Girl with an Oar

{{Short description|A replicated park sculpture in the Soviet Union}}

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{{Expand Russian|topic=struct|Девушка с веслом|date=December 2019}}

File:Gorky Park 01.jpg.]]

The Girl with an Oar ({{langx|ru|Девушка с веслом}}) is an archetypal example of Socialist Realism in outdoors architecture of the Soviet Union. Numerous gypsum alabaster versions authored by Ivan Shadr and Romuald Iodko adorned Soviet parks of culture and recreation, and young pioneer camps.[https://europeanmuseumforum.ru/russian_museums/skulptura-devuska-s-veslom-avtory-istoria-skulptury-foto.html «девушка с веслом»: главный секрет культовой статуи ссср] November 16, 2021 (retrieved 6/12/2024)

Seen as a symbol of Soviet park sculpture style today, it was part of the monumental propaganda of sports, a model of a healthy person, ubiquitous in Soviet arts of late 1920s–1930s.

The first Girl with an Oar by Shadr was that of a naked girl. It was heavily criticized for being "too vulgar". It was destroyed and known only from a single photo. The second one was naked as well, "more chaste" but still naked.[https://www.telwoman.ru/чем-новая-скульптура-девушка-с-весло/ "Чем новая «Девушка с веслом», которую поставили в ЦПКиО, отличается от старой"] Initially installed in Gorky Park, Moscow, it was criticized as well and eventually "disappeared", and Shadr made another copy to be installed in Luhansk, Ukrainian SSR.[http://www.bibliotekar.ru/encSlov/5/35.htm "Девушка с веслом"] in "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Winged Words and Expressions, by Vadim Serov The sculpture was destroyed during World War II.

The popular stereotype of the Girl with an Oar is the one in a swimsuit, created by Romuald Iodko.

File:Девушка с веслом (Парк Горького).jpg

In 2011 the reconstructed naked version of the sculpture was reinstalled in Gorky Park.[https://ria.ru/20110903/429379968.html "Девушка с веслом" снова появилась в московском парке Горького]

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