serve as a reminder that the possibility of peaceful rest was owed to the Red Army, and to justify both the violence of the battle in 1945 and later Soviet domination. This decision did not reduce the social need for a park situated in that location; however, it complicated the status of the site, which thenceforth was supposed to combine the state’s social and historical policies.

The first stage of implementing historical politics involved demolishing the symbol of the past. In the 1950s, tearing down the 19th-century Winiary Fort – associated with the German occupation and largely destroyed during the fight for the Citadel – was explained by the need to acquire bricks for the city’s reconstruction and by the social aversion to it.²⁶ Its remnants were supposed to be composed into the space of the Park-cum-Monument in order to commemorate the events of 1945. According to David Crowley and Susan E. Reid, the task of architects and urban planners in Eastern Bloc states often consisted of tying together space and time, demonstrating how historical forces operated on those territories.²⁷ The situation with the decision to construct the Park-cum-Monument was similar. On the one hand, it was taken to mark the victory over fascism, while on the other hand – in order to demonstrate the state’s intention to implement the postulates of social justice. Crowley and Reid point at a particular difficulty posed by attempts to distinguish between grand and everyday narratives concerning socialist spaces. As they argue, “Under the ideological imperatives of socialism, phenomena that might otherwise be polarized – the utopian versus the ordinary […] were to be synthesized. The socialist project was, after all, to make utopia real.”²⁸ For this reason, spaces of everyday life, such as sites of relaxation, learning, and consumption, “were no less important as sites for ideological intervention than more obviously ‘socialist spaces’.”²⁹ As for the Parks of Culture and Recreation built across the Soviet Union, these bore relation to the acculturation policy and the assumption that a properly designed space would shape its users.³⁰

Design

The decision to build the Park-cum-Monument was informed by the pursuit of historical politics and the related social policies of the state; however, the form that those values and their mutual relations were supposed to adopt in the space of the complex remained undetermined. This was negotiated with the TPPR by the head designer of the Park-cum-Monument, engineer Bernard Lisiak. His task was far from easy.

Attached to the design guidelines developed in 1961–1962 following the commission of the Presidium of the National Council was an annex with a list of changes and additions formulated by the Social Committee for the Construction of the Park-cum-Monument. Considerable emphasis was placed on the monumental character of the complex and its ideological subordination to the Heroes Monument. The annex suggested that “the spatial and artistic concept should be founded on the monumental inclusion of the Heroes Monument in the network of roads, viewing perspectives, and floral decoration,”³¹ separating the main route, named Aleja Republik Radzieckich [Soviet Republics Avenue] and Aleja Cytadelowców [Citadel Soldiers Avenue], and the adaptation of the bunker in the vicinity of the Heroes Monument for the needs of the Militarium Museum (later the Museum of the Liberation of the City of Poznań). Attached to the documentation were two plans that presumably contained the design without the introduced corrections. The plans concerned the northern and eastern sections of the park and did not include the Heroes Monument. Conscientious implementation of the Social Committee’s guidelines could have led to creating a monumental, geometrical complex, similar to Berlin’s Treptower Park, but the Poznań architect came up with a different solution.

Discussing the design in 1966, Bernard Lisiak stated that the Social Committee presented him with desiderata emphasizing the idea of brotherhood in arms and friendship between Poland and the USSR. “My task was to blend the monument […] to the largest possible degree with the park landscape. I responded to the task by designing individual alleys branching off from the monument in the center”³² – which Lisiak presented during a meeting with TPPR members. The plan published in Kronika Miasta Poznania in 1972 embraced those solutions. Although the architect guaranteed that the martyrological and recreational functions would be combined, the plan – as Grażyna Kodym-Kozaczko demonstrates – featured a functional division of the park into two sections.³³ The martyrological functions were clustered in the southern part with the Heroes Monument, while the remaining area assumed a recreational character. The composition of the park was also subordinated to that decision: it was geometrical only in the section with the monument, with five alleys radiating from it, whereas the layout was less strict in the recreational section. Analysis of the plan confirms that the park’s composition was not subordinated to the monument, and the majority of roads that branched off from it did not continue into the recreational part. Only Aleja Republik [Avenue of the Republics] led from the Heroes Monument to the Summer Theater, but even that road – as Kodym-Kozaczko writes – “changed its character in the northern section of the complex from a monumental axis to a circular road, surrounded by floral interiors and local enclaves.”³⁴ The Poznań scholar interprets the designer’s decision in terms of his willingness to liberate city residents from the “pushy propaganda” manifest in the southern section of the complex. This aim is also confirmed by Lisiak’s idea, declared at a meeting with the TPPR, to build additional entrances to the Park-cum-Monument that would allow users to avoid passing through the cemetery and the monumental stairs leading to the Heroes Monument. With Aleja Cytadelowców situated in the park space – perpendicular to Aleja Republik – and the Bell of Peace and Friendship Among Nations erected on its axis in 1986, the Heroes Monument needed to compete with another vertical dominant. The prominence of the monument section of the complex in the park’s composition was thus reduced, but – given its location at the end of the former Wały Leszczyńskiego Avenue – it continued to dominate the plan of that part of the city.

The architect devoted the majority of his speech to a discussion of the social value of the future Park-cum-Monument. He mentioned that “out of the 100 ha of the Citadel, excluding cemeteries and partly built areas, 85 ha were pure park complexes for the sake of recreation and relaxation in the present and future city center – for a total of around one hundred thousand inhabitants living around the Citadel.”³⁵ Bernard Lisiak emphasized that “in my design, the Citadel is devised primarily for the needs of health and recreation, according to the slogan: a socialist city is a city of greenery.” “The goal was to offer people the largest park, as close to home as possible.”³⁶ Reading the shorthand report from the meetings shows that Lisiak attached the greatest importance to the role of the Park-cum-Monument as a recreational area, but he summarized his speech with the required statement that enabled situating the entire project in the context of socio-historical politics: the Citadel park, embracing both values – the commemoration of martyrology along with entertainment and relaxation functions – would “bring to mind at the same time that one needs to be stalwart in order to prevent the past from happening again.”³⁷

Acculturation policy was most strongly related to the design of the services center situated in the Park-cum-Monument. This included a sports hall, swimming pool complex, bowling alley, training center, luge track, sports pitches, an ice rink, the Summer Theater, a small amphitheater for children, and a planetarium, among other facilities.³⁸ These mostly unaccomplished plans to build sports, cultural, and educational facilities in the Park-cum-Monument potentially derived from the forms of the Parks of Culture and Recreation built in the Soviet Union since 1931, modelled on Moscow’s Gorky Park. In 1973, there were as many as 1,100 such parks across the USSR.³⁹ Claire Shaw argues that their construction “drew on European enlightenment ideas of progress, with the introduction of rational practices of hygiene and order, but also sought to engender uniquely Soviet values in the population, such as ‘anticapitalism, collectivist values, and atheism’.”⁴⁰ Built in a city that was already full of green spaces, Gorky Park manifested the faith of urban planners that the specific design of a proletarian park would contribute to shaping the attitudes of its users. Its premises allowed for undertaking cultural (dance, spectacles, sports) and cultural-educational activities (museums, exhibitions, lectures). The Soviet parks featured outdoor theaters and playgrounds. It was emphasized that their potential for cultural recreation attracted both white-collar and manual workers.⁴¹

Among the many ambitious plans for Poznań’s Park-cum-Monument, only the luge tracks, amphitheater, dance stage, and rose garden were eventually built. A recreational-entertainment role was additionally played by two cafés. Part of the acculturation policy also included the Museum of the Liberation of the City of Poznań, which served historical education. Shaw writes: “However, the pragmatism which informed some of these goals [of acculturation: patriotism […] and knowledge of culture] […] should not be seen as detracting from the overall nature of acculturation as a means to a more utopian end.”⁴² In comparison with the Soviet model and the Park of Culture and Recreation in Chorzów, the Poznań Park-cum-Monument implemented the acculturation policy only to a limited extent. The majority of facilities meant to serve the shaping of their users ultimately failed to be raised, while it was the pursuit of historical politics that became the pragmatic or instrumental goal of acculturation.

The design of the Park-cum-Monument and the services center located therein combined the historical and social policies of the Polish People’s Republic. Analysis of subsequent versions of the plan and the preserved documents allows us to conclude, however, that the two functions were separated by virtue of the designer’s decision, placing emphasis on those related primarily to social policies. On the ideological level, they also bore relation to historical politics if we consider the construction of the Park-cum-Monument as a reminder that “only with the support of the USSR can we live and work in peace.” However, that message was diluted to a certain extent by the spatial organization of the premises. In turn, its effectiveness as an acculturation tool was limited due to the failure to build many of the facilities originally planned.

Poznań Sculptural Meetings

The Poznań Sculptural Meetings [Poznańskie Spotkania Rzeźbiarskie] played a role in creating the meanings of the Park-cum-Monument. The Presidium of the National Council of the city of Poznań stated in a letter to the minister of culture and art in 1968 that “the goal of the ‘meetings’ is to arrive by the process of elimination at sculptural works that will combine the idea of victory over fascism with the newly forming life in People’s Poland.”⁴³ This message was repeated in the regulations of the Poznań Sculptural Meetings 1968–1970,⁴⁴ which once again highlighted the objectives of historical and social policies. Proposals were submitted by 51 sculptors selected by the invited regional branches of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers (ZPAP), and by two artists from Kharkiv. The designs were presented at the exhibition at the BWA Arsenał Municipal Gallery in 1969. The themes signaled in the regulations are explained by Ryszard Danecki in his text published in the exhibition brochure:

The place where sculptures are created […] has its unambiguous political meaning. But it contains various possibilities of shaping the truth that what is indispensable for living is peace and friendship between the nations that fought together against genocide perpetrators, friendship between people worldwide. That living requires the affirmation of life, love of life, joy, optimism, encouragement to creative work, effort. […] That was how the task was understood by the artists whose works were shortlisted for implementation on the premises of the former Poznań Citadel.⁴⁵

Among the sculptures created during 1969–1970, the strongest connection to historical politics pursued in the park was demonstrated by the Socialist Realist Brotherhood in Arms [Braterstwo Broni] by Dmitriy Sova from Kharkiv; the figural sculpture Sappers [Saperzy] by Jan Jakub, which commemorated the events of 1945 (a fragment of the former bridge on which struggles for the Citadel were fought was used as its plinth); as well as Nike by Bazyli Wójtowicz, previously submitted to the competition for the Heroes Monument.⁴⁶ A less literal approach was represented by Julian Boss-Gosławski’s abstract metal sculpture Victory [Zwycięstwo]. The only sculpture that referred directly to the battle waged in that location without simultaneously glorifying violence was Crying Stone [Płaczący kamień] by Luba Zhukova from Kharkiv, which performed a martyrological function and was situated near the cemeteries. In some cases, Bernard Lisiak and the selection committee pointed out that they were more interested in sculptures with recreational themes.⁴⁷

Instead of historical events, the second group of works was related to public facilities planned or built in the park – those that served entertainment (Composition [Kompozycja] by Antoni Szulc and Violinist [Skrzypaczka] by Józef Murlewski, referring to dance and musical performances in the amphitheater); sports (Gymnast [Gimnastyczka] by Jan Bakalarczyk and Race [Wyścig] by Metody Sowa, which portrayed two swimmers in the location of the planned swimming pools); education (Cosmonaut [Kosmonauta] by Wacław Twarowski, which preserved the memory of the planned construction of a planetarium); and recreation (Rose [Róża] by Michał Gąsienica-Szostak, dominating the high-profile rose garden).

Other sculptures freely interpreted the motif of “new life” formulated in the regulations, such as Lovers [Zakochani] by Irena Woch; Vertical [Pion] by Marian Banasiewicz; Family [Rodzina] by Benedykt Kasznia; and Maternity [Macierzyństwo] by Jan Żok. Józef Kaliszan’s Rise [Zryw] can also be seen in the same way. Some of the works addressed different themes characteristic of park sculpture: Animal [Zwierzę] by Anna Rodzińskia-Iwiańska; Sunday [Niedziela] by Roman Tarkowski; and the unpreserved Fish [Ryby] by Bernardyna Jaskólska-Mnichowska and Girl with a Flower [Dziewczynka z kwiatkiem] by Delfina Szczerbal-Jaźwińska. There is also an example of a reference to the mythology of the Piast dynasty (Piast and Rzepicha [Piast i Rzepicha] by Czesław Woźniak); Don Quixote [Don Kichot] by Tadeusz Dobosz; Mascarons [Maszkarony] by Józef Kopczyński; and the abstract, modernist metal Composition [Kompozycja] by Andrzej Pukacki.

Particularly notable is the unimplemented architectural-spatial design of a sculptural fountain by Jan Berdyszak,⁴⁸ Concept of Water Arrangements in a Vast Space [Koncepcja układów wodnych na dużej przestrzeni]. In his review of the exhibition of the designs at the BWA, Jan Dahl recognized this as one of the most ambitious submissions, given the reference to a fragment of the park’s spatial layout and proposed utilitarian solutions.⁴⁹ Indeed, Berdyszak’s way of thinking went far beyond the mere decoration of space, as shown by the contents of the Łagów Charter [Karta Łagowska], co-authored by him several years later, which concerned the creation of social space. Among other proposals, the charter called for offering users the possibility of “active perception – co-participation of users in completing the figurative-spatial work.”⁵⁰ Berdyszak’s design for Poznań can be seen as having anticipated such developments; however, the Poznań Sculptural Meetings were not accompanied by similar theoretical considerations or collaboration between artists.

Bartłomiej Kurka and Jan Dahl, reviewers for the local cultural magazine Nurt, were critical of the plein-air’s outcome: the lack of an overall concept for the sculpture park and the poor quality of the works,⁵¹ both those with political undertones and recreational themes. It is noteworthy that the choice of formal means was not determined by the topic (symptomatic in this context is Boss-Gosławski’s Victory, both modernist and politically engaged). The reviewers’ attitude to the political premises of the plein-air remains unclear. Bartłomiej Kurka asks: “Did nobody really think about the symbolic meaning of Don Quixote’s figure set in the center of the Park of Friendship and Brotherhood in Arms?”⁵² In turn, some fragments of Dahl’s review reveal a critique of the political engagement or Socialist Realist form of the works. “I do not mean to forejudge,” – he writes – “but it is difficult to exclude the situation in which one or another sculpture will need to be removed from the Citadel premises one day, be it for technical or aesthetic reasons. After all, one maker or another may arrive at the conclusion that the sculpture does not bring glory to them or to the Citadel. Rumor has it that there have been painters who tried to buy back from museums their older, so-called engaged works, of the kind of Kobzdej’s Pass a Brick.”⁵³

However, Dahl notes in the earlier section of his text that the Citadel is close to the heart of every inhabitant of Poznań, even Bartłomiej Kurka, who was critical of the plein-air’s results. “Every reader who rationally interprets B. Kurka’s text can draw conclusions from it that if the author writes about the Citadel sculpture gallery, he apparently treats the Citadel as an important social asset.”⁵⁴ The reviewers connect their criticism of the poor quality of the works with the question of the Park-cum-Monument’s social value. “Perhaps my remarks will be considered detrimental to the social undertaking of the plein-air. […]” – writes Bartłomiej Kurka. “But, in the end, one needs to distinguish between pious intentions and their materialization, between ‘social’ moments of work and their objective results.”⁵⁵

Evaluation of the quality of works created during the Poznań Sculptural Meetings is not the topic of this article, but it is worth nothing that, due to the lack of a consistent concept at the plein-air, criticized by reviewers, the participating artists began to adopt different strategies vis-á-vis the previously accepted historical and social policies. Some of them referred directly to the battle waged there in 1945; others addressed the plans to build facilities that were to serve the policy of acculturation or “building a new life in People’s Poland.” The only design that went beyond a mere illustration of social policy and generated a utilitarian value, proposed by Jan Berdyszak, was not implemented; however, a group of abstract works or works unrelated to ideology was also created.

Construction

Akin to the plan of the Park-cum-Monument and the Poznań Sculptural Meetings, the organization of the construction also combined the state’s historical and social policies. The schedule of works was subordinated to the goals of historical politics: the ceremonial inauguration of the park’s first section was held on November 6, 1964, “on the eve of the October Revolution anniversary,” and the ceremonial opening of the Museum took place on May 9, 1965, “on the twentieth anniversary of victory over Hitlerian fascism.” Aleja Republik was opened “on the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Great October Socialist Revolution.”⁵⁶ The Militarium Museum received donations in the form of urns with soil from the battlefields of Moscow, Leningrad, Volgograd, Sevastopol, Odessa, Minsk, Kiev, Tbilisi, Rostov, Engels, and Kharkiv. Soil from the Citadel had previously been donated to the museums of the Red Army in Soviet Hero Cities.⁵⁷ The narrative of brotherhood in arms and Polish-Soviet friendship became embedded in the material tissue of the Park-cum-Monument in yet another way: trees were planted there by members of the delegation of the Union of Soviet Writers, TPPR activists, participants of the struggles for Poznań, members of the delegation of the district committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Kharkiv, and artists from the Moscow Estrada, who came to Poznań to perform for the park’s builders. Trees and shrubs sent from 70 cities of the Soviet Union and the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union in Moscow continue to grow there today.⁵⁸

The construction also engaged numerous inhabitants of Poznań. “A true social storming of the former Citadel hill” – writes Urszula Paul – “took place in 1964. April saw the inauguration of community action works related to building the Park.”⁵⁹ The author of the study meticulously lists schools, companies, organizations, and people of particular merit to the park’s construction, as well as the number of man-hours within community action works. Such actions resulted in the construction of the amphitheater and café, among other facilities. This was also the way of carrying out groundworks, cleaning works and the conservation of park facilities, subsequent plantings, fundraising campaigns for the purchase of roses for the rose garden, and the collection of plants. The mass participation of Poznań residents in the “social storming” was obviously not spontaneous or voluntary. Top-down initiated and compulsory, the community action works on the Citadel premises form part of the official narrative of the construction. Their photographic documentation accompanied album publications devoted to the park. However, this does not undo their usefulness, nor the relations established during joint work. David Crowley and Susan E. Reid remark that, although the attempts to build a new socialist society by means of spatial organization seemed to yield moderate results, they did not necessarily lead to unsociability. According to the scholars, even the ridiculed queues were a kind of spatial institution with a social dimension, although this was not planned top-down – they may bear testimony to a solidarity that existed despite the alienating effects of the system. On the basis of field research on the perception and experience of the results of the political regime transformation, Marcin Brocki states that the Polish People’s Republic is associated with activity and acting together: “Even compulsory ‘community action works’ appear as positive elements of the reality of the Polish People’s Republic, when ‘it was possible to do something for everybody.’ They united people, gathered them together, and offered an opportunity to confirm that they were a community.”⁶⁰ However, describing the feelings that accompanied mandatory community action works remains very difficult, as it is necessary to critically read both the official sources created to legitimize the system and the memories of the participants of such actions, interpreted by Marcin Brocki in terms of sentiment.

Use

On the basis of official sources (such as TPPR reports, Kronika Miasta Poznania, and album publications devoted to the Park-cum-Monument), use of the park can be seen as an extension of the relations between historical and social policies. The reason for this is that, until as late as 1989, official state ceremonies were held at the Heroes Monument, whereas since the mid-1960s the recreational section of the Park-cum-Monument served as the site for the cultural program, implemented first on the People’s Meadow [Łąka Ludowa] and later at the Summer Theater. “The park became the favorite spot for strolling and rest, the more so that, from June until as late as mid-September, concerts, spectacles, and stage performances were held at the Summer Theater every Saturday and Sunday” – writes Urszula Paul. It was this facility – alongside the Museum of the Liberation of the City of Poznań – that became the greatest tool of the acculturation policy. Paul describes the events held therein, organized by the Henryk Wieniawski Music Society in Poznań and the Presidium of the National Council of the City of Poznań. Performances were staged by “artists of the Stanisław Moniuszko Opera House, the Polish Theater, the Poznań Philharmonic, the Soviet Song and Dance Ensemble from Legnica, the ‘Roma’ Gipsy Song and Dance Ensemble, the ‘Wielkopolska’ Song and Dance Ensemble, among others.”⁶¹ Each event attracted from 2,000–5,000 spectators.

However, this perspective lacks the point of view of Park-cum-Monument users. The necessity of including research on socialist space is proposed by David Crowley and Susan E. Reid. They believe that taking into account a broader field of spatial relations allows for analyzing space as a contested aspect of life in the Eastern Bloc. Although the authorities sought to control the meanings and manners of using space, the spatial practices of the inhabitants, which emerged in relation to the priorities and tactics of the authorities, could remain partly independent. “If we can use the term ‘socialist spaces’ at all,” – the authors argue – “it is only in relation to the shifting and multi-layered interaction between spatial organization, expression, and use.”⁶² In order to expand the research perspective in this direction, I will discuss selected photographs from the private archives of city inhabitants.

In 2019, during a project within the Malta Festival’s Generator Malta program, I collaborated with the artist Tytus Szabelski to launch a campaign to collect private photographs of Citadel Park. We managed to gather nearly 150 images from family archives, donated to us in person or by email. The project was announced via the local press, social media, posters in the Winogrady Estate, cultural centers, and Winogrady Cable Television (WTvK), as well as local shops and services.

The gathered photographs have a singular and circumstantial character, and their analysis does not allow for formulating broad generalizations. Yet, in some cases, the images demonstrate complex manners of using the Park-cum-Monument, which involve contestation of the ideological narrative of Polish-Soviet friendship and acceptance of the park’s recreational, egalitarian section. Including some of them in research on the Park-cum-Monument space draws attention to the individual and their role in history, as well as offering the possibility of describing cases that would not have been analyzed if quantitative methods were used. According to the principles of microhistory, the goal is “to follow a specific individual […] and thereby to proceed bottom-up to exploring their social environment (local community with supralocal references).”⁶³

The collection comprises only ten images of the park’s monument section. Among them, two photographs stand out, taken in the 1960s at the Heroes Monument but in a way that keeps the red star or the whole obelisk out of the frame. This can also be seen in three photographs from the 1970s received from different people. Some of the ten images leave no doubt that this manner of photographing was deliberate, whereas others suggest that the monument was not an interesting topic for the photographers, but merely the irrelevant backdrop to family photos. Also of note in this context are two images from the 1970s that were cut with scissors in order to remove the star that crowned the monument. Such forms of private iconoclasm may show that certain people transferred into the private sphere the conflict that could not be waged in the public space of the Polish People’s Republic. A photograph with Dmitriy Sova’s sculpture Brotherhood in Arms from the same period depicts children against the backdrop of the monument, but captured in such a way that only the Polish soldier can be seen.

A critical attitude to the narratives of Polish-Soviet friendship can also be seen in the names given to selected works, as preserved in reviews. Bartłomiej Kurka wrote of Jerzy Sobociński’s Winged [Skrzydlaty] that, because of its red color, “it had its own name among the permanent employees and builders of the Park – ‘Russian angel’.”⁶⁴ Today, this practice of mocking the ideological premises of the Park-cum-Monument’s construction can be interpreted in terms of political opposition.

Other photographs were taken in the recreational section of the Park-cum-Monument. Further shots from the family archives may demonstrate the acceptance of the program of that part of the complex. They depict various forms of recreation: sunbathing, picnics on the grass, launching little boats in the rose garden, ice skating, or collecting chestnuts. Children and adults pose for the photographs near sculptures created during the Poznań Sculptural Meetings, such as Józef Murlewski’s Violinist, Czesław Woźniak’s Piast and Rzepicha, and Anna Rodzińska-Iwańska’s Animal, but against the background of an outdoor display of military equipment. These works were not contested in the photographs made available to us – the images show that the users identified with the sculptures.

The Park-cum-Monument functioned both as a field of specific historical politics, contested at least by some of its users, and – due to the reference to the Soviet Culture and Recreation Parks – as a site where the idea of the universal availability of space as common property was put into practice. Related to this aspect are the private archives of the park’s users and its social history as the main recreation ground for residents of the large housing estates in the Winogrady area. Not only was the Park-cum-Monument a monument to Polish-Soviet friendship, but also – in its social dimension – a monument to the socialist project. This does not change the fact that its recreational section became an extension of the strategy of violence, implemented more directly by the geometrical part of the complex with the Heroes Monument. This situation is illustrated by the Bell of Peace, unveiled in 1986 and rung on the anniversaries of the outbreak and end of World War II and the formation of the Polish People’s Army (LWP), among other occasions. It is noteworthy, however, that the spatial organization, expression, and ways of using the complex reflected the negotiations and values inherent in both its recreational and monumental functions and their mutual relations. The architect negotiated its spatial organization with the Social Committee for the Construction of the Park-cum-Monument, and the artists took individual decisions concerning the topics of sculptures that were supposed to underscore the historical or social policies of the complex in a more or less straightforward way, or else abandoned them altogether. Finally, individual stories enable indicating users’ practices that testify to the contestation of the historical politics implemented there, along with acceptance of the park’s recreational section.

To sum up, it is worth reminding that the Park-cum-Monument as a form of commemoration covered the entire space of the park. In the context of the previously quoted definition of socialist space as a field of mutual relations between the organization of space, its expression, and use, the individual stories mentioned here also become part of the Park-cum-Monument. Although the authorities strove to control the meanings of the complex, and did so at the level of spatial organization and expression, they could not take full control over users’ practices. We can therefore assume that they contributed their own contexts and interpretations – not always in line with official principles – and created a representation of the local community and the processes occurring therein by using the Park-cum-Monument.

After 1989

One night in the autumn of 1989, the red star that crowned the Heroes Monument disappeared. It was dismantled by firefighters, who had acted upon an unofficial request of the Municipal Office. According to Łukasz Zaremba’s observations concerning the fate of monuments of the Polish People’s Republic, this iconoclastic act was top-down and discreet.⁶⁵ Yet, this caused a famous conflict in the 1990s, as described by Dominika Czarnecka.⁶⁶ Until 2011, its intensity decreased to the extent that – as Joanna Figuła-Czech writes – “today, the monument […] partly veiled with lush greenery, does not trigger such negative emotions and is treated as an integral element of the Citadel’s ‘facilities’.”⁶⁷ It has lost its symbolic meaning in the eyes of the majority of the park’s users, although some of them still fight for its removal as a symbol of Soviet power.⁶⁸ In turn, for combatants during the struggles for the Citadel, it remains a symbol of remembrance of the events of 1945.⁶⁹

The register of Monuments of Gratitude to the Red Army in Poland, drawn up by Dominika Czarnecka, does not include the Poznań Park-cum-Monument as an independent monument form. It was deprived of that function in 1991, when the name of the park was changed to Citadel Park. As for the works located in the recreational section, other actions concerning the monuments can be observed. Formerly displayed in a prestigious location in Aleja Republik, Brotherhood in Arms is today hidden behind the thick vegetation deliberately planted around it. Five-pointed stars have been removed from the surrounding pergolas.⁷⁰ The Museum of the Liberation of the City of Poznań operates as the Museum of Armaments, and although the urns with soil from the Soviet Hero Cities were hidden “in the darkest recess of the storage space,”⁷¹ the institution still features an outdoor display of military equipment. The events of 1989 did not remove these symbols of violence, but merely changed the political narrative around them.

Other sculptures, which referred in a less direct way to the Polish People’s Republic or the Soviet Union, are losing their original meaning. Hardly anyone now associates Bazyli Wojtowicz’s Nike with the Red Army; the same applies to Julian Boss-Gosławski’s abstract Victory. The works originally included in the context of the newly forming life in People’s Poland are now mere decorations of park space. Nothing about the visuality of the “trees of friendship” which decorate it hints at the symbolic meaning given to them when they were planted. They are probably completely safe even from the threat of paranoid decommunization. The political conflict in the space of the park is limited to works that feature the most straightforward references to history and violence. In this context, one of the most interesting works on the Citadel premises was the piece Guns and Rossetes by the artist Jerilea Zempel, who collaborated with students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań toward the end of the 1990s on embroidering a pink cover for one of the tanks displayed outdoors.

It is difficult not to notice, however, that the Park-cum-Monument’s transformation after 1989 is very limited in relation to the entire space of more than 100 hectares. Aside from the neglected Summer Theater and two sculptures unpreserved due to their technical state,⁷² the park is an object of renovation rather than significant alteration.⁷³ There are no new buildings or advertisements. No commercial activity is pursued there other than two cafés that have existed since the establishment of the park and have undergone renovations and extensions characteristic of the first phase of the political regime transformation. Citadel Park is different in this respect from the Parks of Culture and Recreation, which are becoming increasingly commercialized,⁷⁴ as from the very beginning it did not have many entertainment and educational facilities that could become subject to adaptation during the political and economic transition. It remains the largest and most popular open green space in Poznań.

What does it mean that the unchanged Citadel Park functions so well in the contemporary capitalist city? Its popularity stems from the fact that no common spaces unsubordinated to the logic of capital were created after 1989. More and more exclusive places appear: spectacular aquaparks, shopping malls, hip cafés in the city center and districts undergoing gentrification, whereas good spaces between buildings are ever scarcer. In this context, the 100 hectares of high quality space available to everyone, devoid of vehicle traffic, billboards, and commercial functions are of unquestionable value.

The question about the functioning of the Park-cum-Monument in the new political and economic conditions is important from the perspective of reflection on the park-cum-monument genre as a form of commemoration alternative to traditional monuments in the Polish People’s Republic. It was the traditional elements of historical politics pursued here after 1945 that failed to succeed in the new reality. Closed-form monuments, which were deprived of their problematic symbols or planted with thick greenery, were not ready for the new era. In turn, the recreational section of the Park-cum-Monument, which offers the greatest social value as a recreation ground, has adapted exceptionally well. Reflecting on the Park-cum-Monument as an alternative form of commemoration which adjusts itself to the new times, we can say that it continues to successfully commemorate the values that were accepted by the local community from the very beginning. If the entire, changing park space is treated as a monument, then the transformation (or lack of) occurring therein is worth considering from a symbolic perspective. In the context of the economic regime transformation, the popularity of the non-commercial, egalitarian space of Citadel Park acquires a new meaning that stands in contrast to the neoliberal narrative dominant after 1989.

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Archival Materials

Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu. Prezydium Rady Narodowej miasta Poznania, sign. 2242. Społeczny Komitet Budowy Pomnika Parku Braterstwa Broni i Przyjaźni Polsko-Radzieckiej – materiały własne i korespondencja z Urzędem.

Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu. Prezydium Rady Narodowej miasta Poznania, sign. 2169. Poznańskie Spotkania Rzeźbiarskie na Cytadeli 1968–1970.

Katarzyna Różniak