Gratitude. The Red Army Memorial in Szczecin: A Geographical, Topographical, and Biographical Perspective

Abstract

In March 1945, the combined Polish-Soviet forces captured the German city of Stettin. On 26 April, the 65th Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front entered the city, in which the rule of the Soviet military command was soon established. Due to its unresolved status and territorial disputes, Polish politicians, self-government officials, and first settlers were forced to leave Szczecin twice. In the period of the Polish-German “race for Szczecin”, which ended with the Potsdam Conference, the only stable element having control over the lower Oder was the USSR, whose emissaries treated the conquered territories as if they already belonged to their communist state. As early as in 1945, the Polish civil authorities came up with an idea to erect a memorial dedicated to the “democratic armies”. The competition for the Red Army Gratitude Memorial was officially launched in Spring 1949, once the USSR-born doctrine of socialist realism was introduced to Poland. Out of twenty-two submission, the first award was given to Józef Starzyński from Zakopane, a former citizen of Lvov. The commemorative complex located at the Polish Soldier’s Square was completed in April 1950. The aim of the present paper is to analyse the very memorial which remained in Szczecin until 2017. Of special importance to my investigation are: the geographical context of Western Pomerania considered one of the Reclaimed Territories and in a feudal relationship with the historical regions of the Republic of Poland, as well as with the Russian “Seigneur”/”Lord”; the topographical context, namely the act of re-building the former German city destroyed in warfare; as well as the biographical context, i.e. the life of the monument’s designer. The paper takes special interest in the formal and ideological links between the Szczecin memorial and one of Starzyński’s earlier projects, namely the Sacred Heart of Jesus Gratitude Memorial in Poznań (1927; a competition submission; never erected). A careful reconstruction of the memorials’ history will offer a valuable case study which showcases the 20th-century sculptor in a politically-charged environment.