Yevgeny Vuchetich

Yevgeny Viktorovich Vuchetich (Russian: Евгений Викторович Вучетич; 28 December [O.S. 15 December] 1908–12 April 1974) was a prominent Soviet sculptor and artist. He is known for his heroic monuments, often of allegoric style, including The Motherland Calls, the largest sculpture in the world at the time.

Biography[edit]

Vuchetich was born in Yekaterinoslav, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), the son of Viktor Vuchetich (Vučetić), a Montenegrin immigrant from the clan of Grbalj, and Anna Andreevna Stewart, of Russian and of French descent.^[1]

He was a prominent representative of the Socialist Realism style and was awarded with the Lenin Prize in 1970, the Stalin Prize (1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950), Order of Lenin (twice), Order of the Patriotic War (2nd degree), Hero of Socialist Labor (1967) and People's Artist of the USSR (1959).

Family[edit]

One of his step-granddaughters is Israeli politician Ksenia Svetlova.

Works[edit]

Soviet War Memorial^[2] in Treptower Park, Berlin (1946–1949), overseen by a 13m tall monument of a Soviet soldier holding a German child, with a sword, over a broken swastika. This war memorial design was later used on coins and medals commemorating the end of fascist rule in 1945.
Nikolai Vatutin monument in Kyiv, Ukraine (1948).^[3] This monument was dismantled on 9 February 2023.^[4]
Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares in the United Nations garden (1957)^[5]
Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares in front of the plant "Gazoapparat" in Volgograd.
A sculpture of Felix Dzerzhinsky (1958), colloquially known as "Iron Felix", used to be in Moscow at the Lubyanka Square.
The Motherland Calls! at Mamayev Kurgan (1963–1967)