More Heroic Statuary

Here's two more of my favorite heroic socialist realist statues. Above, and in detail below, is the monument "Bohaterom Warszawy," "To the Heroes of Warsaw, 1939-1945" in Warsaw, Poland. The statue shows a bare-chested woman crushed down on one knee but rising up to defend herself with a sword. It harkens back both to ancient statues of Nike, goddess of victory, but also to the 19th-century armed mermaid statue ("Sirenka") that guards Warsaw from its old city square. It was erected in 1964 at the height of the Polish People's Republic; I took these photos in 1976.


Warsaw was pretty much destroyed during the Second World War. It suffered bombardment during the Nazi invasion of 1939, but then during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1942-43 and the general Warsaw Uprising of 1944 it became a battlefield as first the dwindling Jewish population and later the Polish Home Army rebelled. Huge portions of the city were flattened and thousands and thousands of civilians were killed.

The monument really captures the heroism and desperation of the times.


This is the monument to the True Heroes of the Revolution in Managua, Nicaragua. The inscription at the base of the monument reads, "Solo los Obreros y Campesinos Iran Hasta el Fin," "Only the Workers and Peasants Will See It Through To The End" I'm not sure when after the 1979 revolution it was erected but I photographed it in 1986. It shows a young bare-chested male guerrilla with a pickaxe in one hand and a rifle in the other. The statue has a rough quality about it, and a tremendous amount of motion is captured in the lines of the figure; even his hair is wild and free.

All photos by me. Click on them to see them larger.

An Unlikely Renaissance of Socialist Realism

Shown above is the new bronze "African Renaissance" statue in Dakar, Senegal, built by a North Korean company at the commission of the Senegalese government (pic snagged from the NYT). It shows the perfect heterosexual couple posed dramatically with their child pointing the way forward to the future. It's taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York. I understand all the criticism that has been made of this sculpture: the expense, the culturally tone-deaf depiction for a mostly Muslim country, the indulgence of North Korea's outdated socialist-realist aesthetic, and more importantly to me its somewhat sexist and heterosexist implication (as if); but I have to say this statue really works for me. Works of art like this are meant to be a sort of inspirational cartoon, and I find the sweeping heroic tableau visually exciting and dramatic. Check out the Renaissance Africaine website for a flash montage of close-ups and a beautifully-filmed propaganda video in French.

This is a model of the centerpiece statue for the Martin Luther King National Memorial being built in Washington DC. It was designed by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin, and has predictably attracted its share of criticism. Like the African Renaissance statue, its socialist realist pedigree is clear, and, like the African Renaissance statue, I love it.

Maya Lin's Vietnam War Memorial was revolutionary; it's beautiful and impactful. But I think it has engendered a whole new generation of cliches as memorials embrace abstraction and endless lists of sacred names. Frankly what I love about socialist realist statuary is its almost religious manipulation of symbol and motion. The metaphors slap you in the face, sure, but they generate the requisite awe, reverence and uplift.

It's surprising to see such a widely reviled aesthetic being resurrected in two such unlikely locations, but it sure makes me want to add both of the statues to my must-see list.

(see my previous post on the huge Ernst Thaelmann statue in Berlin)