„Wieża Babel” w Białymstoku?

Abstract

The Babel Tower in Białystok?

The outstanding sculptural activity of Abraham Ostrzega is mainly known from his sepulchral sculpture. Hardly anyone knows that a maker of tombstones, preserved at the Jewish cemeteries in Warsaw and Łódź, was also the author of some monumental sculptures. Two of his significant gypsum projects are only known from photographs. One of them is the monument of Poland’s Unification (with the Józef Piłsudski’s figure). The other, in a form of the Tower of Babel, was dedicated to Ludwik Zamenhof. Ostrzega designed it for Białystok, the birthplace of the creator of the Esperanto language. There is no known historical evidence giving details of this project: – how did the monument’s concept take shape? Was is an idea from the Committee for the Erection of the Monument of Ludwik Zamenhof, established by Jakub Szapiro, the president of the Esperantist’s Society in Białystok or was the project proposed by Ostrzega himself?