Cieszyn Nike

The Cieszyn Nike, officially the Monument in Honour of the Silesian Legionnaires Fallen for Poland, is a monument in Cieszyn commemorating the volunteers of the Silesian Legion. The monument is also called the Silesian Woman (Ślązaczka), because the female figure wears a Cieszyn folk costume.

The Silesian Legion

The Silesian Legion, also called the Cieszyn Legion, was formed in Cieszyn on 8 August 1914. It was made up of about 600 volunteers from Cieszyn Silesia and the Moravian borderland. As part of the II Brigade of the Legions it fought in the Carpathians, Bessarabia, Bukovina and Volhynia.

History of the monument

The first monument, the work of the legionnaire and sculptor Jan Raszka from Ropica, was unveiled on 28 October 1934 by the Silesian Voivode Michał Grażyński, in the presence of about 15,000 people. The Germans demolished it on 1 September 1939, and the metal parts were saved by Cieszyn scouts. After the war a monument to the gratitude of the Red Army was erected on the site, and it was taken down in 1989 together with the remains of the prewar monument. The reconstruction, based on a design by Prof. Jan Herma, ended with the unveiling of the monument on 7 June 2008.

What it looks like

The figure of Nike is made of bronze and granite and stands on a tall pedestal, with commemorative plaques showing the Legion's combat trail. On sixteen cartouches at the foot of the plinth are the names of places in the Eastern Borderlands where the Legion fought, and four are dedicated to soldiers killed in the Polish-Czechoslovak war of 1919-1920: Bystrzyca, Karviná, Bohumín and Skoczów. Next to it stands the Rotunda of St Nicholas.

Practical information

• The monument stands in Cieszyn, near Castle Hill and the Printing Museum; it is accessible from the outside at any time.