For 30 years there has been a monument to the “Rear Front” in Magnitogorsk. It seems to the young generation of city residents that it always towered over the Urals.
A wonderful monument made by talented people is the first monument to selfless work and the feat of the rear workers.
The first two great monuments
Many monuments were erected to the great sacrifice of the peoples of the Soviet Union during the years of World War II. But the most remarkable and significant is the triptych, which includes three monuments located at a distance of thousands of kilometers from each other and connected by one idea - the struggle and victory of the Soviet people over Nazi Germany. These world-famous monuments were erected at different times and were not originally conceived as a whole. The grandiose monument "Liberator Warrior" in Treptower Park on the banks of the Spree was erected in 1949 in honor of the Great Victory. In 1967, one of the most beautiful statues in the world was created, which is the compositional center of the Stalingrad ensemble, the sculpture "Mother Mother Calls!" The author of these masterpieces was the brilliant Eugene V. Vuchetich. Both sculptures, one of which symbolizes a call to battle with enemies, and the second - their complete defeat and pain from realizing the enormous price paid for the victory, hold a sword in their hands. He, thrown into heaven and tiredly lowered to the swastika, is a symbol of struggle and victory and at the same time a connecting idea of both monuments.
Related by one idea
In 1979, the monument "Rear Front" appeared in Magnitogorsk. This large-scale monument was conceived as the final part of the triptych, which tells the world about the greatness of the spirit of the Soviet people - both in the rear, and at the front, and at the time of the Great Victory. In the world there is absolutely nothing equal to these monuments united by a single idea. The author of the last part of the triptych is the sculptor Lev Nikolayevich Golovnitsky. The architect of the remarkable monument was Yakov Borisovich Belopolsky, who was the author of the first two monuments. This fact is very symbolic and, indeed, it closes the triptych in a ring.
Feat of the rear
The monument "Rear - Front" in Magnitogorsk was not erected. Of course, the entire rear of the vast country worked under the slogan "Everything for the front, everything for the victory."
But the share of defense enterprises in the capital of the Chelyabinsk region was unprecedentedly large - every second tank and every third shell hit the front from here. People worked day and night and died right next to the machines.
Description of the Magnitogorsk monument
What is the "Rear Front" monument in Magnitogorsk? For its construction on the banks of the Urals, an 18-meter mound, reinforced inside with a reinforced concrete frame, was poured. The two-figure composition itself, made of bronze, 15 meters high, depicts the moment a soldier accepts the Victory sword, forged by the rear worker. The sculptures are facing each other - the worker who handed over the sword is turned towards the Magnitogorsk factories - to the east, and the warrior who accepted it - towards the front line, to the west. The sword, which is the pinnacle of the composition, will then be raised above the battlefield of Stalingrad, which became a turning point in the war, and lowered to the defeated swastika in Berlin.
The majestic ensemble on the banks of the Urals
The eternal flame burns in a stone rose made of Karelian granite. The sculptures of the worker and warrior themselves were cast at a factory in Leningrad. The monument “Unity of the rear and front” in Magnitogorsk is complemented by two trapezoidal shapes a little lower than 2 meters high, on which are carved the names of the Magnitogorsk heroes of the Soviet Union who received this title during the Second World War.
In 2005, a beautiful monument was supplemented with two marble triangles on which the names of residents of the city who died at the front were immortalized. Total surname is about 14,000 people. The author of the monument “Rear Front” in Magnitogorsk Lev Nikolayevich Golovnitsky more than worthily completed the great triptych.