King Jagiello Monument

reads:

king · jagiello
King of Poland
Grand Duke of Lithuania
1386 - 1434
Founder of a Free Union of the
Peoples of East Central Europe
Victor Over the Teutonic
Aggressors at Grunwald
July 15 · 1410
]

The King Jagiello Monument is an equestrian monument of king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Władysław II Jagiełło, located in Central Park, New York City. On its grand plinth it is one of the most prominently-sited and impressive of twenty-nine sculptures located in Central Park. The monument is sited overlooking the east end of the Turtle Pond, across from Belvedere Castle and just south-east from the Great Lawn. To the northeast is Cleopatra's Needle and beyond, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

History

The sculptor of the monument was Stanisław K. Ostrowski (1879-1947), who created this bronze monument for the Polish 1939 New York World's Fair pavilion; it stood at its entrance at Queens' Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. His name is engraved in the front lower right-hand corner. On both sides of the plinth the word POLAND is inscribed as well.

As a result of the German invasion of Poland which marked the beginning of the Second World War, the personnel and equipment of the Polish World's Fair pavilion was forced to remain in the United States. The monument thus stayed in New York, and in July 1945 it was presented to the City of New York by the King Jagiello Monument Committee, with support from the Polish government in exile, and permanently placed in Central Park with the cooperation of the last pre-communist consul of Poland in New York, Kazimierz Krasicki. Parks Chief Consulting Architect Aymar Embury II (1880–1966) designed the granite pedestal. The monument was conserved in 1986.

King Jagiello

King Jagiello, seated on a horse, is holding over his head — as a symbol of defiance and of the union of Polish-Lithuanian forces — two crossed swords, offered him and Vytautas the Great just before the beginning of the Battle of Grunwald in an ironic gesture by Ulrich von Jungingen, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. The monument depicts the triumph of Jagiello, one of the most famous kings in the histories of Poland and Lithuania, creator of the dynastic union of Poland and Lithuania, at the medieval Battle of Grunwald in 1410 (also known as the First Battle of Tannenberg in German and western historiography), where Polish and Lithuanian forces supported by Ruthenians, Czechs and Tatars defeated the Teutonic Order, which had the support of primarily German, Dutch and English finest knights. (See also: Jagiellon dynasty)

External links

* [http://www.centralparknyc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=virtualpark_thegreatlawn_kingjagiello King Jagiello Monument as on Central Park Conservancy website]
* [http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomnik_Grunwaldzki_w_Nowym_Jorku King's Jagiełło Grunwald Monument in New York City (Polish)]
* [http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomnik_Grunwaldzki_w_Krakowie King's Jagiello Grunwald Monument in Cracov, Poland (Polish)]