Victims' Warning, 1967 – 1969

Jozef Jankovič particularly impressed himself in the minds of the public with his sculptural group entitled Victims' Warning, created between 1967 and 1969 for the Memorial to the Slovak National Uprising in Banská Bystrica (a collaboration with architect Dušan Kuzma). He intentionally deviated from the original assignment, which was the theme of victory. Instead of a stereotypical promotion of heroism, he brought forth the theme of a humiliated and wounded human being, a victim, replacing the one-sided official style of monumental sculpture. The placement of the sculptural group entitled Victims' Warning in the very centre of a building intentionally split into two parts, meant that once again Jankovič had to solve the plastic-spatial issue of the existence of two mutually permeating volumes in a solid connection between architecture and art. The bold shape of the vertical and horizontal intersection of human figures in one compact whole makes one of the greatest monumental works of sculpture and architecture that, in its dimensions, surpassed other works of its kind from that time. However, three years after its solemn unveiling, the sculpture was removed due to the normalization period. Criticism was aimed at the artist and his work was relocated to Kaliště, a village burned down by the Nazis. The sculpture was only returned to the centre of the Memorial in 2004.