From Political Movement to Bronze Figures - The Wrocław Dwarfs

Well, some of the Wrocław Dwarfs - impossible to find all of the 163 official dwarfs (krasnale) spread over the town, plus the 150+ additional inofficial ones. The tourist office offers a map to help you hunt down the wee chaps, but I thought that's pretty much like seeking Easter eggs with a GPS; therefore I just kept my eyes open in hope to notice some of the dwarfs. Let me show you the guys I found.

Welcome to Wrocław
Some are cheerful, others cheeky, and a few even look grim. But this wee chap is surely of the welcoming sort.

Happy dwarf with sunflower
But the bronze guys, which are about a foot (20-30 cm) tall, have nothing to do with garden gnomes. They are the reverberation of a legend and, more important, a political movement.

Tourist dwarf with map and camera - right in front of the Tourist Info office
The legend tells that dwarfs assisted the first settlers to build the town of Wrocław. The people were plagued by the Oder river goblin, a nasty, mischievious creature that kept damaging the houses until the dwarfs imprisoned him in a mountain (where he probably still lives). The inhabitants of Wrocław were so grateful that they offered the dwarfs to live in the town together with the humans.

I loved those two bearded guys with the old fashioned fire engine
In the 1980ies, an anti-communist and anti-sovjet movement called 'Orange Alternative' (Pomarańczowa Alternatywa) took up the legend and used the dwarfs as their signature. Led by the student of arts Waldemar Fydrych, called 'Major', and mathematician Wiesław Cupała, they organised peaceful, dadaistic meetings and demonstrations that mocked the communist regime in an ironic way.

A grim looking dwarf - the blacksmith
Wherever the militia covered up anticommunist slogans on walls, paintings of dwarfs would appear soon thereafter, forcing the officials to have scores of perfectly harmless dwarf graffiti removed. Another action were demonstations where the participants wore orange coloured dwarf hoods and made the police look ridiculous if they tried to arrest people for participating in an 'illegal meeting of dwarfs'.

That naked dwarf with umbrella takes up the motive of irony
One action had members of the movement distribute single sheets of toilet paper - which was a rarity at the time - to people, forcing the police to search bags and pockets to confiscate single sheets of toilet paper. Another time they met in front of the chimpanzee compound in the zoo, singing songs that praised Lenin. Well, it looks a bit silly if you arrest people singing pro-Communist songs just because they wear orange hoods.

This one is called Sisyphos - good luck moving that ball if the other guy is leaning against it
The Orange Alternative was loosely connected with the Solidarity movement. Their actions were not without danger, of course, and arrests did happen, but overall the ironic approach proved a strong weapon. The movement culminated in a demonstration of 10,000 people in dwarf hoods marching through the city, singing "Freedom for the dwarfs".

Prisoner
A few years after the fall of communism, the first dwarf, known as Papa Krasnal, was unveiled on the spot where most of the Orange Alternative protest meetings started, the corner of the Ulica Świdnicka and the Ulica Kazimierza Wielkego (Street of Casimir the Great), in 2001 to honour the movement and its victims. I missed that chap, though.

Dwarf on a motor bike
The council commissioned the local artist Tomasz Moczek to create some more dwarfs in 2005, and things went mad from there. The little guys proved so popular with the inhabitants and tourists alike that Moczek created more of them (about a hundred overall). Soon not only the town council ordered bronze dwarfs, but also local businesses commissioned them and brought other artists into the fray.

Handicapped dwarfs: deaf-mute, blind, and paraplegic
Some figures have a more serious background. The three handicapped dwarfs which were added in 2008 are part of the Wrocław Without Barriers campaign which aims to enhance the awareness for the requirements of handicapped people.

Dwarf eating chocolate in front of a chocolate shop
Not all the dwarfs are officially acknowledged. To get an 'approved' dwarf, businesses have to go through a long and expensive process. So they tend to shirk that and commission a dwarf anyway.

Dwarf with gift parcel in front of a gift and knick knack shop
The reason for the rise in illegal dwarfs is the fact that a dwarf in front of a shop increases the attraction to customers. But the wee chaps are so well liked by tourists that it pays off for the town as well, which is likely one reason the authorities tolerate them. Another reason, so my guess, is the political background.

Scholar
This is the story behind the bronze figures. Below are some more dwarfs which I found.

Dwarf with laptop
The modern variant of a scholar. Or maybe a travel blogger updating his Instragram account with the latest dwarf photos.

Glutton
That guy was digesting his latest meal in front of a Pizza Hut. (You can't escape those dang chains even in central and eastern Europe. I prefer to look out for local restaurants.)

Drunk dwarf
That one is surely having fun. I wonder what's in that jug, judging by his swaying around it might have been vodka.

Sleeping dwarf
Let's hope our drunk friend found his bed as well. This figure stands in front of a hotel (of course *grin*).

Pastry thieves
And last there are those two suspicious chaps stealing pastries from a bakery - after the one on the windowsill already filched an ice cream cone which he doesn't want to share with his accomplice below.

Pastry thieves
I hope you have as much fun looking at those wee dwarfs as I had hunting down and photographing the chaps.