The Wrocław Dwarfs

From Political Protest To Silliness For Its Own Sake

In the 1980s, the Polish city of Wrocław was still in the thrall of an authoritarian communist regime. A dissident protest movement, Orange Underground, evolved to peacefully protest against the regime as part of the wider Solidarity movement.
These protests would be as nonsensical as possible, so that the police could not arrest its members without becoming a laughing stock. In perhaps its most fondly remembered antic, its members painted dwarfs on top of the whitewash. This was commemorated in 2001: with the country now a democratic state, the council placed a sculpture of a dwarf on the city's Świdnicka Street. It didn't stop there.