Statue of Lenin, Seattle
| Statue of Lenin | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Emil Venkov |
| Year | 1988 |
| Type | Sculpture |
| Medium | Bronze |
| Subject | Vladimir Lenin |
| Dimensions | 5 m (16 ft) |
| Location | Seattle, Washington |
| Coordinates: 47°39′05″N 122°21′03″W / 47.651357°N 122.350911°W | |
The Statue of Lenin is a 16-foot (4.9 m) bronze sculpture of Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin located in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Initially installed in Czechoslovakia in 1988, the sculpture was removed after the Velvet Revolution and brought to the United States in the 1990s.
The statue was constructed by a Bulgarian sculptor Emil Venkov, under a 1981 commission from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. While following the bounds of his commission, Venkov intended to portray Lenin as a bringer of revolution, in contrast to the traditional portrayals of Lenin as a philosopher and educator.
Venkov's work was completed and installed in Poprad, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), in 1988 at a cost of 3,340,000 Czechoslovak koruna ($111,333 in 1993 United States dollars), shortly before the fall of Czechoslovak communism during the 1989 Velvet Revolution. Despite popular belief, the Poprad Lenin was not toppled in the demonstrations during the fall of communism. Instead, it was quietly removed from Lenin's Square, in front of Poprad's main hospital, several months after the Velvet Revolution.
Lewis E. Carpenter, an English teacher in Poprad originally from Issaquah, Washington, found the monumental statue lying in a scrapyard ready to be sold for the price of the bronze; Carpenter had met and befriended Venkov while in Czechoslovakia. In close collaboration with a local journalist and good friend, Tomáš Fülöpp, Carpenter approached the city officials with a claim that despite its current unpopularity, the sculpture was still a work of art worth preserving, and he offered to buy it for $13,000. After many bureaucratic hurdles, he finally signed a contract with the mayor on March 16, 1993.
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