Home | Jagiello, Wladyslaw
- CountryUS
- Town:NY New York City
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Year of creation:1939
- Rider(s):Jagiello, Wladyslaw
(c. 1351–1434) ruled in Lithuania from 1377 as its last pagan leader. He was baptized in Kraków in 1386 and married the young reigning Queen Jadwiga of Poland. Upon her death in 1399 he started to rule Poland, a reign that would last for thirty-five years. His rule marked the beginning of Poland’s ‘Golden Age’. He laid the foundations for the centuries-long Polish-Lithuanian union, which confronted the growing power of the Teutonic Knights. The victory of the union at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 secured the Polish and Lithuanian borders, and marked the emergence of the Polish-Lithuanian alliance as a significant force in Europe; the largest state in the Christian world.
- Sculptor(s):Ostowsky, Stanislaw Kuzimierz
(1879 – 1947) was a Polish sculptor
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The King Jagiełło Monument commemorates the Battle of Grunwald, a decisive defeat of the Teutonic Order in 1410. Originally made for the Polish 1939 New York World’s Fair pavilion, the monument was permanently installed in Central Park in 1945. Raised on its grand plinth it is one of the most prominently-sited and impressive of twenty-nine sculptures located in the park.
King Władysław II Jagiello is shown seated on a horse holding two crossed swords over his head as a symbol of defiance and of the union of Polish–Lithuanian forces. Known as the Grunwald Swords, they were the invitation to battle offered to the king and his ally Vytautas the Great in an ironic gesture by Ulrich von Jungingen, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order.
