Who is the author of the sculptural composition, a worker and a collective farmer? The history of the creation of the sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”
"Worker and Kolkhoz Woman", the unofficial emblem of the Soviet Union, according to many critics -the greatest work of sculpture of the 20th century.
The sculpture was created for the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937.The idea of crowning the Soviet pavilion of the Paris World Exhibition with a pair of statues“Worker and Collective Farm Woman”, made of metal, belongs to the architect B.M. Iofan. Iofan intended to make the sculpture from duralumin, because he imagined the statue in a light and light, but not shiny metal. Professor P.N. Lvov is a prominent specialist in metal and methods of its constructive use - convinced the architect to use stainless chromium-nickel steel, connected not by rivets but by welding. The head of the famoussculpture "David" by Michelangelo, and this experiment turned out to be very successful, although, as he notesIofan, all the sculptors were skeptical about steel at first.
B. Iofan wrote that while working on the competition project, “very soon an image was born... of a sculpture, a boy and a girl,personifying the owners of the Soviet land - the working class and the collective farm peasantry. They raise high the emblem of the Land of the Soviets - the hammer and sickle.”
In the summer of 1936, a closed competition was announced for a statue for the Paris Pavilion.V.A. was invited to participate in it. Andreev, M.G.Manizer, V.I. Mukhina, I.D. Shadr. For direct assistance in sculpting the statue, Vera Ignatievna invited two of her former students from VKHUTEMAS 3.G. Ivanov and N.G. Zelenskaya. The deadline for preparing competitive projects was given a short time - about three months.
Mukhina worked on the sketch for a short time, but very intensely. The objects of her search were the drapery and the position of the free hands of the worker and collective farmer. She tried to connect the free hands of a man and a woman “within” the group, and put the attributes of the worker in the right hand, and the collective farm woman in the left, so that there was a rather significant spatial gap between the sickle and the hammer. Draperies giving horizontal folds, located in Iofan’s sketch on characters' feet level,she tried to move them upward, depicting them in the form of a banner or banner immediately after the emblem, that is, at the level of the shoulders and heads of the worker and collective farmer.
Mukhina boldly changed the architectural concept in her project. She abandoned the static diagonal composition of the statue and, by introducing a flying scarf and thrown back arms, made this composition dynamic and horizontal; instead of a solid mass of stuck together figures, airiness appeared. In addition, Vera Ignatievna demanded a change in the size of the monument, replacing the original equal size of the statue and the building with the “golden ratio”. All these innovations, unexpected for the architect and the jury, for a long time prevented the final decision from being made
B.M. Iofan conceived the Soviet pavilion as a “triumphal building.” V.I. Mukhina wrote that, “having received the pavilion design from the architect Iofan, I immediately felt that the group should express, first of all, not the solemn character of the figures, but the dynamics of our era, that creative an impulse that I see everywhere in our country and which is so dear to me.”
There was a little more than six months left before the statue was sent to Paris, and the project still had not been approved. Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars E.K. Antonov strongly objected to the scarf. Molotov did not like the model without a scarf, but he generally supported Antonov. Finally they asked: “What does the author think?” Vera Ignatyevna said that the model without a scarf was simply no good. After a rather harsh discussion, Molotov said: “Well, let’s believe the author,” and the middle model with a lighterscarf. On November 11, 1936, V. Mukhina’s project was finally approved for execution in the material.
The work began at an insane pace: first, the creation of a statue of 1/15 life-size, and then its enlargement and conversion to steel at the TsNIIMASH plant. The 1/15 model was made at home, in Vera Ignatievna’s studio room, in which, despite the height of the ceilings (about 6 m), there was no overhead light, and she was very afraid of unaccounted angles and lighting effects. One of V. Mukhina’s former students, architect Boris Komarov, organized a check of the daylighting of the statue. A small 1/100 model was painted with silver paint and taken to the Planetarium, where the position and height of the sun in Paris in relation to the orientation of the statue was simulated using a machine. Since the statue was supposed tolook not only from a distance, but also directly from below, from the entrance to the pavilion, many photographs were taken from such “risky” points.
Even before the final approval of the project, the metal structures department of the Palace of the Soviets was tasked with developing the design of the sculptural group. The main frame was manufactured by the Stalmost plant, while the parts of the statue and its complete assembly were to be carried out by the experimental plant TsNIIMASH directly in the workshop and in the courtyard of the plant under the leadership of P.N. Lvov. The main supporting frame of the statue is a riveted structure made of thick sheets of low-carbon steel.
It was manufactured in record time - 3 weeks. The weight of the frame is about 48 tons. The shell was hung on the base using an intermediate frame made of angle iron, and was a series of small trusses. The shell required 8.5 tons of stainless steel, and the intermediate frame required about 15 tons of steel of various profiles. For the engineers who were entrusted with the construction of the almost 24-meter statue, this was a completely new matter, without examples in the history of technology.
To begin work at the plant, it was planned to receive a six-meter model from the sculptors and make an enlargement based on it. However, there was not enough time to prepare such a model, and “at one of the very stormy meetings” P.N. Lvov proposed to build the statue using the 15-fold increase method. This was a bold and risky proposal, but it gave the sculptors the opportunity to prepare the final model within a month one and a half meters high. The 15-fold magnification method gave only relatively accurate overall dimensions, but the relief of the form suffered greatly. An error of 1-2 millimeters led to large distortions. In general, in the process of making a life-size statue, about 200 were measured on the surface of the model thousand coordinate points, and 23 technicians and draftsmen participated in this work.
From an engineering point of view, one of the most difficult elements of the composition turned out to be a fluttering scarf held by the collective farmer’s hand thrown back. It had a size of about 30 meters, a reach of 10 meters, weighed five and a half tons and had to be held horizontally without any support. Finally, engineers B. Dzerzhkovich and A. Prikhozhan calculated a special frame truss for the scarf, which reliably ensures its free position in space.
When everything was finished, the dimensions of the statue were specified. Its height to the end of the sickle is 23.5 meters, the length of the worker’s arm is 8.5 meters, the height of his head is more than 2 meters, the total weight of the statue is almost 75 tons. A few days later, dismantling of the sculpture began. Everything was packed into boxes and covered with felt. The sculpture with its frame and instruments occupied the entire train - twenty-eight cars. In Poland, the train was delayed on the pretext that some boxes might not fit through the tunnel. The engineer accompanying the train, Raphael, cut off pieces of the statue with an autogenous gun, so that later he could weld them in place.
The assembly of the statue was completed in record time - in just eleven days, instead of the expected twenty-five. On May 1, 1937, she shone in the sun in the sky of Paris. As the statue grew and covered itself with a shell, it made more and more impression.
When the exhibition closed, in France there was a desire to leave the monument in Paris, and the question of raising funds to buy it from the Soviet government was even raised. But it had already been decided to dismantle the statue and transport it to Moscow. A team of workers and engineers who did not know the complex specifics of the sculpture was sent to dismantle it. The statue was cut into pieces with an autogenous machine and dumped on platforms. Only the heads and the male hand of the statue reached Moscow without damage. However, success and publicThe resonance of “The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman” was so great that a decision was made to install the statue at the entrance to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition that opened in 1938.
In Moscow, it was restored from thicker sheets of steel (up to 2 mm) and mounted on a much lower pedestal in front of the Northern entrance to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (the layout of the square and monument was carried out by architects N. Bykova and I. Taranov). The original design of the pedestal, repeating the 34-meter tower of the pavilion, was hastily replaced by a low one,11 meters, that is, 3 times lower than the pylon of the Paris Pavilion.
It should be noted that Mukhina and Iofan considered the option of raising the sculptural group to a higher pedestal or the restored Paris Pavilion. When placing the sculpture in front of the entrance to the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition, a unique urban planning situation was created, which made it possible to significantly emphasize the plastic, silhouette and symbolic characteristics of the sculptural group. The monument was placed on the axis of the main entrance to the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition and was perceived against the backdrop of open, undeveloped space and greenery, without including background urban development; in addition, it was delegated the role of one of the main exhibits of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition.
But over time the situation has changed. In the 1950s The northern entrance lost its main status in the 1970s. behind the sculpture was installed the Montreal Pavilion, from the 2nd floor. XX century The areas surrounding VDNKh are being swept by a wave of industrial housing construction. Finally, at the turn of the 20th – 21st centuries, the perception of the sculptural group turned out to be distorted due to the construction of an overpass along the Mira Avenue route. In 2003-2005, a monorail transport system line passed along Longitudinal Passage, visually separating the spaces of the exhibition complex and the location of the monument.
In October 2003, “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was dismantled for repair and restoration work, first dismantled into 17 parts, then into forty. This is the first time that restoration of this level has been carried out. Then it was intendedrestored and returned to its place at the end of 2005, however, due to problems with fWith financing, the deadline for completing the restoration is constantly being pushed back.
In June 2009, information appeared in the media that they would try to return the sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” by Vera Mukhina to its original place at the All-Russian Exhibition by December 5th.
“The work is proceeding in accordance with the decision of the Moscow government. We will try to erect the monument by December 5, Constitution Day. I think it’s possible,” said the Mayor of Moscow
According to the new project, the height of the pavilion-pedestal will be 34.5 meters. Work on its construction began in April 2009. Currently in the place of the futurepedestal builders are building the foundation. When creating this article, materials from the site were used archnadzor.ru
Anyone who has ever watched a movie shot at the Mosfilm studio is familiar with the symbol of this Soviet film studio. This is an article about the sculpture that has become this very symbol)
"Worker and Collective Farm Woman" is a sculptural group of two figures raising a hammer and sickle above their heads. It is made of stainless chromium-nickel steel. The height of the sculpture is about 25 m. The total weight is 80 tons. Author - V.I. Mukhina.
It was created for the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937. The ideological concept of the sculpture belonged to the architect B. M. Iofan, who won the competition for the construction of the pavilion. While working on the competition project, the architect “very soon came up with an image... of a sculpture, a young man and a girl, personifying the owners of the Soviet land - the working class and the collective farm peasantry. They raise high the emblem of the Land of the Soviets - the hammer and sickle." A competition was announced for the sculpture and it was won by sculptor V.I. Mukhina.
Work on creating a huge monument was carried out using a one and a half meter plaster model created by Mukhina at the pilot plant of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering and Metalworking under the leadership of Professor P. N. Lvov.
When transporting a sculpture from Paris to Moscow "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" was damaged. In January-August 1939, the sculpture was reconstructed and installed on a pedestal in front of the Northern entrance to the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition Center (now the All-Russian Exhibition Center). Restored in 1979.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia called the sculpture “the standard of socialist realism.”
In 2003, the monument was dismantled into 40 fragments. Then they intended to restore it and return it to its place at the end of 2005, however, due to problems with financing, the sculpture remained in a disassembled state.
The sculpture is currently being assembled. The reinstallation of the monument in place is planned for December 2009.
Sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" will be installed on a new pavilion-pedestal specially built for this purpose. Work on its construction began in April 2009. Currently, a pedestal and a pavilion for collecting sculptures have been built, and parts of the figures have been delivered.
10 FACTS ABOUT "WORKER AND COLLECTIVE FARMER"
A monument to socialist realism, the most famous work of Vera Mukhina, the emblem of Mosfilm and one of the most recognizable landmarks of VDNKh.
Here is the average set of knowledge about the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”. Correct, but not exhaustive.
1. Debut in Paris. It was here exactly 80 years ago that the sculpture was first presented to the public: the 24-meter monument became the final “touch” in the design of the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition, which opened on May 25, 1937. Among other non-standard exhibits presented by the Soviet Union, there was the “Map of Industrialization of the USSR”, made of precious and semi-precious stones, projects of the Moscow metro stations “Sokolniki” and “Kropotkinskaya”, as well as the fragrance “Jubilee”, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution . All this fit well into the concept of “Art and technology in modern life,” which became the motto of the event.
2. Rivalry with Germany.“Worker and Collective Farm Woman” immediately became participants in an unspoken competition between the USSR and Germany. In addition to the race for the number of awards and the main prize, the confrontation also manifested itself in the height of the exhibition pavilions located opposite each other. Despite the formal victory of the Germans - the coat of arms of the Third Reich was significantly higher than the hammer and sickle of the Soviet sculpture - most visitors still remember the pavilion of the Soviet Union.
“The Germans waited for a long time, wanting to know the height of our pavilion along with the sculptural group,” recalled sculptor Vera Mukhina. “When they established this, then they built a tower ten meters higher than ours above their pavilion. They planted an eagle at the top. But for such a height, the eagle was too small and looked pretty pathetic."
3. Not only Vera Mukhina. The general concept of the Soviet pavilion belongs to the architect Boris Iofan. He also put forward the basic requirements for the sculptural group: lightness of construction, raised sickle and hammer, a sense of movement “forward and upward,” compositional unity with the “pedestal.” Mukhina’s sketches combined all of the above, which allowed “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” to win a closed competition, beating out the projects of other sculptors.
4. "Single-object synthesis". It sounds complicated, but the essence of the concept is quite simple: the sculpture from an “addition” to the building turned into its continuation, becoming an “inseparable” part of the composition. The Soviet architectural trend created by Boris Iofan was fully manifested in “The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman”: according to the author’s idea, the monument could not exist outside the pedestal/pavilion for which it was created.
The idea was reflected in other projects of Iofan, for example in the unrealized Palace of the Soviets: a 420-meter building topped with a huge statue of Lenin, which was planned to be built on the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. For comparison: the tallest building in modern Moscow, the Federation Tower, rises 374 meters above the ground.
5. Antique prototype. Isaac Eigel, Iofan’s secretary and assistant, emphasizes in his memoirs that the architect was inspired to create the paired composition by the ancient statue “Tyran Slayers,” one of the symbols of Athenian democracy, created by the Greek sculptors Critias and Nesiot back in the 5th century BC. e. As for the symbolism of “The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman,” it is quite predictable and corresponds to the spirit of the times: the unity of the working class and the collective farm peasantry.
6. Stainless steel. Stainless chromium-nickel steel, a material that is used almost everywhere today (from construction to dentistry), was considered a dubious choice by many in 1937, especially when it came to sculpture. They doubted him so much that before working on “The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman” it was decided to knock out the “test” head of Michelangelo’s David from steel.
The experiment turned out to be successful - the material justified itself, surpassing brushed aluminum and bronze in terms of characteristics. The steel was light, shiny and, as Mukhina emphasized, made it possible to create “a more flexible and risky composition.” At the same time, the material put forward certain requirements for the design: “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” had to be divided into an internal steel frame and “external” steel blocks attached to it, consisting of individual welded sheets (of which there were about 5,000).
7. Scarf for “balance”. Initially, the sculpture was planned to be nude, and the scarf held by the collective farmer was introduced into the composition as a “covering” drapery. At the final stages of approval of the project, “The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman” was still dressed, but the scarf remained, which caused a lot of controversy. Thus, Vyacheslav Molotov, who arrived to view the competition works, asked Mukhina about its feasibility. The sculptor replied that the material was needed for balance, implying the compositional integrity of the monument, but the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR took her words literally, deciding that the “fabric” literally balanced “The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman.” And - approved the final version.
A lot of controversy was aroused by the piece of material I introduced into the composition, fluttering from behind, symbolizing those red banners, without which we cannot imagine any mass demonstration. This “scarf” was so necessary that without it the entire composition and connection of the statue with the building would fall apart
Vera Mukhina, Soviet sculptor
8. Copy for Mosfilm. Not everyone knows that the official emblem of Mosfilm (approved back in 1948) does not depict the original “Worker and Collective Farm Woman,” but a clay copy of them, made by Mukhina specifically for the film studio. The explanation is quite simple: due to the impressive size of the “original”, when shooting at an angle, its proportions were distorted. Creating a "compact" version of the sculpture solved this problem.
9. Victims of relocation. To deliver “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” to Paris, it was necessary to dismantle the monument into 65 parts. To return to Moscow, it was already cut into 44 fragments. Then the sculpture enjoyed several decades of relatively quiet life at the Northern entrance of the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition (VDNKh), but in the early 2000s it became clear that it needed thorough restoration. For this, “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was again disassembled into 40 components. The work involved replacing the entire steel frame, as well as approximately 10% of the steel sheets that make up the "outer shell" of the sculpture.
10. Could take the place of Peter I. During the years of perestroika, the possibility of installing “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” on an artificial island on Strelka was considered. But, as you know, in 1997 this place was taken by Peter I by Zurab Tsereteli, considered one of the tallest monuments in Moscow.
The restored "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" are located next to the Northern entrance of VDNKh. Instead of the 11-meter pedestal of the Soviet era, which Vera Mukhina mockingly called a “stump,” a pavilion was erected in 2009 based on the “Parisian” project of Boris Iofan. Now it houses a museum and exhibition center.
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The following sources were used in preparing the material: Voronov N.V. “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”; Eigel I. Yu. "Flint and steel"; archive of the magazine "Science and Life"; Book of Records of Russia (http://knigarekordovrossii.ru); official website of the Moscow Military District "Manege" (http://moscowmanege.ru); official website of the Museum of Cosmonautics (http://space-museum.ru).
Photo: TASS (Fedor Savintsev, Igor Zotin, S. Ivanov-Alliluyev, Stanislav Krasilnikov), Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images, Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images, Henri Baranger/wikipedia.org.
Even while working on the pavilion building, the architect came up with the image of the sculpture of a young man and girl crowning it, personifying the working class and the collective farm peasantry. According to Iofan’s idea, they were supposed to raise high the CCCH emblem - the hammer and sickle. He was inspired by the idea of the antique statue “Tyran Slayers”, where the swords raised to the sky in the hands of the heroes were replaced by the “peaceful” sickle and hammer.
Vera Mukhina won the competition to create the Worker and the Collective Farm Woman. The model for the worker was the athlete Igor Basanko, and for the collective farmer Anna Bogoyavlenskaya, an employee of the Moscow telephone exchange, posed.
The implementation of the sculpture took 3.5 months, using the latest technologies discovered by the Soviet metallurgist P.N. Lvov: a shell made of chromium-nickel steel, molded on wooden templates, was hung on a multi-ton frame and welded. To transport the Worker and the Collective Farm Woman to Paris, the 25-meter monument was cut into 65 parts and packed into 28 railway cars. In Poland, the boxes did not fit into the tunnel, and the sculpture had to be cut into several more pieces.
At the exhibition in Paris, Worker and Collective Farm Woman created a sensation! They became the center of attraction, so it is not surprising that during the installation work several sabotages were discovered. All leading newspapers published photographs of the statue, and copies of it were repeated on many souvenirs of the exhibition. And about the German pavilion with the coat of arms on the roof, standing opposite the Soviet pavilion, they said that it turned its head away in shame.
When returning from Paris, the monument to the Worker and the Collective Farm Woman was damaged. After reconstruction in 1939, it was installed on a low (11 meters instead of the required 33) pedestal in front of the Northern entrance of VDNH.
In 2003, the sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was dismantled. It was planned to be restored by the end of 2005, but due to financial problems the work was delayed.
Only in November 2009, the monument was installed on a new pavilion-pedestal, specially built for it, repeating the proportions of the original Iofan pavilion.
On December 4, 2009, the monument “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” was opened, and on September 4, 2010, the museum and exhibition center “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” began operating on its pedestal. There you can learn the history of the creation of sculpture from photographs, projects and models.
It is believed that since 1947, the sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” has become a symbol of the Mosfilm film studio. But the monument first appeared in the comedy “Hello, Moscow.” It is known that the son of Vera Mukhina tried to challenge in court the right of Mosfilm to use the image of the Worker and the Kolkhoz Woman, but his claim was rejected.
They say that......in the competition version, Vera Mukhina sculpted a worker naked, but the jury demanded that he wear overalls.
...while working on the statue, denunciations were received that the “enemy of the people” Leon Trotsky could be discerned in the worker’s profile and in the folds of the collective farmer’s skirt. But Molotov and Voroshilov, who accepted the sculpture, did not notice the similarity; they only asked to remove the bags under the collective farmer’s eyes.
...Mukhina did not like the pedestal of the Worker and the Collective Farm Woman, so she called it a “stump”, and the worker’s arm, which was restored with a violation of the location of the elbow joint, “gut”.
...the workers struggled for a long time with the fluttering scarf, and then Molotov came to Mukhina asking whether it was possible to do without this difficult element. The sculptor replied that the scarf was needed for balance, meaning artistic harmony. The frightened Molotov exclaimed: Well, if it’s for balance, then we’ll do it! and gave the go-ahead to continue the work.
In 1936, the Soviet government received an invitation from France to take part in the Paris World Exhibition, dedicated to the theme “Art and Technology in Modern Life.” The young state was not going to miss its chance to strengthen its international position and announced a competition for the creation of a pavilion. The task was not only to “catch up and overtake” Germany, which acted as the main competitor at the exhibition, but also to emphasize the ideological component of the project. Namely, to show the global superiority of the Soviet economic system and its integral “cogs”.
Boris won the competition. The exhibition pavilion was planned in a classical style, and sculpture was to occupy its central part.
The idea of crowning a building with a giant statue was in fashion at that time - just remember the project of the monstrous Palace of the Soviets by the same Iofan.
The image of the sculpture for the exhibition pavilion, as the architect recalled, “was born very quickly: a young man and a girl, personifying the owners of the Soviet land - the working class and the collective farm peasantry. They raise high the emblem of the Land of the Soviets - the hammer and sickle. I imagined the sculpture to be made of light, light metal, as if flying forward, like the unforgettable Louvre Nike - a winged victory.” The creation of the monument by Iofan was inspired by the idea of the ancient statue “Tyranbusters”, depicting Harmodius and Aristogeiton standing next to swords in the hands, as well as the sculpture “Nike of Samothrace”.
According to Iofan’s recollections, the pavilion itself, and not its contents, should have been the main exhibit at the exhibition, because “we still had almost nothing to show except dioramas, photographs, models, colorful panels. The last, fourth, and final hall of the pavilion was completely empty: in the middle there was a large statue of Stalin, and there were flat panels on the walls. The Soviet pavilion was dominated by sculpture and painting.”
The commission generally approved the idea of the pavilion, but did not really like the nuance in the form of the project for Iofan’s sculpture. We had to hold an urgent competition for another version of the monument, where Vera Mukhina won. While Iofan captured the young man and girl “in a solemn gait,” Mukhina turned this gait “into an all-crushing impulse.”
Sculptor-monumentalist Vera Mukhina. Her monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was erected in Paris at the 1937 World Exhibition. Composition by V.I. Mukhina was crowned with a Soviet pavilion designed by architect B.M. Iofan. 1947
They decided to make the sculpture not from bronze or copper, which would absorb light, but from stainless chromium-nickel steel, because the monument had to shine so as to outshine both the eagle on the German pavilion and the Eiffel Tower. It was decided to connect the sheets on the monument, which Mukhina herself called “Worker and Peasant Woman,” not with rivets, as is customary in the United States, but by welding.
A significant difference from Iofan’s version in the composition was the large sheet of matter flying behind the group. In addition to giving the 80-ton monument “the necessary airiness of flight” and “drawing with a clear openwork against the sky,” the five-ton scarf was supposed to cover the private parts of the worker and the collective farmer: in Mukhina’s version, the boy and girl were supposed to be naked. In addition, the material made it possible to justify the not entirely natural horizontal position of the collective farmer’s hand - with the girl holding the steel “fabric”.
However, the high commission did not fully appreciate Mukhina’s creative flight of thought. Firstly, the duo was asked to dress, for which the sculptor chose the most neutral sundress and jumpsuit, leaving the legs and torso exposed, respectively. Secondly, the same painting raised doubts. So,
The chairman of the government commission, arriving at the “bride”, was surprised: “Why this scarf? This is not a dancer, not a skater!”
To which Mukhina replied that “this is necessary for balance.” The sculptor spoke in an aesthetic context, but Molotov took her words literally and said: “Well, if this is technically necessary, then that’s a different question.”
The production of the monument proceeded at a rather slow pace, and many did not believe that the workers would be on time, especially considering the technical complexity of the same “canvas” and Mukhina’s pedantry. The director of the pilot plant of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering and Metalworking (), where elements of the statue were produced, even wrote a denunciation that, supposedly, the sculpture could not be completed on time, because Mukhina deliberately interrupted work, demanding endless corrections, and even came up with this scarf that could break the entire group in a gust of wind.
The commission, represented by Molotov, Voroshilov and other members of the government, examined the monument during the day and did not see any sedition in the folds of clothing of the sculptural group, or in the profile of the “worker”. According to some reports, Stalin came there directly. His driver illuminated the monument with the headlights of the car, then they turned on powerful spotlights, but apparently what he saw satisfied the leader of the people, and the next morning Iofan told Mukhina that the government was satisfied and her work was accepted without criticism.
However, after the end of the Paris Exhibition and the return of the statue to Moscow, the commissioner of the Soviet pavilion, Ivan Mezhlauk, was arrested, as well as several other engineers working on the statue. They also recalled the denunciation of Tambovtsev, the director of the plant. They were rehabilitated after Stalin’s death, Mezhlauk - posthumously.
The production of “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” took 3.5 months. To transport it to Paris, the monument was cut into 65 parts and packed into 28 railway cars. But in Poland, the boxes did not fit into the tunnel, and the sculpture had to be cut into several more parts. It took eleven days to assemble, and during the process the workers encountered sabotage - the tension cable of the derrick crane was sawed off, and the entire structure threatened to collapse onto the pavilion. Before the completion of work at the pavilion, “a night watch was organized from Soviet workers and volunteers from those former Russian emigrants who were friendly to the USSR.”
As a result, the sculpture was erected in the USSR pavilion just opposite the German pavilion with Hitler’s eagle on the roof. According to Mukhina’s memoirs,
“The Germans waited for a long time, wanting to know the height of our pavilion along with the sculptural group. When they established this, they built a tower ten meters higher than ours above their pavilion. An eagle was placed at the top. But for such a height the eagle was small and looked rather pitiful.
It was awkward because our group “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was flying like a whirlwind straight towards the Nazis. But it was impossible to turn the sculpture, since it was going in the direction of the building.”
Sculpture by Vera Mukhina “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” in front of the Northern entrance to the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy of the USSR (VDNKh). It was created for the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937. The ideological concept of the sculpture and the first model belonged to the architect B.M. Iofanu. 1968
The main prize - a gold medal - was shared between the Soviet and German pavilions. And yet, the French press was delighted with the Soviet pavilion and called the sculpture “the greatest work of the 20th century.” Local authorities even offered to buy out “Worker and Collective Farm Woman.” And Spain immediately issued a stamp with the Soviet pavilion. However, there were also critical reviews. For example, she wrote that the USSR pavilion “openly imitates a skyscraper in miniature, and its reduced proportions create the effect of some kind of layer cake, bound by icy frozenness.” Critics also noted that architecture was supposed to dominate the exhibition, while “there was a clear impression that the entire pavilion was erected only to be the pedestal of a sculptural group.”
Be that as it may, “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was again awaiting dismemberment. This time - to return to Moscow. The statue was divided into 44 parts. During dismantling and transportation, the left hand of the collective farmer, the right hand of the worker, elements of the scarf and other important parts were damaged, but during the new assembly in Moscow in January - August 1939, they were replaced with new ones. It was not clear at first what to do with all this stuff. In 1939, the Bolshaya Volga newspaper published a sketch of the Rybinsk hydroelectric power station with the sculptural composition “Worker and Collective Farm Woman,” and it was planned to erect a monument to Mukhina there. But since the construction work on the waterworks had not yet been completed, the monument was mounted on a pedestal in front of the main entrance of the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition (now the Northern entrance of VDNKh). And already in the 50s, the “Mother Volga” monument was erected at the Rybinsk hydroelectric station.
Since the installation of “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was rushed to be completed before the opening of the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition, the pedestal turned out to be almost three times lower than the original Paris pavilion. Mukhina sadly called the new location of the monument a “stump.” The sculptor preferred the area on the spit of the Moscow River, where Tseretelev’s Peter I now stands. The winner of the Stalin Prize also suggested an observation deck on the Sparrow Hills. However, her opinion was not listened to. “I can only helplessly shrug my shoulders, because all my protests in resolving this issue led to nothing. None of the architects raised a protest about the completely unacceptable staging of this statue, a staging that destroyed the entire impulse of the sculpture,” she recalled.
In 1947, the monument became a trademark of Soviet cinema - a symbol of the Mosfilm film studio. It was with her image against the backdrop of the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower that the film “Spring” began in 1947. In July 1948, the Ministry of Cinematography officially approved this emblem. But
Since the sculpture is large, when filming it at an angle, the image was distorted, so in November 1950, Mukhina made a smaller model specifically for Mosfilm.
The model is still stored there.
It is noteworthy that in 1975 it was proposed to move the statue, and the design of a new pedestal was even entrusted to the same Boris Iofan. However, he died a year later, and the moving of the statue was forgotten until 2003. Then another restoration of the monument was carried out, which lasted four years longer due to financial difficulties. As a result, on December 4, 2009, the monument was inaugurated. He moved closer to Mira Avenue, to a pavilion-pedestal specially built for him, repeating the proportions of Iofan’s original creation, including such details as high reliefs. The dismantling, storage and restoration of the legendary sculptural composition cost the budget, according to some sources, 2.9 billion rubles.
