In October 2016, a statue of King Ladislaus II Jagiello (1362-1434) was unveiled in New York's Central Park after renovation. Many people ask themselves, how did one of the most splendid equestrian Polish monuments of the 20th century end up in Manhattan and 'reign' there today for more than 80 years? The answer is complicated and requires going back several decades.

In the late 1930s, the USA and Poland were in a similarly difficult economic situation after the global economic crisis. One form of overcoming it in all spheres of public life, became the World Expositions organised in many countries. In particular, The New York World's Fair, announced in April 1939, with the slogan 'The World of Tomorrow', was intended to create visions of technological transformations bringing positive changes in civilisation for Americans and other nations alike. Notwithstanding the growing threat of war, its organisers created a forward-looking perspective of human development "for happiness, hope and profit", as the event's programme stated. Already the reclamation for the World Exposition of a neglected area of around 500 hectares in the Queens borough, a landfill site, made clear the limitless possibilities for human activity. The process of turning the area into a green space with islands and lagoons, which took just over a year, left visitors to the already completed exhibition awestruck and amazed. By comparison, Central Park, founded in 1857 and covering 341 hectares, took 15 years to build and employed 20,000 workers to drain the area.

The world of tomorrow
The Polish government, after arguably serious reservations due to wartime expenditure, applied to participate in the World Exhibition in November 1937, and Professor Stefan Ropp (1892 - 1983), an eminent economic expert and long-time director of the Poznań International Fair, was appointed commissioner general of the Polish pavilion. Consul Sylwester Gruszka wrote from New York: "There is no doubt that the future New York exhibition will have a very momentous propaganda and commercial significance. It was hoped that there would be new contacts and loans, an influx of tourists from North America and Canada, and that the Polish pavilion would be visited by the Polish community of more than four million, for most of whom this would be their first contact with their reborn homeland. Every effort was made in terms of propaganda, especially promoting the Polish economy. The best architects in the country and locally, as well as eminent artists, have been invited to contribute.

After seventeen months of hectic preparations, the Polish pavilion was ceremoniously opened on the 148th anniversary of the Constitution of 3 May, with the exhibition "Poland's Past and Future" in the Hall of Honour. It showcased our centuries-old tradition in an emphatic way to dispel the myth that Poland only came into being after the First World War, as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. Some 11,000 objects were presented as a showcase of its cultural heritage, scientific and economic achievements. The themes of martyrdom were omitted in order to focus precisely on creating an optimistic vision of the country and its impressive achievements for a period of only 20 years. This fitted in with the futuristic slogan of the world exhibition, which was 'The World of Tomorrow'.

The Golden Tower and the Jagiellonian
A recognisable symbol of the pavilion was the historicising style of the so-called Golden Tower rising 18 storeys high in front of the modernist body of the main building. The juxtaposition of the simple geometrical forms of the pavilion's architecture with the lacy structure of the Tower soaring upwards was complemented by an ideologically related, dynamic and expressive bronze statue of King Władysław II Jagiełło by Stanisław K. Ostrowski (1879-1947). And all this was set against the backdrop of Manhattan's skyscrapers.

The design for the Jagiełło monument was created 30 years earlier, on the occasion of a competition held in Kraków to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald. It was awarded at the time, but the choice of another work to be realised by Antoni Wiwulski was decided by its founder, Ignacy J. Paderewski. In 1937, while preparing the ideological assumptions for the Polish pavilion, they returned to Ostrowski's former vision of a monument to express the power of arms defending the country against another German threat, and pushed through the placing of a statue of Jagiełło in front of the Polish pavilion. As Stefan Ropp, the main proponent of this project, wrote in a letter to the sculptor - this work of art "will live on in the minds and hearts of people of many generations after we are no longer here". This was against the views of the government, rightly fearful of irritating relations with Germany, which is probably why a telegram was sent from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the artist at the last minute, with an order to replace it with a statue of King Bolesław Chrobry. The distraught artist replied unmistakably: "Change impossible. Stop. Michelangelo himself could not. Stop", and as we know, he made his stand.

Outstanding work
At the workshop in Carrara, known for its extraction of precious marble, work on the 3-metre-high monument, named by the author Jagiello - Victorious, took less than two years. They were preceded by studies of equestrian monuments of antiquity and the Italian Renaissance in Venice, Padua and Rome, as well as of knights' armour and costume in Florence. The crowned head of the king, modelled on the image of Casimir Jagiellon, was based on earlier studies made in the royal crypts at Wawel Castle. "For the artist, the subject was intended to be an intention to create something similar to the Victoire on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris [...]," wrote Stanisław Ostrowski about the idea for the work.

The bronze cast itself, after 2 earlier sketches in plaster, was made using the 'on lost wax' (cire perdue) method in the famous workshop of the master Marinelli in Viareggio. It should be added that the foundryman's family took pride in the works created for Michelangelo, which was an honour for Stanislaw Ostrowski and the organisers of the Polish pavilion. "It is not easy to carry such a shipment through tunnels and other obstacles by truck (...)," the artist recalled years later." But the artistic Italians are wonderful to work with. Everyone, from the humblest worker down, has a reverence for art and the effort put into a work of art, everyone feels a co-creator and experiences the joy and worries of creation on an equal footing with the artist. We brought the work to completion and clad the bronze (it is about the monument) with bottles of red wine for a better patina. Let it go to the New World et viva l'arte' (Elżbieta Grabska). From the port of Livorno, the monument sailed by ship to distant America for the New York World's Fair in March 1939 to, as we know, grace the Polish pavilion. On the spot, it was placed on a 4-metre high plinth, with the inscription POLAND only, so as not to provoke political repercussions.

The artistically inspired depiction of the figure of Jagiełło himself, with his cloak slightly unfurled and the symbolic two swords raised, could boast originality, against the background of earlier works of this kind in Poland. Up close, the precision of the king's face, as well as the decoration of his robes, armour and guttering, breaking with colour on the surface of the bronze, made an additional impression. "The colossal statue of the horseman - referring to the noble monumental tradition and a sign of its time - houses a wealth of strongly differentiated, heavy, massive and light soaring forms encapsulating the movement and tension of the entire composition. [...] The mass of this sculpture, harmoniously crossing horizontal and vertical axes, has a < > structure (A. Melbechowska - Luty). At the same time, it is worth emphasising that Stanisław Ostrowski, previously known for his portrait sculptures of famous Poles, was able to bring out elements of genius in his work, irrespective of a specific state commission, and not just the need of the spirit.

And so the war!
On 1 September 1939, the attack on Poland began the tragedy of the Second World War. In the aftermath of these events, the exhibition from the Polish Pavilion in New York was deprived of its means of maintenance. In addition, the Commission had debts to repay in the USA, further participation in the 1940 World's Fair was becoming problematic, and the liquidation of the pavilion was equally dramatic. The professional experience and commitment of the Commissar General came in unquestionably handy at this time, in order to prevent the dispersal of the collection comprising the "1939 Photograph of Poland" (Ropp), so important for a country whose cultural assets ceased to exist with each passing day of the war. For this reason, efforts were also made, among other things, to preserve the two ideologically linked Polish symbols - the Golden Tower and the monument to King Władysław Jagiełło - in the post-exhibition area. Of great importance at the time was the involvement of Dr Mieczysław Haiman and President Józef Kania of the Polish Museum in America, who took care of the works of art from the pavilion with the help of the American Polish community.

On 24 June 1940, on Ropp's initiative, the Citizens Committee of the American - Polish Memorial was also established, consisting of a number of prominent people from the political, financial and business world of New York. Its aim was to buy back the Golden Tower and the Jagiello Monument from the Polish government in order to raise some of the funds to cover the aforementioned obligations. One of the ways of raising them became the announcement of the possibility of buying, in the form of "bricks", 1,200 shields of the Golden Tower at $50 each. On 18 September 1940, a high-profile Citizens Committee event was held where the sale of 300 shields was announced and purchasers included First Lady Eleonora Roosevelt, Senator John Townsed and other celebrities. The total of all donations for the shields collected and paid to the Commissary General totalled $20,000, although three times that amount was expected. There was also an official ceremony for the handing over of both the Tower and the Jagiellonian statue to the City of New York, during which Commissioner Ropp decorated, among others, the Mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia, with a gold medal bearing the image of Ignacy J. Paderewski.

Relocation of the monument
However, the entry of the United States into the war, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, distracted New Yorkers from the aesthetic solutions for the former World Exposition grounds and thus the fate of the Golden Tower was sealed. Had it remained, it would today represent one of the highest points in Flushing Meadows Park, home to the famous US Open tennis tournament.

On the other hand, our "splendid work of art", as the influential New York Herald Tribune newspaper called the Jagiello monument, was finally in a better position. Initially there was great interest in it, especially among the Polish community, especially as it was promoted by Ostrowski himself upon his arrival in the USA. However, the very next anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald, on 15 July 1942, found the monument on the deserted site of the former exhibition next to the overturned and shieldless Golden Tower. This situation made the Poles present realise the need to move it to another, more representative location.

And so representatives of New York's Polish community formed the "Wladyslaw Jagiello Monument Committee", with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia as its honorary chairman. Thanks to his influence and support, an extremely attractive site, namely Central Park, was proposed to Poland for the setting of the monument. The City of New York also drew up a technical and urban design for its setting, whose author was the renowned architect Aymar Embury. The commissioner of the Polish pavilion even wrote that Great Britain and Argentina had applied for this location in Central Park for their monuments, and it was awarded to Poland. "The site for the monument, chosen with Mr Ostrowski's assistance, is one of the best, as it is right next to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There will be enough space around the monument for Polish celebrations to take place at its feet in the future, and besides, the monument itself will be constantly in the public eye and will be a source of constant interest in Poland," commented Polish Consul Sylwin Strakacz on the matter.

The grandly prepared unveiling of the monument to Władysław Jagiełło, on its new site in Central Park, took place on 15 July 1945. During the ceremony, the chairman of the Wladyslaw Jagiello Monument Committee, Jozef Onka, spoke, and the incoming Professor Oskar Halecki delivered a scholarly oration in grand style. The ceremony was attended by dozens of Polish societies who came forward with banners. A delegation of Lithuanians also arrived to "claim" their ruler, relatively recently named Jogaila. It was a meaningful and important ceremony for the Polish community, able to revisit moments spent in our pavilion in the atmosphere of an independent country whose freedom was once again under threat. For successive generations of Poles coming here, the statue of King Wladyslaw II Jagiello is an object of pride and remembrance of a Poland thousands of kilometres away.