Monuments Marking Historical Derailments, 1937

The first version of this article was prompted by events and exhibitions commemorating the centenary of the Russian Revolution of 1917 “under Western eyes,” namely in London. These commemorations painted a surprisingly positive picture of early Soviet revolutionary art, paying little attention to the difference between avant-garde and socialist-realist art. The monumental works of the latter were received strikingly positively by the 21stcentury public on these occasions. What made me want to carry on with the topic of the exhibitions (1917, 1937 and 2017) was a contradiction not without some parallels in our day: a peaceful demonstration of economic power and readiness for collaboration existing alongside and being undermined by rivalry between militarizing states with local wars in the background, all in the context of an increasingly tense international situation. The first part of my article seeks to explain the reasons behind the enthusiastic reception of the Soviet pavilion in Paris in 1937. The second part explores the antecedents to the works presented in the Soviet pavilion of the World Fair and the International Exhibition of Arts and Techniques Applied to Modern Life in Paris in 1937, those of artists Aleksandr Deyneka and Vera Mukhina, especially the symbolic layers and fate of Mukhina’s sculpture Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. The final part discusses striking similarities between Mukhina’s monument and the Naval Monument at the Horthy Bridge in Budapest which were erected in the same year, in 1937, both in terms of aesthetic form and of their fate. This part of the article reflects on the historical background of the Hungarian monument, which referred to a falsified glorious view of World War 1 in the context of forced nationalism in a country poised on the threshold of World War 2.