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Ich wusste, dass das Mausoleum das Werk von Ernst Neiswestny, einem Bildhauer, war, den Chruschtschow in seiner Zeit als erster Sekretär der sowjetischen KP rufen ließ, um ihn brutal zu beschuldigen, dass ihm seine Kunst gegen die Ideale des Sozialismus gerichtet zu sein erscheine, und dass der junge Künstler, anstatt ängstlich zu werden, ihm antwortete, er könnte der Genosse Sekretär sein, der er wolle, aber von Skulpturen verstehe er überhaupt nichts.
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[…] And that was how the following day she took me to Novodevichy cemetery. Its landscaped sidewalks were covered with snow. We wandered between tombstones and I couldn’t resist my old habit of delivering my monologues to her, this time on the important men and women who are buried there about whom I knew a thing or two. She listened to me with attention and her gaze was turning ironic. We arrived at Khruschev’s grave. Then Mei-Ling opened her mouth to tell me that the former USSR President is not buried at the Kremlin because he died while out of power. Then, for the first time since I knew her, she directed more than a hundred words in a row at me. I learned that Khruschev’s mausoleum is by Ernst Neizvestny, a sculptor Khruschev had ordered brought before him when he was the CPSU’s First Secretary, in order to violently berate him for producing art contrary to socialism’s ideals. And that the then young artist, instead of being frightened, shouted back to him that even if he was Comrade First Secretary he didn’t know anything about sculpture. Apparently, after he fell from power, Khruschev and the sculptor initiated a certain friendship, so much so, that in his last will and testament Khruschev stated that he wanted Neizvstny to sculpt the monument at his grave. On either side of the old leader’s realistic face there are two big abstract angular figures, one in white marble and the other in black. According to Mei-Ling they symbolize two ears.
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