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Image for View on the Monument to the Soviet Constitution, Lviv 1940

The monument to the Soviet constitution, or the Stalin Constitution, was built in Lviv in October 1939. The authors were the sculptor Serhyi Lytvynenko and Kyiv artist Mykhailo Dmytrenko, it’s possible that, the artists adapted the project, originally conceived in Moscow, to the new city conditions. The sculptors Yevhen Dzyndra and Andryi Koverko carried out the project, but the participation of Lytvynenko’s student the young sculptor Yakiv Chaika is also a possibility. The monument was made in the ceramic-sculpture factory, which opened on Muchna St. in 1939. The location for the monument was chosen in the city centre, the “island” on the boundary mark of the Hetman embankments, between Yahellon’ska st. and Holy Spirit square (now Hnatiuka St. and I. Pidkova Sq.) The current monument, made of cement on a wooden skeleton, presented a huge vertical composition in the image of a column, fitted with red flags. In the lower part there were figures of a Red Army man, worker, mother with child, female student and an old Hutsul with a boy. The cement figures and signs in Ukrainian, Polish and Yiddish symbolized the brotherhood of nations in accordance with the articles of the Stalin constitution. On June 30th 1941, German armies took over the city. Was it but not on this very day that the cement monument was broken and its pieces poured into holes and hollows which had been caused by the German bombardment of Lviv.

Title:

View on the Monument to the Soviet Constitution, Lviv 1940

Year:
1940
Source:
Central State Audiovisual and Electronic Archive in Kyiv (to 2022 - Central State CinePhotoPhono Archives of Ukraine named after H. Pshenychnyi)
See more:
Urban Media Archive
Worked on the material:
Research, comment

Iryna Kotlobulatova

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