Photo The controversies of the grandiose statues in Romania: The face of Decebalus, the Heart of Jesus, the Youth Monument

A statue representing Jesus, the Image of Decebal from the Iron Gates and a symbolic monument from the Danube – Black Sea Canal are among the greatest works of art in Romania. Their story was not without controversy.

13 years after its erection, the “Heart of Jesus” statue became one of the tourist attractions of the ethnographic region “Szeklerland”.

The 22-meter high monument, made of stainless steel, was placed on a hill on the edge of the village of Bisericani, in Harghita, being the work of the artist Zavaczki Walter Levente from Odorheiu Secuiesc. Inside it, a spiral staircase was built that tourists can climb to the head of the statue, from where the panorama of the settlements in Secuime opens up to them.

The village of Bisericani, in the vicinity of which the monument is located, is located in the vicinity of the town of Odorheiu Secuiesc and about half an hour’s drive from the resorts of Praid and Sovata. Along with the statue of Jesus, tourists also find here a Romanesque church, built in the 13th century.

Having become one of the tourist attractions of the region, the “Heart of Jesus” statue caused controversy when it was erected.

“Architects do not have very good opinions about how the statue looks, some considering it “a monstrosity”, and others claiming that it was not advisable to erect something like this in the middle of nature or to have the possibility to climb inside Jesus“, noted, in 2011, the publication “Informatia Harghitei”. The statue would have cost 200,000 euros.

The face of Decebalus

The Face of Decebal, the largest sculpture ever made in Romania, erected two decades ago above the Danube Boilers, in the area called Portile de Fier, on a rock on the left bank of the river, in Dubova, near Orșova (Mehedinți county).

The monument was created by the sculptor Florin Cotarcea, from Orșova, helped by several climbers, between 1994 and 2004, but in 2004, when the works were stopped, only a little over half of the planned work of art was completed. “There would be about ten more years of work on this work,” recounted the sculptor, in a documentary about Decebal’s Face, on the YouTube channel Demiourgos Holdings.

Even so, the bas-relief portraying the Dacian king reached impressive dimensions.

Decebal’s face is over 40 meters high, 25 meters wide, four meters eyes, seven meters long and four meters wide nose. The nose of the Dacian king had to be adjusted, however, because the rock in which it was carved presented risks. It was blasted and remodeled with iron and cement reinforcement.

Above the head of the Dacian king, an iron cross sits embedded in the mountain. Under it was chiseled an inscription: “Decebalus Rex – Dragan Fecit”. The message remembers the financier of the works, the billionaire Iosif Constantin Drăgan (1917 – 2008). He would have spent over a million dollars for the creation of the work, and his financial efforts were rewarded by the inscription in the rock.

Passionate about history, Iosif Constantin Drăgan was the author of several volumes about the ancient history of Romania, the most famous of which was released in the 70s, with the title “We, the Thracians. The multimillennial history of the Romanian nation”. The book was well received by the totalitarian regime led by Nicolae Ceaușescu, one of the alleged reasons being the closeness of the billionaire who lived in the West in those years to the former communist president. After 1990, some historians disputed it and placed Drăgan among protochronic authors, “obsessed” with the Thracian origins of the Romanians.

On the Serbian bank of the Danube, an authentic ancient monument, the Tabula Traiana, erected in honor of the emperor Trajan, is ten times smaller than the Face of Decebalus. The Tabula Traiana guarded a road built by the Romans, in an ingenious way, paying homage to the emperor Trajan. Another tablet, unearthed in 1969 also on the Serbian shore at Portile de Fier, mentioned that the Roman emperor would have built the first navigable canal on the Danube here.

The Youth Monument, from the Danube – Black Sea Canal

The tallest statue in Romania was erected in another historical place of the Danube, on the edge of the Danube – Black Sea Canal, at its 48th kilometer.

It is located in the vicinity of the city of Murfatlar (Basarabi), in Constanța county, in the area of ​​the former village of Straja, a locality abolished to make way for the Danube-Black Sea Canal. The artwork built between 1985 and 1988 shows an angel without wings or a stylized flame.

“The idea to build a monument there was the leadership of the Communist Youth Union at that time. The UTC paid from its funds for 10 kilometers of the works on the Danube-Black Sea Canal. They wanted to leave future generations a symbol of the entire Canal”said the sculptor Pavel Bucur, the creator of the monument.

The statue made by Pavel Bucur, assisted in the bas-reliefs by two other artists – Viorel Pater and Iorgoel liopolos – has a concrete plinth about ten meters high and 12 columns of about 20 meters, which rise to a height of almost 40 meters , above the plinth.

The monument, made of stainless steel (the upper part, called the “Flame of Youth”) and bronze, the 150 square meters of bas-relief, was inspired by the effort of the young brigadiers, who built 10 kilometers of the canal here, the initiators of the project pointed out. Its sketch provided for the construction some wings, but these were no longer built because they would have affected the resistance of the monument.

“He is a white angel, an angel of freedom, in the sense that man, when he sees him, should also feel connected to nature, to the sky, to feel that he is flying, because we all want to reach the sky”said the sculptor Pavel Bucur.

The Youth Monument was inaugurated in 1988, but in the following years it was affected by the destruction caused by thieves who dismantled the massive bronze bas-reliefs and stainless steel pieces on it.