Images of Soviet and Russian Monumental Sculpture as a reflection of State Ideology: transformation of functions and evolution of Meanings

Yuan' Xinyu Postgraduate student, Department of History and Theory of Design and Media Communications, St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design 46 Voznesensky Ave., Saint Petersburg, 190068, Russia yuanxinyu@rambler.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

During the Soviet period, there was a special cultural policy of the government, which was focused on managing the worldview of the whole people. In her light, fine art was understood as a form not so much of a reflection of a "truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development" as of its transformation. A special role in this process was assigned to the monumental sculpture, which broadcast the ideological messages of the Soviet state and changed the space so as to optimally broadcast the first ones to people. To achieve this, Soviet sculptors and architects managed to form a special artistic language and means of expression that allowed them to convey meanings relevant to time, the very "Myths of Ideology" that L. Mumford wrote about. The principles and techniques of sculpture execution built by them still attract the attention of the authors, but in the absence of a full-fledged ideology, sources of "feeding" with "big ideas". In this light, the timeliness and novelty of this study is determined by the fact that it examines for the first time in historical dynamics changes in the ideological content and its artistic embodiment, which occur under the influence of views and concepts expressing the interests of the Soviet government, using the example of monumental sculpture.

The art of the USSR has repeatedly become the object of close attention of researchers. B. R. Whipper in the section "Sculpture" of the book "Introductions to the historical study of Art" wrote that "a work of sculpture has a direct, tactile force of persuasion" ^[1]. V. M. Rogachevsky in the brochure "On monumental sculpture" on the example of works by Russian-Soviet authors He revealed the peculiarities of the monument's connection with its surrounding architecture, highlighting the following: following the principles of classical sculpture in the construction of spatial forms, developing relief plans, generalization and flattening of figures in compositions ^[2]. O. A. Krivdina devoted scientific works to the work of individual sculptors, including N. S. Pimenov, S. I. Galberg, M. G. Krylov, M. M. Antakolsky et al., paying attention to the problem of synthesis of architecture and sculpture. An original interpretation of the topic can be found in the book "Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin" (1987) by the philosopher and art theorist B. Groys, who found the Soviet project an aesthetic phenomenon, a total work of art (authored by Stalin himself), as well as a realized utopia set at the intellectual and aesthetic level by avant-garde movements ^[3]. The rejection of the Soviet past destroyed a lot, and put a lot into oblivion, so the attribution of a considerable number of Soviet monuments is still waiting for its researchers. It should be noted that the attention to Soviet and Russian monumentalism is extremely strong among foreign scientists. Thus, among the works of recent years, it is necessary to name the American researcher Aaron Cohen, who believes that now "serious monuments to the tragic past and bizarre representations of everyday life reflect the structural realities of the new Russian memorial culture" ^{[4, p. 6]}.

The uniqueness of the artistic solution of the works of Soviet monumental propaganda was largely based on the dissemination of visual quotations. Moreover, they arose on the ground that had been prepared by many earlier, since they replaced the idea of a religious feat, so characteristic of Russian culture. Instead, during the Soviet period, actions comparable to him were praised, which testified to the ability of an already "new person" to perform a feat, for example, military or social, in the name of strengthening the young state. In such conditions, as V. S. Turchin believed, monuments depicting specific characters did not always represent such significant persons – more often there were attempts to "present" an ordinary image in the halo of the highest historical regularity ^[5].

Pre-war Soviet monumental sculpture

In 1918, a decree was issued "On the removal of monuments erected in honor of the tsars and their servants, and the development of projects for monuments of the Russian Socialist Revolution," which led to the development of certain proposals, which later received the generalized name of Lenin's plan of "monumental propaganda." Among the heroes whose monuments were to be erected were, first of all, revolutionaries, as well as representatives of Russian and world culture and art. During the period from 1918 to 1921, dozens of monuments, hundreds of plaques and inscriptions were created. All of them were considered as important means of agitating the revolution and propagating communist ideology. In the conditions of the ongoing civil war, and then the restoration of the country, it was necessary to consolidate society and even change it by demonstrating exemplary deeds and personalities for the USSR. K. P. Karagoda points out that "Soviet ideologists believed that the communist system was the result of the path of all mankind, therefore the art of the USSR should absorb all the achievements of the art of the past. In their understanding, before that, creativity served the exploiting class, but now its achievements will be used by the classes of the new communist society freed from oppression" ^{[6, p. 24]}. For this reason, the images of monumental sculptors were often interpreted by them using fine plastics. This was an important part of the propaganda, since the visualization of state policy from squares and other public places had to get into literally every house, into any interior.

The examples for the masters of Soviet monumental sculpture were works created by representatives of the pre-revolutionary academic tradition, for example, F. S. Shchedrin, S. S. Pimenov, V. I. Demut-Malinovsky, etc. These authors participated, for example, in the design of the St. Petersburg Admiralty building. The works placed on its facades, pediments and friezes served not so much as an ornament, but rather as a demonstration of additional meanings in the overall symbolic value of the object. In the same spirit, sculptures of generals M. L. Kutuzov and M. B. Barclay de Tolly by B. I. Orlovsky, which are still located on the square in front of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, as well as works by P. K. Klodt, were made. The latter brilliantly embodied both beauty and greatness in his equestrian monuments The Russian state. Patriotism and love for the Motherland are the leitmotif of A. M. Opekushin's works, which are characterized by classical staging, proportionality and reveal themselves in a circular view, being commensurate with the surrounding space.

In synthesis with the classical tradition, Soviet sculptors, following the plan of monumental propaganda, began to create monuments to revolutionaries and outstanding personalities from the point of view of communist ideology: K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin, I. V. Stalin, S. M. Kirov, other leaders of the party and government, as well as writers, composers, etc. Monuments to these figures began to be placed in public places in all cities of the USSR, and their small porcelain or plaster counterparts, often created by the same sculptors, appeared in the homes of Soviet citizens. The monument to the Soviet Constitution in front of the Moscow City Council (now the City Hall of the Russian capital), opened in 1919, is the largest and one of the first monuments erected after the October Revolution. The obelisk was made by architect D. P. Osipov and sculptor N. A. Andreev. The authors, in an effort to "commemorate the great days of the Russian Socialist Revolution" ^[7], erected a 26-meter triangular obelisk. At its foot, the artists placed a concrete figure of a winged woman, which symbolized freedom and very much resembled Nika of Samothrace. With a light wave of her hand, she seemed to point to the future, and with the other she held the world ball. Perhaps due to the ambiguous perception of the monument, which in the 1930s was already seen as rather pretentious and old-fashioned, since it was made in accordance with the generalized and strict style of the 1920s, it was dismantled.

In the 1920s, monuments were often dedicated to "dear Ilyich" – the image of the "living" Lenin, such as his contemporaries knew the leader. In the 1920s and 1930s, N. A. Andreev created his sculptural "Leniniana", in which he sought a significant share of historical concreteness combined with personal impressions from meetings with the leader. At first, the author made small sketches depicting variants of the head and semi-figures of "Ilyich" leaning over a table or behind a podium. His works, many of which were never translated into stone or metal and remained at the level of plaster castings, later served as iconographic models for other masters. Later, the image of the leader could be seen both in monuments on squares and in small forms. Thus, the myth of Lenin and the children was fully embodied in the sculpture. It is enough to recall the work of G. N. Postnikov "V. I. Lenin comforts a crying boy", made at the Monumentsculpture factory, or the plaster monument standing at the V. Bering Kamchatka State University. Such works were fundamentally important for the Soviet ideological machine, which cultivated the image of a "happy Soviet childhood", where the "mask of a disciplined, positive, serious and calm model child" prevailed ^{[8, p. 597]}. Other representatives of the new government also deserved the attention of Soviet muralists. For example, the spouses M. G. Manizer and E. A. Janson-Manizer with architect V. A. Wittman created the first bronze monument in honor of the Commissioner for Press, Propaganda and Agitation of Petrograd V. Volodarsky (1925), which is now located in St. Petersburg. The statesman is depicted here at the moment of making a public speech, and his hand is significantly raised up.

A. T. Matveev, the creator of the so-called "Matveev school", from which many famous Soviet masters came out, performed the sculpture group "October" (1927), which is presented today at the Oktyabrsky concert hall in St. Petersburg. Three male figures – a worker, a peasant and a Red Army soldier – are depicted naked in accordance with the classical tradition. Only a few elements point to historical reality: a soldier's budenovka on his head and a worker's hammer. The ancient heritage was in tune with the Stalinist era, the architecture of which inherited from the classics not only the elements of the order system, but also the pomposity of Roman architects. In popular and widespread parks of culture and recreation at that time, for example, in the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Recreation in Moscow, plaster copies of antique sculptures such as, for example, "Discobolus" by Miron and others were exhibited.

In a similar style, Soviet sculptors offered solutions for public places. So, in the late 1920s, M. G. Manizer created a "Discometcher" and a "Wrestler", in which, like A. T. Matveev in October, he expressed his desire to embody the ideal of an athletic naked body, and at the same time the position of the state, which advocated the importance of sports for citizens. It is no coincidence that the norms of the TRP ("Ready for work and defense") were approved at that time. The attraction of Soviet sculptors to classical models is also noticeable in the interiors of metro stations. Philologist V. G. Shchukin wrote in one of his articles: "The leaders were depicted on the stands in the pose of Roman emperors or resembled ancient gods and heroes: This is what Stalin looked like, for example, when he met subway passengers among the Dorian columns in the Kurskaya-Koltseva ground pavilion. Two identical ground pavilions of the Dynamo station exactly resemble Roman sanctuaries, which, according to the architect D. N. Chechulin, embodied the ancient cult of physical strength and beauty. The "Roman" eidology of this station contains a reminder of civic valor and pride in its mighty state" ^{[9, p. 95]}.

Since 1934, after M. Gorky announced the fundamental principles of the new artistic direction at the First Congress of Writers, socialist realism has been recognized as an official artistic method. In the field of monumental sculpture, this led to the fact that the works created under the state order had to meet strict requirements and restrictions, which were often imposed on virtually all stages of the process of their creation. The choice of the theme, the ideological, meaningful and formal construction of any work were regulated. In the 1930s and 1940s, the service of art to politics resulted in monumental compositions of VDNH, bas-reliefs on the facades of buildings in different cities of the country. Their role in glorifying the ideas of socialism and the images of the leaders of the state increased at that time. In the light of the strengthening of the connection of sculpture with the life of the country and with the Soviet reality, there has been a change of vectors in artistic life. The previously sought–after constructivism has given way to a new method - socialist realism. Human figures in their lively and direct appearance have become in demand again. The central theme for them is the image of a contemporary, the builder of socialism. One of the most famous and creatively original of the monuments of those years should be considered the image of S. M. Kirov (1938) in St. Petersburg by the sculpture of N. V. Tomsky. Immediately after the tragic death of the First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU(b), the Leningrad City Executive Committee announced a design competition, which was won by the work of N. V. Tomsky and architect N. A. Trotsky. In accordance with the wishes of the city administration, the authors were forced to deploy the monument in the direction of the Kirov plant, and not, as planned before, the Narva Gate. In order to enhance the background of the monument, a building in the Stalinist Empire style was later erected behind it. The height of the granite sculpture, together with the pedestal, was more than fifteen meters. On the edges of the latter are bronze bas–reliefs depicting scenes related to the ideology of "happy Soviet childhood", the peaceful labor of the country's citizens and the heroic events of the Civil War. One of them contains a quote from S. M. Kirov's speech: "In a few years, you and I, relying on the achievements of socialism in our Soviet country, will turn both hemispheres of the earth onto the path of communism" ^{[10, p. 56]}. The rapid movement forward, the pointing gesture emphasize the determination of the statesman's intention.

The dialogue with the classical principle is also manifested in V. I. Mukhina's composition "The Worker and the Collective Farmer" (1937). The master was inspired by the images of the sculpture group "Tyrannoclasts Harmodius and Aristogeiton" – images of two brothers who killed a tyrant and freed the inhabitants of Athens from their oppression. In the original design of the Soviet sculptor, the figures were, as in the ancient original, naked, but then they still received vestments. In them, the author sought to embody the powerful optimism and will to win of the people, the willingness to change the world and, among other things, to establish new canons of beauty. Architect B. M. Iofan, who won the design competition for the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris, for which the sculpture group was created, wrote the following: "In my idea, the Soviet pavilion was painted as a triumphal building, reflecting with its dynamics the powerful growth of the achievements of the world's first socialist state, the enthusiasm and cheerfulness of our great era of building socialism, when work is a matter of honor, valor and heroism. This idea must be expressed so clearly that anyone, at the first glance at our pavilion, feels that this is the pavilion of the Soviet Union" ^{[11, p. 151]}.

Post-war images of Soviet monumental sculpture

The Great Patriotic War interrupted the process of creating new approaches to the compositional, spatial and artistic visualization of the political ideas of the Soviet state in the images of monumental sculpture. But after its completion, a new thematic series arose related to perpetuating the memory of fallen heroes and victims of the enemy. In recent years, many researchers have been dealing with this issue, in particular N. V. Elizarova ^[12], E. B. Tibilova ^[13], N. O. Ustkachkintsev ^[14], M. I. Agarkova ^[15] and others. The geography of such studies, as a rule, focuses on a certain city, less often a region, for example, Omsk, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Perm, Donetsk, etc. The growing interest on the part of scientists is largely due to the rethinking of the significance of that war for modern Russians and the transformation of the people's memory of those events into part of an ideological strategy.

For half a century after the end of the Second World War, the process of creating such monuments was not interrupted. It unfolded during the heyday of Soviet monumental art, which occurred in the second half of the 20th century. So, the sculptors faced a difficult artistic task: to erect objects that were supposed to correspond to the greatness of the feat and the memory of the fallen heroes or the labor of those who worked in the name of victory. Hence the colossal size of the sculpture, which fully met the requirements of propaganda and ideology. At the same time, the artistic and figurative side was often pushed into the background. In 1948, a special government decree was published, according to which it was necessary to install bust monuments to the Heroes of the Soviet Union in cities and villages. Following this, projects of large-scale memorial architectural and sculptural complexes began to be actively developed. The first of them was an ensemble with a monument to Soviet soldiers who fell in the battles for Berlin in Berlin's Treptow Park (1949). It was a project that was carried out under the leadership of E. V. Vuchetich and J. B. Belopolsky. On an embankment mound, the authors placed a bronze figure of a Soviet soldier standing on the wreckage of a swastika, who was holding a German child he had saved. Later, a similar compositional solution with a mound and a figure with a sword was repeated in Magnitogorsk ("Rear to the Front") and on Mamaev Kurgan in Volgograd ("Motherland calls"), forming, according to a correspondent of Izvestia, "a majestic sculptural trilogy about the exploits and heroism of the Soviet people" ^{[16, c. 6]}. However, the Volgograd monument-ensemble "Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad" by E. V. Vuchetich was more complicated and consisted of several objects. According to the plan, the audience moved between them, entered the pavilions, plunging into a special emotional state.

In addition to the large-scale monuments erected after the war, there were also less colossal monuments dedicated to fallen soldiers. Such sculptures were erected, as a rule, on "round dates", for example, in 1960, 1965, 1970, 1975 and other years. Similar complexes appeared on the territory of modern Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and other former Soviet republics. Since the mid-1960s, a new creative trend has emerged: a number of relatively small monuments have appeared with in-depth psychological characteristics of the image with romantic and lyrical features. For example, this is the monument to D. Guramishvili, created by the Georgian sculptor M. I. Berdzenishvili. In 1960, in the wake of the "thaw" and a kind of rehabilitation of the "blockade theme" in Leningrad at that time, A.V. Vasiliev, E. A. Levinson, V. V. Isaev, R. K. Taurit and other authors created a memorial at the Piskarevskoye cemetery in the spirit of the best examples of pre-revolutionary memorial sculpture. In 1975, A. A. Kamensky, S. B. Speransky, V. V. Isaeva, M. K. Anikushin performed the monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad, which was a narrative about a heroic page in the history of the city, imprinted in bronze and granite. Sculptures of soldiers-defenders were placed around the obelisk on pylons, inside there was a Memorial hall "Blockade", in the center of which there was a multi–figure composition "Blockade". The authors sought to make the sculptures commensurate with the audience, as if introducing the latter into another reality, forcing them to empathize and live through the course of those events, leading the narrative from defense to liberation. In the 1970s, such monuments increasingly fit into the urban environment, forming a single whole with it.

As the destroyed cities were rebuilt, monuments began to be erected not only to war heroes, but also to cultural and scientific figures. In 1957, a monument to Alexander Pushkin, authored by V. A. Petrov and sculptor M. K. Anikushin, was inaugurated on the Leningrad Arts Square. G. N. Postnikov became the author of monuments dedicated to the conquest of space, for example, the monument "Glory to the Conquerors of Space" (1962, Monino), the sculptural composition "Into Space" (1963, Taganrog). Such monuments arose in accordance with the course of state policy.

Post-Soviet monumental sculpture

For many years, in front of the monuments to V. I. Lenin, I. V. Stalin and other figures of the USSR, citizens of the country took oaths, for example, at the dedication to the Octobrists, pioneers, Komsomol members, to the party, so they revered the memory. Copies of these works in the form of small or cabinet plastics decorated the interiors of public spaces or houses. However, the liberalization of the political course and the decline of the ideological press, as well as other processes that took place in Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, led to the fact that these images and the monuments themselves lost their historical and artistic value in the eyes of people. Some of them were even destroyed. At the same time, after decades of a kind of "desacralization" and "demythologization", the modern position of the Russian government has also changed the attitude towards monuments related to Soviet history, especially the events of the Great Patriotic War. Thus, in 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on the allocation of a separate section with monuments of that time in the register of cultural heritage sites. At one of the official meetings, the country's leader stressed: "Unlike some of our neighbors, we do not destroy anything [monuments]. We take care of everything" ^[17].

Within the framework of national projects in Russia, about thirty memorial sites are created annually, as well as facilities dedicated to the Great Patriotic War are being improved and reconstructed. This process is supervised by the Russian Military Historical Society. In 1995, as a sign of change, a complex was created on Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow, designed under the guidance of sculptor Z. K. Tsereteli. In the center there is an obelisk and a sculptural composition depicting the Orthodox Saint George the Victorious striking a dragon. An example is the Rzhevsky Memorial to a Soviet soldier. Sculptor A. S. Korobtsov and architect K. E. Fomin sought to "recreate the reality of this event [the battles near the city of Rzhev in 1942-1943]" ^{[18, p. 309]}. The authors turned again to the motif of the mound and the single figure of a warrior mounted on a huge frame. A kind of continuation of the arguments of the same authors about the importance of the memory of wartime in the images of monumental sculpture was the memorial, opened in early 2024 in the Gatchina district of St. Petersburg, on the eve of the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Leningrad from the blockade. The developers chose the motif of the stele, around which the figures of old men, women, children – dead and still alive, but preparing for execution - were placed on a hill.

Modern Russian monumental sculpture often refers to events not only of wartime, but also of pre-Soviet times. For example, in 1997, a colossal statue of Peter the Great by Z. K. Tsereteli appeared in Moscow. The St. Petersburg researcher A. O. Kotlomanov characterized it as follows: "... a genuine monument of the epoch, combining insane pathos with stylistic confusion, as if it were a postmodern parody of monumental sculpture" ^{[19, p. 59]}. No less eclectic in terms of decoration were the compositions of the same author on Manezhnaya Square, depicting fairy-tale characters under the dome, on top of which is St. George the Victorious as a symbol of Moscow.

Another pole of modern monumental sculpture are objects in which the creators rely on the ideas of Soviet masters, but at the same time solve problems relevant to the time. An example is the memorial "Wall of Sorrow" in Moscow by G. Frangulyan, dedicated to the victims of repression. The artistic language of Soviet monumental sculpture was no longer suitable for revealing this topic. The author sought other means and created a wall of shadows of the dead. There are openings in it through which the audience passed, as if putting themselves in the place of the participants in those events. However, due to the successful inclusion of this sculpture in the urban space, its tragic pathos is poorly read by residents and guests of the city, who perceive it more as part of a well-maintained territory, without feeling the meanings that stand behind it. Modern monumental sculpture is often small "metaphor messages" hidden inside minimalist architecture, which is why they can sometimes be difficult to distinguish and separate into an independent statement and narrative.

Conclusions

An analysis of the influence of Soviet state ideology on the process of creating monumental sculpture shows that in the 1920s and 1940s, the authors mainly turned to visualization of the most important areas of state propaganda. No wonder one of the first slogans of the Bolsheviks was: "Every Bolshevik is an agitator" ^{[20, p. 182]}. In the 1920s, it was necessary to use "romantic revolutionary material", in particular, "to glorify the exploits of the Red Army in the Civil War" ^{[21, p. 76]}. In addition, a number of authors developed the sculptural "Staliniana" and "Lenineana". The masters in their projects focused on the achievements of the pre-revolutionary Russian art school, as well as on the ancient heritage, sometimes directly quoting and interpreting ancient images, turning them into collective images of contemporaries. In the second half of the twentieth century, one of the key themes of Soviet monumental sculpture was the Great Patriotic War: after its end, there was a need to perpetuate the memory of the victory of the fascist army by the Soviet people. It is no coincidence that one of the first large-scale memorial complexes was created in Germany, largely as a reminder to Western countries of the strength of the USSR. Later, monuments of the work of Soviet sculptors often reflected the party line, "supported" important events for it, for example, the first flight into space, anniversaries of figures of Russian-Soviet culture, etc. In the post-Soviet period, due to the change in the political regime, the importance of monumental sculpture for the authorities has greatly decreased. Moreover, the lack of clear prescriptions of state policy in terms of propaganda through monumental sculpture of a certain ideology has led to a crisis of Russian monumental art in general. Many of the monuments that had already been created were dismantled, and some were destroyed themselves. Only in the light of the revision of ideological positions at the beginning of the XXI century. Once again, monuments were needed that would carry a certain semantic load. Modern artists are looking for a new figurative language of sculpture and quite often turn to the Soviet heritage. For many, it is characterized by penetration and allegory. Their search for original forms and content largely depends on the state and, as V. I. Mukhina wrote, the presence of "big ideas" in it: mourning for the victims, rejoicing on the occasion of victory, glorification of freedom, etc.

It is important to clarify that this article mainly examines the works of monumental sculptors from Moscow and St. Petersburg, who worked under large government orders. For this reason, the forms and content of their work naturally turned out to be conditioned by ideology and partly limited by it, while, as in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, public places in provincial cities were also decorated with monuments that not only repeated the capital's decisions and finds, but often offered original solutions in ideological and artistic terms ^[22], which, of course, should be the topic of further research.