Racławice Panorama

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Lonely Planet review

Wrocław's pride and joy is the Racławice Panorama. Housed in a cylindrical building in a park southwest of the National Museum (a ticket to the panorama also allows entry to the National Museum on the same day), it's a cyclorama, a giant canvas painting measuring 15m by 114m and wrapped around the internal walls of the rotunda.

It is viewed from an elevated central balcony, and the inclusion of three-dimensional items (tree trunks, plants, weapons, roads), special lighting and sound effects bring it to life.

The picture depicts the battle of Racławice (a village about 40km northeast of Kraków), fought on 4 April 1794 between the Polish insurrectionist army of regulars and peasants led by Tadeusz Kościuszko and Russian troops under General Alexander Tormasov. One of the last attempts to defend Poland's independence, the battle was won by the Poles, but it was all for nought: months later the nationwide insurrection was crushed by the tsarist army and the Third Partition was put into effect. Poland ceased to exist as a nation until WWI, yet the battle lived on in the hearts and minds of Poles as the most glorious engagement of the rebellion.

A century after the battle, a group of patriots in Lviv (then the Polish city of Lwów) commissioned the panorama. The two main artists, Jan Styka and Wojciech Kossak, were helped by seven other painters who did the background scenes and details. They completed the monumental canvas in just over nine months, using 750kg of paint. The picture was on display until 1944, when a bomb damaged the canvas.

After the war the painting was sent to Wrocław, but since it depicted a defeat of the Russians, Poland's official friend and liberator, the communist authorities were reluctant to put it on display. The pavilion built for the panorama in 1967 sat empty until 1985, when the canvas was shown for the first time in more than four decades.

Visits are by 30-minute guided tours, which depart every half-hour. You move around the balcony to inspect each scene in turn while a handheld audioguide provides recorded commentary.