Pomniki cieszyńskie w wymiarze czasowym, horyzontalnym i wertykalnym

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the monuments in Cieszyn, erected in the town’s area between the second half of the 19th century and now. The actsof financing and removing them, depending on who was in power at the time, can be read as border signs between two ages; between one political system and another. In the matter of presence of the national border that divides Cieszyn into Polish and Czech side, those monuments are being part of symbolic domain that highlights the presence of existing borders in vertical dimension. They reflect the cultural remembrance of political and cultural order that dominates in a particular area. The author, with the aim of focusing on two monuments: “In the memory of Silesian Legionnaires that died for Poland” in Cieszyn and a statue of Czechoslovakian president Tomasz G. Masaryk in Czech Cieszyn, traces a discourse which reflects not only the divisions concerning interpretation of past events that had occurred among Czechs and Poles, but also communicates the presence of borders in the vertical dimension between the habitants of both sides of the national border.