Syrenka Warszawska, Warsaw

Syrenka Warszawska is the mermaid monument in Warsaw’s Old Town Market Place. Rather than the historic sculpture, you see a replica placed here in May two thousand and eight; Hegel’s original is kept at the Museum of Warsaw. Konstanty Hegel designed the original, which entered the square in eighteen fifty-five.

Notice the spiral tail above the water, the sword lifted in her right hand, and the shield held close to her chest. She is Warsaw’s emblematic mermaid and its patron in local folklore. Water and stone give the sculpture a compact stage amid the broad paving of the market square.

The monument began as part of a fountain created alongside Warsaw’s new municipal water system. Its history is remarkably rough: fighting during the Warsaw Uprising damaged the statue, and postwar conservators replaced lost elements and sealed more than fifty bullet wounds. Later attacks repeatedly took their toll, including the loss of the sword. Yet the figure’s survival and return here helped make this particular mermaid a lasting model for Warsaw’s civic image.