- CountryUS
- Town:MA Boston
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Year of creation:1983
- Rider(s):Partisans
The Partisans is a 1979 aluminum sculpture by the Polish-American sculptor Andrzej Pitynski that has been exhibited in Boston, Massachusetts, since 1983. The sculpture depicts Polish anti-communist “cursed soldiers”. It is dedicated to freedom fighters worldwide.
This modern aluminum sculpture depicts five riders and their horses. The horsemen carry spears on their back, and with their bowed heads the sculpture intends to convey the themes of crucifixion and sacrifice. According to its creator they are intended to represent:
Five armed riders in a marching formation; five desperate men who resemble forest ghosts more than they resemble human beings … five partisans who are tattered, mortally tired, who are bleeding from endless battles, escapes, skirmishes … immersed with their own thoughts about the tragedy of their nation, who are riding their horses, stumbling from exhaustion.
The sculpture is a symbolic representation of the cursed soldiers – anti-communist Polish partisans who fought against the Polish communist regime following the communist takeover of Poland in the aftermath of World War II (and not, as some sources erroneously suggest, World War II era anti-Nazi Polish partisans). The sculptor however dedicated his work to “all freedom fightersaround the world”.
- Sculptor(s):Pitynski, Andrzej P.
(1947) is a Polish-American monumental sculptor who lives and works in the US
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Describing his “Partisans” Pitynski said, that he dedicated this monument to all “Fighters for Freedom in the World”, and used Polish Partisans as an example.
I was creating ‘The Partisans’ in the United States, when Poland was changing, when the SB [Pol. abr. Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa – Eng., Polish secret police] was murdering priests, students, and workers. I was creating this monument thinking about them all, about those thousands of the bravest Sons and Daughters of the Polish Nation, who were the first to stand up to the Soviet communism. They were betrayed by world and forgotten by God – a choice they made themselves – in the forest units of: NOW, AK, WiN, NSZ. They fought bravely with NKVD, Soviet Red Army; and with Polish traitors from the UB, KBW, MO, ORMO, [with all] ‘consolidators of the people’s [communist] regime. They fought because they never reconciled to give up their freedom. [They were] hunted in the forests like wild beasts, they were tortured in the UB dungeons, they were abused with the vindictive pleasure [of their oppressors], they were murdered in the MO torture houses, were buried illicitly at night in the graves that are unknown to this day. It is for THEM, that I created this symbol of the Golgotha of Polish Heroes.
Photos taken in 1999
