Bohdan Zaleski Monument (The Harpist)
Kraków Artists: Writers and Poets
A monument in the northern part of the Planty, between the Barbican and Sławkowska Street, in the Garden by the Barbican, also called the Boyan monument, the Harpist or the Boyan group. It was inaugurated in December 1886 near the so-called Tree of Liberty; the artistic concept was by Pius Weloński and the money was given by Konstanty Wołodkowicz. It commemorates Józef Bohdan Zaleski, a Romantic poet counted among the "Ukrainian school", and shows Boyan, a blind old man playing the gusli, accompanied by a child listening to the music. The bronze cast was made in the Nelli workshop in Rome, and in 1904 the monument was moved to its present site.
History
Józef Bohdan Zaleski was born in February 1802 in Bohatyrka in the Kyiv Governorate, the youngest of thirteen children. Together with Antoni Malczewski and Seweryn Goszczyński, he is counted among the "Ukrainian school" of Polish Romanticism. He made his debut in 1819 with the poem Duma o Wacławie. In the November Uprising he fought at Dobre, Sochaczew and Grochów and was awarded the Virtuti Militari Cross. After the uprising was crushed he set off for the West, stopping in Kraków on the way to see the royal tombs at Wawel. In Paris he became friends with Adam Mickiewicz. He lived in France and died in 1886 in Villepreux. His melodious poems were set to music many times, including by Chopin, and his contemporaries called him "the patriarch of Polish poetry".
The monument was unveiled in Kraków in December of that same year. It stands in the northern part of Planty Park, in the Garden by the Barbican, between the Barbican and Sławkowska Street. It shows Boyan, a blind old man playing the gusli, accompanied by a child listening intently to the music. Boyan also appears in Zaleski's own poetry: in his later poems he portrayed himself as an incarnation of this bard, known from the Old Russian poem about Igor's campaign. The artistic concept was developed by Pius Weloński, and the money was donated by Konstanty Wołodkowicz. The bronze figures were cast in Rome, in the Nelli workshop, and set on a massive sandstone pedestal. When a water reservoir was built in Planty Park in 1904, the monument was moved to its present spot. Conservators worked on it in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and then in 1986 and 2004. It is also known as the Harpist or the Boyan group.
Did you know?
In May 1832 Zaleski and Seweryn Goszczyński went on a trip together to Zakopane and the Tatra Mountains. For both poets it was their first encounter with high-mountain nature.