Monument of Alexander Fredro — Attraction in Wrocław

Seated handsomely on Wrocław's main market square, Alexander Fredro is one of Poland’s most distinguished literary figures. His story dates back to 1793 when he was born into a family of aristocrats from the village of Surochów – then part of the Habsburg empire. At the age of 16 he enlisted into the Polish faction of Napoleon’s army and saw action on the plains of Russia, including Napoleon’s fateful entry into Moscow. Captured by the Russians he escaped captivity in spite of a typhoid infection and was awarded the Virtuti Militari in recognition of his bravery. He settled in Bieńkowska Wisznia, close to Lviv, where he fell for the fifteen year old Zofia, then married to Count Skarbek – one of the richest men in Galicia. Following divorce proceedings that lasted ten years the two were finally joined in matrimony in 1828. Spending most of his time in Lviv, Fredro concerned himself with writing farcical comedies about the nobility, many of which have since been translated onto the screen, including his most famous work, Zemsta ('The Revenge'). He was successfully acquitted of high treason and lived to the grand age of 82 – quite an accomplishment in those times.

Many examples of his wit have found their way into the Polish lexicon, and it’s not uncommon to hear his words interjected into everyday conversation: Niech sie dzieje wola nieba z nią się zawsze zgadzać trzeba ('Do as the heavens wish, for you’ll always need to agree with them') being one such example.

But just why is Fredro relevant to Wrocław? In a nutshell, he isn’t really. The statue, designed by Leonard Marconi, originally stood in Lviv, the city which Fredro dedicated so much of his time to. As we know after the war Lviv was ceded to Ukraine, and many of its Polish inhabitants migrated westwards to Wrocław. Like so many of their cultural treasures the Fredro statue accompanied them, albeit following a four year stint housed in a Warsaw stable. The hold-up was understandable; in the post-war chaos and bureaucracy it took two years alone for the city elders to decide where to position Fredro. In the end they went with one of the most high-profile stations imaginable - smack on the Rynek in front of Town Hall. Fredro's appearance there prompted one magazine to proclaim in horror that he ‘looked like a vagrant outside a church.' Today his displaced figure is actually one of the symbols of Wrocław, his adopted city. Like so many who adopted Wrocław as their home, it's a fitting metaphor, no?

Fredro wasn't the first to loiter here, however. The humorist's monument actually replaced that of Kaiser Wilhelm, which stood on the same spot during Wrocław’s incarnation as the city of Breslau. Although unharmed by the bombs and bullets of the war Wilhelm fell foul of the iconoclastic fury that was to follow in peacetime, and most likely ended up being tossed into a blast furnace. When Fredro was unveiled to the people of Wrocław in 1956 his plinth came without the aristocratic initials 'HR.' Following popular condemnation the communist authorities relented and Fredro has since stood gazing forth in all his noble brilliance. Like the Mickiewicz monument in Kraków, or Zygmunt in Warsaw, the Fredro's statue has become a city icon, and is the principal meeting point for canoodling couples, students bashing bongo drums and...

Autor znanych komedii, wierszy i dzienników, z których fragmenty przeszły do języka codziennego, bo kto nie zna tekstów: "wolnoć Tomku w swoim domku", "jak ty komu, tak on tobie", "szanuj zdrowie należycie, bo jak umrzesz, stracisz życie", "jeśli nie chcesz mojej zguby, krokodyla daj mi luby". Tak, to Fredro, Aleksander hrabia Fredro 😎 Co go łączyło z Wrocławiem? 🤔 Najprawdopodobniej niewiele (chciał kupić w okolicy miasta posiadłość, aby być bliżej syna, ale ostatecznie do tego nie doszło). Fakt, że jego pomnik znajduje się we Wrocławiu, to efekt zawirowań powojennych. Początek był taki 🧐 Lwów zamówił pomnik Fredry (Fredro żył w okolicach Lwowa, a umarł we Lwowie) u znanego polskiego rzeźbiarza Leonarda Marconi. Pomnik cieszył oczy lwowian od 1897 r. przez 50 lat. Potem, po II wojnie światowej, gdy Lwów włączono do ZSRR, na podstawie układu z ukraińskim rządem, Polska otrzymała pomniki z Lwowa, powiązane z historią i kulturą polską. I tak m.in. pomnik Fredry trafił do Polski, najpierw do Warszawy, gdzie stanął w parku Wilanowskim, aż w końcu w 1956 roku trafił do Wrocławia. Z ciekawostek: pomnik stanął na miejscu, gdzie w przedwojennym Wrocławiu stał pomnik króla pruskiego Fryderyka Wilhelma III, a który to w 1945 r. został zniszczony (najprawdopodobniej został przetopiony i pomnik, nie Fryderyk Wilhelm III 😉). Teraz, w centrum rynku Wrocławia to Fredro siedzi w fotelu, dzierżąc pióro gęsie i zwój papieru i myśląc:

Przy schyłku życia na cóż grzebiesz w swojej przeszłości? Cóż tam zobaczysz? trochę szału..., trochę błędów..., trochę głupstwa... Na prawej drodze - ciernie, obok pociechy - trwogę, obok nadziei - zwątpienie. Teraz noc......

Aleksander Fredro (20 June 1793 – 15 July 1876) was a Polish poet, playwright and author active during Polish Romanticism in the period of partitions by neighboring empires. His works including plays written in the octosyllabic verse (Zemsta) and in prose (Damy i Huzary) as well as fables, belong to the canon of Polish literature. Fredro was harshly criticized by some of his contemporaries for light-hearted humor or even alleged immorality (Seweryn Goszczyński, 1835) which led to years of his...