July 1 marks the 127th anniversary of his birth Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina, whose most famous work is the monument "Worker and Collective Farm Woman". It was called a symbol of the Soviet era and a standard of socialist realism, although at one time the sculpture was almost rejected due to the fact that in the folds of a peasant woman’s dress someone saw the silhouette of the enemy of the people Leonid Trotsky.
“Worker and Collective Farm Woman” is a truly unique monument of the Soviet era. Few people know that this world-famous monument and the most ordinary cut glass have the same creator. A worker and a collective farmer, with raised hands raising tools of labor to the sky as a symbol of the union of the proletariat and the peasantry. How much has merged in this sculptural duet for the Soviet heart. HistoryTime will try to comprehend this now lost significance together with its esteemed readers.
The idea of creating the sculpture belongs to the architect Boris Iofan. “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” were supposed to personify the power of our country in the USSR pavilion at the Paris Exhibition in 1937 - they were created for this purpose. To implement the plan, a closed competition was held among the most famous sculptors of those times. The winner was Vera Mukhin’s project, in which the main figures froze in a confident movement not only forward, but also upward - as befits real Soviet symbols (remember, as in the famous Soviet song: “higher and higher and higher”).
From a distance it seems that Mukhino workers are intertwined in a single monolith. But no! The monument of monumental art consists of 5000 (!) parts. It took a couple of months to assemble, placing stainless steel sheets on a specially created frame and securing it using spot welding. This was the first experience of such a welding process in the country.
At the Paris exhibition, the Soviet pavilion was symbolically located opposite the German one - and in the middle, of course, was the Eiffel Tower. Let us remember that by that time Hitler had been in power for about four years. The Nazis deliberately designed their pavilion several meters higher than the Soviet one, and at the top they installed an iron eagle to make it even more impressive. However, the main imperial bird looked so miniature in comparison with a pair of giant Soviet workers that it was perceived almost comically. They say that the audience considered this spectacle ridiculous, and the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was applauded more than once.
At the end of the exhibition, the sculpture was returned to Moscow, where it stood motionless for almost 70 years. In 1987, they decided to move the monument from the northern entrance of VDNKh, but it turned out that it needed a major overhaul of the frame, which had been corroded by corrosion. However, due to the crisis of the 90s, the monument was remembered only in 2003. It was disassembled and sent to the workshop of the Central Research Institute of Steel Structures named after. V.A. Kucherenko.
Installation of the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”For six years they tried to work on the monument thoroughly, but there was not enough funding. As a result, the right to restore was given to a company that designed sewer collectors—as it turned out, they were multi-skilled craftsmen. The team and management took the task assigned to them responsibly and developed a plan in detail. The scientific director of the restorers was the sculptor Vadim Tserkovnikov, who fought for six years to restore the masterpiece.
The frame was restored according to the old model. Each of the five thousand parts was photographed and sorted on a computer along a color spectrum to determine which parts could be restored and which needed to be completely replaced. In the end, it turned out that only 500 elements had become unusable. In November 2009, the restoration of the sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was successfully completed.
On November 28 of the same year, with the help of a special crane, the monument was installed on a special pedestal, where a museum and exhibition center was later opened.
The image of the Soviet symbol could be immortalized on the screensaver of the Mosfilm film studio, postage stamps, and the USSR VDNKh Laureate medal.
In Moscow and expressing the ideology of the Soviet state during the construction of the socialist system. The monument was built for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937; the idea of its creation belonged to the architect Boris Iofan, and the project was brought to life by sculptor Vera Mukhina.
Can the sculptural group “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” be called a monument? In a sense, yes, since it is a monument to the Soviet era.
The composition represents the dynamic figures of a girl and a boy, in whose raised hands there is a hammer and sickle, the emblem of the USSR. While working on the project, Boris Iofan wanted to show the unity, friendship and determination of the working class and peasantry, that they are the masters of the country of the Soviets.
The monument is made of stainless steel and its height is 23.5 meters. The monument is installed on a pavilion-pedestal 34.5 meters high, which houses the Worker and Collective Farm Woman Museum Complex; the total weight of the composition is about 185 tons.
The museum's exhibits tell the story of the construction of the monument; its halls display projects, models and photographs, and personal belongings of the monument's creators.
Prospekt Mira, house No. 123B, travel to VDNKh metro station
Soon, the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman,” which expressed the ideology of the socialist state, appeared on the screens of the films “Foundling,” “Shining Path” and “Hello, Moscow,” and since 1948, the image of the sculpture has become the emblem of the Mosfilm film studio.
In 2003, the monument was dismantled into 40 parts and its reconstruction began. The opening of the sculptural group “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” took place in November 2009. The base of the monument is a specially built pavilion of the museum and exhibition center, its shape reminiscent of the one built at the exhibition in Paris in 1937.
A little information about what it actually is.
“Worker and Collective Farm Woman” is a sculptural group of two figures raising a hammer and sickle above their heads. Height is about 25 m. Total weight is 80 tons. Author: V.I. Mukhina.
It was created for the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937.
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.
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.
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.
Actually, “the same” plaster model of the sculptural group born in 1936. Based on it and the drawings, “Worker and Collective Farm Girl” is assembled
Markings are made on the model, which help workers to navigate where the joining lines of parts are and where the main points of connection between the elements of the sculpture and its frame are located.
The work is carried out practically without stops and smoke breaks - the workers have clear deadlines for the delivery of the sculpture
This facility employs welders, surveyors, architects, sculptors, and many other professionals in their field.
The sculpture is made of chromium-nickel steel. Unfortunately, due to its age, by 2003 the sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was almost in disrepair.
But thanks to the efforts of restorers, many structural elements that had fallen into disrepair were replaced with new, more durable ones.
Now the sculpture is in this huge pavilion, where its assembly takes place. The level of readiness can be judged from photographs
Just one of these days the “worker” will have his head set :)
This is the face of the proletariat
The scale of the sculpture is simply mesmerizing. You feel like a Lilliputian visiting two metal Soviet Gullivers
"Under the skirt of a collective farmer"
On top, the composition is crowned with symbols of the Soviet era - the sickle and hammer, which personified the collective farm peasantry and the working class. The hands of the figures have not yet been mounted and therefore the symbols of the USSR still stick out “naked”
Worker without a head
From this photo it is very easy to imagine the scale
"Training" for lifting a worker's head. Crane operators practice this every 15 minutes, because one of these days they will have to do it without dismantling the scaffolding, with precision and accuracy
"We have nothing to lose except our own chains" :)
Inside the sculptures, not everything is so empty and smooth; in addition to the main load-bearing steel frame, on the inner surface of each element there are additional fasteners like these
Collective farmer. You’re simply amazed at how complex and coordinated the work of the architect, sculptor and those who assembled the sculpture must be to make human faces, hands, etc. from huge steel plates
Here you can see very clearly what the frame of the sculpture looks like.
It’s a pity it won’t be possible to climb as high when the sculpture is already assembled and installed on the pedestal :)
Speaking of the pedestal. Unfortunately, you can’t see it behind the scaffolding, but you can roughly understand the scale - 34.5 meters is no joke. Imagine that they will also put a 25-meter sculpture on it... It will be monumental
And on the facade of the pedestal there will be this granite coat of arms of the Soviet Union
July 1 marked the 127th anniversary of the birth of the Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina, whose most famous work is the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman.” It was called a symbol of the Soviet era and a standard of socialist realism, although at one time the sculpture was almost rejected due to the fact that in the folds of a peasant woman’s dress someone saw the silhouette of the enemy of the people Leonid Trotsky.
Project of the Soviet pavilion by architect B. Iofan
In 1936, the USSR was preparing to participate in the World Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Paris. Architect Boris Iofan proposed making the Soviet pavilion in the form of a springboard, dynamically directed upward, with a sculpture on the roof. Boris Iofan explained his idea this way: “In the plan that arose in me, the Soviet pavilion was depicted as a triumphal building, reflecting in its dynamics the rapid growth of the achievements of the world’s first socialist state, the enthusiasm and cheerfulness of our great era of building socialism... So that any person at the first glance at our pavilion I felt that this was the pavilion of the Soviet Union... The sculpture seemed to me to be made of light, light metal, as if flying forward, like the unforgettable Louvre Nike - a winged victory.”
Soviet pavilion at an exhibition in Paris, 1937
The exposition itself was rather sparse; in fact, the pavilion was the main exhibit. The worker and the collective farmer personified the owners of the Soviet land - the proletariat and the peasantry. Iofan’s idea for the composition was inspired by the antique statue “Tyran Slayers”. The combination of a sickle and a hammer is also not the invention of Iofan and Mukhina; this idea has already been embodied in the works of some artists. The architect developed the general project, and the sculptor had to find its specific solution.
On the left are the Tyrannoclasts. V century BC e. On the right is a sculpture of Vera Mukhina *Worker and Collective Farm Woman*
In the summer of 1936, a competition was announced among sculptors, at which V. Andreev, M. Manizer, I. Shadr and V. Mukhina presented their projects. Mukhina’s main discovery was the apparent lightness and airiness of the massive sculpture, which was achieved thanks to the matter “flying” behind the figures. “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,” said Mukhina. Her project was approved, with the condition that she “dress” the figures, which were originally intended to be naked.
Sculpture projects by V. Andreev and M. Manizer
Plaster model by B. Iofan and sculpture project by V. Mukhina
At the beginning of 1937, from the factory where the assembly took place, a denunciation was received against Mukhina, which stated that the work could not be completed on time, since the sculptor constantly interrupted work and required corrections, and in some places the steel shell of the frame was clearly the profile of the enemy of the people L. Trotsky is visible. Then they did not respond to the denunciation, but upon returning from the exhibition, the commissar of the Soviet pavilion I. Mezhlauk and several engineers who worked on the creation of the statue were arrested.
Vera Mukhina in the studio, 1940s.
On the left is the assembly of the statue at the pilot plant. On the right is the assembled sculpture
The size of the statue was impressive: it reached 23.5 meters in height and weighed 75 tons. To transport it to the exhibition, the sculpture was cut into 65 pieces and loaded onto 28 platforms. After its assembly in Paris, the statue created a real sensation. The French graphic artist F. Maserel admitted: “Your sculpture amazed us. We spend whole evenings talking and arguing about it.” Picasso admired the way stainless steel looked against the lilac Parisian sky.
Statue assembly process
Romain Rolland wrote: “At the International Exhibition, on the banks of the Seine, two young Soviet giants raise the hammer and sickle, and we hear the heroic anthem pouring from their chests, which calls the peoples to freedom, to unity and will lead them to victory.”
Working model of the sculpture
