The Monument of the Heroes from Calafat from the First World War, was the work of the sculptor Dumitru Mățăoanu, inaugurated on the 7th of November 1923, on the occasion on which there were also distributed the title deeds to the veterans from the Campaign 1916 – 1918 and of the war widows.
The monument represents a soldier from the First World War.
Dumitru Mățăoanu was a Romanian sculptor, born at Mățău.
Between 1904 and 1904 he was medaled of 14 for his works and, as an acknowledgement of his value, the Society of the Romanian Women, by the means of his presidency, Sofia Andreescu, and the secretary Elena Al. Mușatescu, awarded him a scholarship at Paris, at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (The Superior National School of Beaux – Arts), the sculpture department, where he passed the graduation exam on the 6th position of the 300 candidates.
At 25 years of age he opened a workshop of 22 Griviței street, which became shortly “a real school of the sculpture from those years”.
He exhibited every year at the Artistic Youth, and in 196 also at the Official exhibit of the living artists, where he made himself conspicuous for his portrait painting, busts as well as relief.
In the First World War he was mobilized near the Great General District of the Army, together with other artists, among the sculptor Ion Jalea, the painter D. Stoica, and he was sent on the front, among the officers and the soldiers, where he made numerous sketches and drafts.
In 1923, he opened his first personal exhibit, in Carrara marble, representing portraits in bas – relief, busts, decorative works, but also a few monumental statues, among which the Romanian Soldier, with the height of 5, 5 m., who was about to the placed on the base of the Triumph Arch and the Heroine from Jiu, the monument in the memory of the heroine Ecaterina Teodoroiu, which was built up later on in the city Slatina. He carved the basement for the Monument of Eugeniu Carada from Bucharest executed by the French sculptor Ernest Henri Dubois and it was unveiled on the 17th of February 1924.
Very much from his works were monuments dedicated to the heroes from the War for Reuniting the People, in diverse localities from the country.
At Calafat, the campaign plan for the First World War provided the fact that on the southern front of the Romanian Army to lead a strategic defensive operation. Initially, the forces of the 3rd Army were going to ensure the covering of the southern frontier from Calafat to the Black Sea following that, later on, after the arrival of the 47th Body the Russian Army to develop a limited offensive operation in order the shorten the line of the front of the line Rusciuc – Șumla – Varna. The objective of these operations was to ensure the liberty of action of the principal forces of the Romanian Army which operated in Transylvania.
The loses suffered by the Romanian army in the First World War were very big: over 500.000 soldiers.
In order to commemorate the human loses from the First World War, the authorities decided to build up the Monument of the Heroes, inaugurated in 1923.
