Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Cast in 1941. 1937
- Bronze. 250 х 145 х 97
- СО-94
Received in 1946 from the Central Purchasing Committee, Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council
Grigory Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze (1886–1937) was a Soviet government and party figure. He was the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy (from 1930), People’s Commissar for Heavy Industry (from 1932), member of the Central Committee Politburo, and member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the USSR Central Executive Committee.
Ordzhonikidze was one of the so-called “Old Bolsheviks” — partisan activists that were present at the beginning of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and subsequently held leading positions in the new governmental hierarchy. This portrait is a typical depiction of a “leader” in the traditions of Socialist Realism. This is already evident in the title of the work: Sergo was Ordzhonikidze’s party alias, under which Ordzhonokidze was mythologized in Soviet “iconography” as a close comrade-in-arms of Lenin and Stalin. The scale of the sculpture and the figure’s energetic, forceful gestures, as if he were giving a speech to a crowd, create the image of a leader endowed with extraordinary human qualities and phenomenal moral strength.