Skwer Tarasa Szewczenki, Warsaw

Here at Shevchenko Square, the monument is a bronze statue of Taras Shevchenko. It recalls his visit to Warsaw in eighteen thirty, in the Old Mokotów neighbourhood. Shevchenko was a nineteenth-century poet, writer, and political activist.

Notice the young figure’s long coat: he clasps a manuscript and candelabrum near his chest. Beneath him, the pedestal rises in a curved pyramidal mass with six sides; its front carries paired paper forms inscribed in Polish and Ukrainian with words from his poem To the Poles. Anatolij Kuszcz created the figure, while Baltazar Brukalski designed the pedestal and setting.

Poland’s prime minister and Ukraine’s foreign minister unveiled it on the thirteenth of March two thousand two. The work makes a lasting Polish-Ukrainian point of connection.