The Monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky (), also known by the nickname Iron Felix (), commemorates
Felix Dzerzhinsky
Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (; ; – 20 July 1926), nicknamed Iron Felix (), was a Soviet revolutionary and politician of Polish origin. From 1917 until his death in 1926, he led the first two Soviet secret police organizations, the Cheka a ...
(1877–1926),
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
revolutionary and head of the first two Soviet state-security secret police organizations, the
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...
and the
OGPU
The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...
. The monument, designed by and incorporating a statue of Dzerzhinsky sculpted by
Yevgeny Vuchetich, was erected on
Dzerzhinsky Square, Moscow in 1958, next to the
Lubyanka Building
Lubyanka (, ) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick designed by Alex ...
.
History
Construction and unveiling
In 1918, the
All-Russian Extraordinary Commission
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...
was located in the buildings on Lubyanska Square, the founder and first head of which was Felix Dzerzhinsky, who later headed other state security secret police agencies that were located there. In the autumn of 1926, shortly after Dzerzhinsky's death, Lubyanka Square was renamed Dzerzhinsky Square by the decision of the Presidium of the
Moscow City Council.
In 1940, a competition was announced for the project of a monument to Dzerzhinsky, which was won by
Sarra Lebedeva, who created a lifesized sculptural portrait of Dzerzhinsky, but her project was not implemented.
Construction of the monument began in July 1958, with the statue sculpted by
Yevgeny Vuchetich, and the overall design by . The monument was opened to the public in 1958, outside the
Lubyanka Building
Lubyanka (, ) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick designed by Alex ...
, which housed the headquarters of the Soviet security services, the
OGPU
The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...
,
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
(responsible for the bloodletting of the Stalin purges of the thirties),
NKGB
The People's Commissariat for State Security () or NKGB, was the name of the Soviet secret police, intelligence and counter-intelligence force that existed from 3 February 1941 to 20 July 1941, and again from 1943 to 1946, before being rename ...
,
MGB and
KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
.
August coup and Muzeon Park relocation
On the evening of 22 August 1991, shortly after the failure of
the coup attempt undertaken by the
State Emergency Committee, thousands of people began to gather around the KGB building on Lubyanka Square, seeking to topple Dzerzhinsky's statue, seeing it as a symbol of the brutal Soviet past. People sprayed the words "executioner", “antichrist”, “Felix is finished,” and the symbol of the
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...
on the pedestal.
By the evening of the same day, people climbed onto the statue and affixed ropes to it, attached to a truck. Toppling the monument in this way risked damaging the adjacent
Lubyanka metro station. To avoid this, deputy chairman of the Moscow City Council addressed the crowd and introduced a resolution with the Moscow City Council to remove the monument. It was then dismantled with a construction crane and taken to wasteland close to
the new building of the
Tretyakov Gallery
The State Tretyakov Gallery (; abbreviated ГТГ, ''GTG'') is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, which is considered the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.
The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Muscovite merchant Pavel ...
. In 1992, the monument was without ceremony dumped into the
Fallen Monument Park, where other Soviet-era monuments were collected.
Reerection in 2023
Over the years there have been debates on whether or not the Dzerzhinsky monument should be returned to Lubyanka Square, especially after
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
, a former KGB-agent himself, became Russia's president in 2000. Finally the monument was reerected on September 11, 2023, but this time in front of the
Russian Foreign Intelligence Service headquarters outside Moscow.
See also
*
Monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky, Ufa
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Felix Dzerzhinsky, Moscow, Monument to
Statues in Russia
Sculptures of men in the Soviet Union
Buildings and structures demolished in 1991
1991 disestablishments in the Soviet Union
Sculptures of men in Russia
Outdoor sculptures in Moscow
Statues removed in 1991
Granite sculptures in Russia
Monuments and memorials in Moscow
Cultural heritage monuments of regional significance in Moscow