Secrets of the steel pair: 5 little-known facts about the famous “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”
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Next to VDNKh is one of the most impressive and iconic statues in Russia, a masterpiece by the architect Vera Mukhina called The Worker and the Collective Farm Girl. The statue is an example of socialist realism at its best and represents the ideal images of the Soviet man and woman.
In 2022, not only the 105th anniversary of the October Revolution was celebrated, but also 85 years since the creation of one of its most recognizable symbols. The eternal union of the working class and the peasantry in Soviet Russia was embodied precisely in the steel monument to Mukhina.
And, like real workers and peasants of the USSR, this stainless couple went through a lot.
- Inspired by ancient heroes
The statue was created by Vera Mukhina, a master of socialist realist sculpture, for the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. This was the first time the Soviets had been invited to such an event, so the government (namely Josef Stalin) was eager to make a big splash.
While working on the Soviet pavilion, which was to be crowned by the “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”, Mukhina and architect Boris Iofan (the author of the unrealized project for the Palace of the Soviets) were inspired by the sculptural pair of tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the Greek duo who killed the Persian tyrant and brought democracy to Athens. The similarity of the sculptural pairs is obvious: in the center, both heroes put their hands forward and put their legs forward, and at the edges they took them back.
- Statue resembling Leon Trotsky
While working on the monument, a funny incident occurred: a hostile engineer wrote a letter to Stalin, claiming that Mukhina allegedly secretly depicted the face of Leon Trotsky somewhere in the folds of a collective farmer’s dress.
The apparent absurdity of such a statement did not diminish the seriousness of the consequences, because in those years the great Stalinist purge was on the rise, so Mukhina could have faced serious trouble if this were true.
Unfortunately for the conspirator, everything worked out. Officials meticulously examined the statue and found no trace of Stalin’s sworn enemy.
- Rivalry with the Third Reich monument
During the World Exhibition in Paris, the main struggle unfolded between the two future enemies of the Second World War: the USSR and Nazi Germany. Two monumental pavilions of authoritarian states were located directly opposite each other on opposite sides of the main pedestrian Trocadero boulevard.
The German pavilion, designed by the infamous Nazi architect Albert Speer, looked like a gigantic “III” (Third Reich) surmounted by an eagle. The symbols of Soviet socialism and German Nazism literally clashed face to face – a note of French humor from the administration of the World Exhibition.
Mukhina herself recalled: “The Germans waited a long time for our pavilion to be completed, wanting to know its height along with the sculptural group. When it was installed, the Germans quickly built a tower about ten meters higher than ours over their pavilion. An eagle was placed upstairs. But for such a height, the eagle was small and looked rather pitiful.
Some critics praised Mukhina and Iofan’s monumental masterpiece, but some were skeptical, calling it “faceless modernism”. Nevertheless, both the Soviet and German pavilions received the Grand Prix of the exhibition.
- Find the right place
After the end of the event, the worker and the collective farmer returned to their homeland. But a problem arose: upon arrival in the Soviet Union, the monument had to look for a suitable place for installation for a long time.
At first, the possibility of building it at the Rybinsk hydroelectric power station on the Volga River was considered, then they thought about Sparrow Hills in Moscow, where it could be seen from almost anywhere in the city. The designs of the installation of the monument on the spit of Bolotny Island and on Manezhnaya Square, created by Boris Iofan, have also been preserved. These were the last projects he made before his death. But these ideas didn’t work.
In 1939, during the opening of VDNH, the statue was installed in front of the main entrance on a relatively small pedestal, which was three times lower than in Paris. Mukhina was outraged by this decision, calling the new pedestal a “stump” and stating that beauty was lost due to such a low level.
- Cinema symbol and new pedestal
In 1947, Mukhina’s sculpture became the official emblem of the Mosfilm film studio. Since then, every Soviet film made by this studio has been represented by a logo depicting a man and a woman holding a hammer and sickle.
In 2003, it was decided to restore the sculpture, and only in 2010 it was reopened – and it finally received a higher pavilion-pedestal (34.5 meters, 10 meters higher than the previous one), bringing the total height to almost 60 meters: the fifth tallest statue in Russia.
Today, this steel pair pleases the eye not only of the guests of the capital, but of all the people passing by and passing by every day.
Ulyana Lekarkina.
Author’s photo
Message Secrets of the steel pair: 5 little-known facts about the famous “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” first appeared on Moscow truth.
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