Description
Bolesław Chrobry Square is a more than half a hectare, well-kept green facility located on the outskirts of Gubin innercity, right at the foot of the Gubin Hills.
On the historic platform in 2018, Dawid Sadkowski, a painting student at the Institute of Visual Arts of the University of Zielona Góra, created a large mural depicting a composition of intertwining creations:
- the image of King Bolesław Chroby according to a painting by the Italian Baroque and Classicist painter Marcello Bacciarellini,
- city fortifications with the Ostrowska Gate tower
- the renaissance town hall with the parish church
- the portal of the theater on Wyspa Strzelecka (now the Theater Island).
Historical background
At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the progressive and rapidly developing Guben put more and more emphasis on the access of its inhabitants to a healthy, green public space. In addition to providing more and more parks and walking paths, attention was paid to sports that are fashionable and come out of rigid customs. In 1913, the city bought Meadows Scheiberschen (Ger.: Scheiberschen Wiesen) from a private owner, on which a public sports ground (Ger.: Sportplatz) was arranged. A long, low, two-level landing with a narrow platform in its center was also built, which also had the function of a retaining wall. On the square there were, among others, trainings and competitions of various sports associations (Ger.: Sportverein), as well as social and party meetings. In winter, an ice rink was created on its surface, and a toboggan run on a nearby hill. Above the square, you could see the cooperative brewery (Ger.: Gubener Genossenschaft-Brauerei) and the famous Friedrichshöhe restaurant with a characteristic four-story tower. The facility survived the war but was later demolished. The large beer cooling cellar, belonging to the now defunct brewery, has survived to this day.
After the approval of the last president of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hinderburg, Adolf Hitler in 1933 as chancellor of the Third Reich and the accession of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Ger.: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP) to power, the Sports Square was renamed Hindenburg Square. From that moment, political rallies and parades as well as Spartakiads took place on the pitch, including the so-called »The youth of the Reich«.
After the war, a similar tradition, but in a changed political form and within the borders of the Eastern Bloc, was continued. From that moment on, the newly named Square of Gratitude was a place where May Day parades, political rallies, tournaments, circus shows and local events took place, including the so far known festival of "Spring on the Neisse". Here, too, the soldiers of the Gubin garrison took the military oath. In the 1960s, a monument commemorating the Soviet soldiers who died in the 1945 fights for the capture of the city was erected in the center of the square. The monument was liquidated in the 1990s. In 1993, after the Gubińska division adopted the "Borderland" traditions, its name was changed to Bolesław Chrobry Square.
In 2011, the square was revitalized. In 2018, with the approval of the city authorities and the community center, a mural was created on the historic platform by Dawid Sadkowski.
Piastowska, 66-620 Gubin, Poland
Bolesław Chrobry Square
- Schreiberschen meadows (Ger.: Schreiberschen Wiesen): bought by the city in 1911, previously private
- Sports Square (Ger.: Sportplatz): 1913
- Hindenburg Square: 1933
- Gratitude Square: 1950s-1993
- Bolesław Chrobry Square: 1993
0,65 ha
