The Romanian Soldier Monument (Monumentul Ostașului Român) is a World War I memorial in Galați, erected in 1926 in memory of Romanian soldiers who died during the 1916-1918 campaigns. Created by sculptor Dumitru Mățăoanu, the monument stands near the Galați railway station and has remained in its original location since its inauguration.
The project was initiated in 1925 by Ștefan H. Ștefan, then president of the city’s interim administrative commission. The municipality considered several designs before commissioning Mățăoanu to create a larger memorial combining a stone monument with bronze sculpture. Financial support was also expected from the Society of the Graves of Heroes, and the project was approved later that year.
Mățăoanu’s original design was however considerably more elaborate than the monument seen today. A bronze Romanian soldier was to stand in front of a stone obelisk, with two relief panels showing scenes from the war on its sides and an allegorical figure of Greater Romania crowning the composition. But only the obelisk and the soldier were completed in time for the 1926 inauguration, as disagreements over payment delayed the remaining elements. Mățăoanu’s death in 1929 eventually left the monument permanently unfinished.
The surviving bronze statue shows a soldier standing guard with both hands resting on his rifle and its fixed bayonet, while a military pack is carried on his back. The figure stands above a stone pedestal decorated with twisted mouldings and empty recessed panels originally intended to receive the missing reliefs. On the front, a marble plaque bears the inscription: “În amintirea ostașilor morți în războiul din 1916-1918” (In memory of the soldiers who died in the war of 1916-1918).
