He died between 'his' towers, which he had previously saved from destruction. Thanks to him, a district of one of the most important cities on the Maritime Silk Road was also preserved. "Kazik" - guardian of the heritage of humanity in Vietnam.

The monument to Kazimierz Kwiatkowski in Hội An

On the one hand, this story cannot resonate without a wider context. But on the other hand, the monument, which is its symbolic representation, brings together so many different threads that Pierre Nor's concept of memorials with their mirror image - the memory of places - comes to mind. And it is hard not to look at this monument as a point where different, even the most distant histories converge, and at the same time a place radiating these histories.

The monument, measuring 2.5 metres with the pedestal, is carved from sandstone, characteristic of the mountains in central Vietnam with Cat's Tooth (Mỹ Sơn) as the most important of the peaks. On either side of the rock block, sculptor Phạm Hồng has included rectangular pieces, stacked one on top of the other. In the foreground is a relief depicting the bust of a Pole, Kazimierz Kwiatkowski alias Kazik. It is known that the artist was inspired by the Vietnamese history of the monument's hero. He also had in mind his motto that he was willing to endure anything if it was to restore the towers in the Mỹ Sơn temple complex. The decorative elements at the edges of the memorial are therefore more a reference to the distinctive vaults of these sacred buildings. In particular, Kwiatkowski was said to have said that he wanted to be buried between these monuments.

Polish quack in Indochina

In the relief, Kazimierz Kwiatkowski (1944-1997) is depicted as he arrived in Vietnam in the early 1980s, with longer, side-swept hair and a voluminous beard that quickly became his trademark. The sculptor probably had Kazik's words in mind, according to which the creators of the temple towers in Mỹ Sơn - the Cham people living in the Champa State - poured their spirituality into the building material, the original red brick, and in synergy with nature erected masterpieces. Can this thought be found in the commemoration?

Undoubtedly, the figure's head focuses the viewer's attention by being placed against the slightly concave, shell-like surface. As a result, the relief acquires depth and space. In the sculptor's interpretation, the figure of the Polish conservator exudes energy and attracts attention with the patriarch's beard, although it is probably the beard and robust stature that the locals might have associated with... Znachor , the main character in the film based on Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz's novel. Four decades ago, the film was screened for the Vietnamese as part of cultural exchanges between communist bloc countries. Perhaps the character played by Jerzy Bińczycki could have been fascinating, as it is also not difficult to see the physical resemblance between Dr Wilczur and Kazik.

Park and monument to Kazik on the Silk Road

There are two plaques on the monument. A small one on the bust with his name (with a typo, there is a 'y' instead of the last 'i') and the dates of his life: 1944-1997. And a larger one, placed on the pedestal, with an inscription in Vietnamese and English:

The Party, the authorities and the people of Hội An erected this monument to express their gratitude and to honour Hội An's close friend Kazik

Under this certificate, issued by the people of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the date - January 2007. - and the name of the sculptor. Smoking incense sticks stand on the pedestal, and cut flowers are placed in a vase by both locals and tourists. All around, in a small square, known as Kazik Park, crowds gather.

Hội An, with its Kazik statue, is not very populous, with less than 100,000 inhabitants, but it is an architectural gem of Vietnam. As an important port on the "maritime Silk Road" (leading from the South China Sea via Malaya, India to the Red Sea coast), it has historically been a space for the coexistence of many cultures. Between the 15th and 19th centuries, the city was an important port, centre of trade and commerce, with merchants from China, Japan and Portugal settling there. It was famous for its numerous temples reflecting the multitude of faiths of its inhabitants.

In 1999. Hội An was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, resulting in an exponential increase in the number of tourists. In 2017 alone, 3.2 million visitors came to the city and the nearby Mỹ Sơn temple complex. This represented a fourth of all tourists visiting Vietnam.

Vietnamese sites on UNESCO register

The dynamic development of tourism is partly due to Kazimierz Kwiatkowski. As head of the Polish-Vietnamese Mission for the Conservation of Antiquities, he led work at Mỹ Sơn from 1981. In 1982, on his way to a seaside holiday, he decided to visit Hội An. Kwiatkowski's attention was drawn to the city's preserved unique urban layout, the numerous monuments of secular and sacred architecture then in a deplorable state.

Importantly, the Polish conservationist managed to dissuade local decision-makers from the idea of demolishing the original buildings in the historic centre. Kazik decided to combine his previous work at the temple complex in Mỹ Sơn with a new task, and became involved with great energy in the revitalisation of the historic old town of Hội An. His success was measured by the implementation of a multi-year programme to revitalise the architecture and revive tourism, as well as its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List (which came after Kwiatkowski's death).

In contrast, the activities of the Polish-Vietnamese Conservation Mission in Mỹ Sơn, led by Kazik, were of a different nature. In addition to strictly conservation and archaeological treatments, advanced research and analytical methods of both disciplines were used on a much larger scale. This allowed Kwiatkowski's team to acquire a thorough knowledge of Cham building techniques and put this into practice for the rescue of damaged monuments. Thus, the success in Mỹ Sơn became not only the so-called archaeological restoration of the temple complex, but also the expansion of knowledge about ancient culture.

Kazimierz Kwiatkowski - conservator of monuments

And finally, we could ask what good spirits brought an architect born near Parczew to the Indochina Peninsula? The answer to this question lies in the memory of the place.

In the monument dedicated to Kazimierz Kwiatkowski, in addition to the history of Vietnam recovering from a cruel conflict and the history of the ancient Cham people who erected elaborate buildings a thousand years ago, we also come across Polish threads. These lead to the State Enterprise Pracownie Konserwacji Zabytków (known by the acronym PP PKZ or PKZ), established in Warsaw in 1950. The purpose of this institution was to assist in the restoration of monuments in Poland, which was destroyed after the Second World War. The specialists employed at PKZ applied scientific methods from the very beginning, and there were laboratories and research studios within the company's structure. As a result, in the coarse times of the Polish People's Republic, one of Poland's best exports were conservators of historical buildings.

When a request was made from Vietnam, a country devastated by a long-running armed conflict, to various countries for help in saving the complex in Mỹ Sơn, only Poles responded. Or, to be more precise, representatives of the Lublin branch of the PKZ, where a young, talented and comprehensively educated architect, today known to all Vietnamese as Kazik, Kazimierz Kwiatkowski, was working precisely.