Monument to Józef Piłsudski in Katowice

The equestrian monument to Marshal Józef Piłsudski stands on plac Bolesława Chrobrego in Katowice, in front of the façade of the Silesian Voivodeship Office building. It was unveiled in 1993, but the sculpture was made before the Second World War, and its journey to Katowice took more than half a century.

How the sculpture came to Katowice

In the 1930s a competition was announced for a monument to Piłsudski, which was to stand on what later became plac Sejmu Śląskiego. The design chosen was by the Croatian sculptor Antun Augustinčić, author of, among other works, the Peace Monument in the United Nations garden in New York. The plinth was also to carry figures of the Silesian insurgents and of a Silesian Mother with her dead insurgent son.

The sculpture was made in 1937-1939, but because of the outbreak of war it never reached Poland. For years it stood in the sculptor's museum, first in Yugoslavia, then in Croatia. It arrived in Katowice in 1991 and was conserved at the Gliwice Technical Equipment Works. In 1993 it was placed in the square, after a large disused fountain in the shape of a vesica piscis had been filled in. In 1998 the figure was set on a six-metre plinth designed by the architect Andrzej Grzybowski.

What the monument shows

The Marshal sits on a horse and holds a sabre in his right hand. The sculptor showed him on a stallion, although in reality Piłsudski always rode a mare named Kasztanka. The inscriptions on the plinth tell the history of the monument: that the equestrian statue is the surviving part of a project funded in 1936-1939 by contributions from the inhabitants of the former Silesian Voivodeship, and that it is a memento of the Second Polish Republic.

An anecdote from 1994 is linked to the monument, when the sabre disappeared from the sculpture. Theft was suspected, but it was later found by children playing in nearby bushes.

Nearby

Plac Chrobrego lies in the very centre of Katowice. Not far away stands the Cathedral of Christ the King, and on the other side of the centre the Silesian Theatre and the Silesian Museum.

Practical information

• Address: plac Bolesława Chrobrego, Katowice.
• The monument stands in an open square in front of the voivodeship office and can be seen at any time.