The primary function of every statue, not only in its most comprehensible form of figurative composition, is to commemorate the person it represents. There are, however, often other layers of meaning. A very good example of this is the Grunwald Monument in Kraków (1910), which, on the one hand, commemorated the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald, but, on the other, erected and unveiled in conspiracy, was clearly conceived as a testimony to the former glory of both Poles and Lithuanians, as well as a harbinger of better times to come. Different layers of meaning could also be found in the growing number of monuments to the first Polish king, including those which date back to the communist era (Gniezno, 1978 and 1985) and those which were erected later (Wrocław, 2007). The paper seeks to expose some of these hidden (though not necessarily secondary) meanings and shed some light on their cultural and historical significance.