Explore the Location and description of this artwork.
Stalinallee, formerly the Große Frankfurter Straße, had been badly damaged in World War II and was renamed on Stalin's birthday, 21 December 1949, in honor of the Soviet head of state. The newly designed street was a political statement in a post-war reconstruction effort starting in 1951 and comprised an imposing tree-lined boulevard with shops, entertainment venues, gastronomy, and especially monumental new apartment blocks. These were to be constructed by and for workers.
The 4.80 meter high bronze statue showed the Soviet head of party and state in a typical military pose with a uniform and medals, in his left hand a scroll. The slightly conical three-meter high pedestal, variously described as being made of marble, concrete or sandstone, was placed on a masonry platform. The temporary location between Andreasstrasse and Koppenstrasse was across the street from a sports hall built in 1951 for the World Festival of Youth and Students (the building was demolished in 1972).
Which Soviet artist created the statue is a matter of debate among experts. According to one source it was presumably created in the atelier of the Soviet sculptor Grigory Postnikov (Григорий Николаевич Постников, 1914–1978). Other sources name Nikolai Tomsky and Sergey Merkurov, the latter because of similarities with a statue erected in 1937 in Moscow. A Russian source states that Tomsky created the monument.			
			
		
		
			
			
		
Contrary to the original intention to move the statue to Strausberger Platz on Stalinallee as soon as that key location was ready for adornment in the late 1950s, it was left at its original location.
World Festival of Youth and Students Sergey Merkurov Grigory Postnikov World War II Strausberger Platz Stalinallee Nikolai Tomsky Soviet