Demolition of Iron Felix

On the night of August 22-23, 1991, by decision of the Moscow City Council, the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka Square was dismantled.

Remembering the history of the creation and demolition of this monument, one involuntarily wants to exclaim: “This is how earthly glory passes” … In Latin – Sic transit gloria mundi. This phrase sounds like an exclamation during the inauguration ceremony of the new pope, in front of which a piece of cloth is burned three times – as a sign that everything earthly, including the power and glory he receives, is illusory, changeable and perishable.

Lubyanskaya Square itself was renamed Dzerzhinsky Square long before the monument was erected on it – on November 21, 1926, 4 months after the death of Iron Felix. And on the tenth anniversary of his death, July 9, 1936, the Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution:

“In connection with the 10th anniversary of the death of Comrade. Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, one of the closest associates of Lenin and Stalin, the organizer of the Cheka of the OGPU and the first major victories of the party in industry and transport, the Central Executive Committee decides: to install on the square. Dzerzhinsky in Moscow, a monument to F. E. Dzerzhinsky.

In 1940, a competition was announced for the best design of the monument. Among the five participants, the most successful, according to the jury, the work was presented by Sarra Lebedeva. She is almost the only sculptor to whom Dzerzhinsky posed during his lifetime. The bust of the “Chief Chekist”, created by Lebedeva in 1925, is considered the best portrait of Felix Edmundovich and is kept in the funds of the Tretyakov Gallery. In the Lebedev version of the monument, Dzerzhinsky is dressed in a long overcoat, his right hand is in his pocket, his head is slightly lowered …

Second place went to the project proposed by Vera Mukhina. Here is how Olga Voronova, her biographer, described the project proposed by Mukhina:

“Strictness, inflexibility … She will emphasize the same features in the image of F. E. Dzerzhinsky. Critics who argued that Dzerzhinsky was too balanced and one-sided in her interpretation were largely right. “Iron Felix” turned out to be really iron: dry, ascetic, not a person – the embodiment of duty.

However, the war prevented these wonderful projects from being brought to life, and when, after 15 years, they again returned to the idea of ​​erecting a monument to Iron Felix, this responsible task was entrusted to four times Stalin Prize laureate Yevgeny Vuchetich, who, together with architect Grigory Zakharov, created this grandiose 11- a one-ton all-metal monument (both the figure and the pedestal were made of bronze).

Some time before its installation, in order to check how the monument would organically fit into the appearance of the old Moscow square, a full-size silhouette model of the monument was made from sheets of plywood and tried on on the spot. Only with the help of such a laborious method was the architect Grigory Zakharov able to clarify the final dimensions of the future structure.

Finally, on December 20, 1958 (the date was timed to coincide with the Day of the Chekist), a solemn opening ceremony took place with a large crowd of people. It was attended by First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev, Politburo member of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Dmitry Ustinov, Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Suslov and other leaders of the Soviet state, as well as Dzerzhinsky’s widow Sophia and his son Jan.

On August 30, 1960, according to the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR No. 1327, the monument by Yevgeny Vuchetich was put under state protection as “a monument of art to be protected as a monument of national importance.” Demolition and relocation of such monuments could be carried out only by decision of the federal government.

However, in August 1991, all this did not prevent the demolition of the monument in one night … According to media reports, on the evening of August 22, after it became known about the failure of the putsch organized by the USSR State Emergency Committee, thousands of Muscovites and guests of the city gathered near the KGB building on Lubyanka Square . At first, the demonstrators tried to organize the demolition of the monument to the “executioner” on their own: they found a cable somewhere, hooked it to the bus and started pulling. The police watched the events from the outside and did not interfere in what was happening. Meanwhile, the uncontrolled fall of the 11-ton Iron Felix threatened with numerous casualties from flying fragments. Moreover, a heavy monument could easily bring down the underground passage under the square and damage the communications of the Lubyanka metro station located there. In this critical situation, Moscow City Council deputy Sergei Stankevich called on the people to calm down and not to bring down the monument, but to wait for its official demolition. The equipment required for this arrived at the site in 3 hours, and already on the night of August 23, “Iron Felix” was carefully removed from the pedestal, loaded onto a car platform and taken to the Central House of Artists, where other monuments demolished during mass demonstrations in August 1991.

In 1994, a bronze monument to the first security officer was installed in the Muzeon art park on Krymsky Val.

Sergei Ishkov.

On the pictures: a monument to Dzerzhinsky on the Lubyanka – photo regnum.ru; monument to Dzerzhinsky in the Muzeon – photo pamyatniki-v-rossii.ru