Today I visited the statue of Lenin in Fremont. This eyesore was created by Emil Venkov and originally installed in Czechoslovakia in 1988. After the Velvet Revolution the statue was moved out of view into storage, where an American named Lewis Carpenter purchased it. It was reinstalled in the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle in 1995.
The idea of Lenin has become something both awesome and awful. Had relations between the United States and the Soviet Union remained strong at the close of World War II, who can say how celebrations of this, one of the 20th centuries most influential personalities, might differ in the States today? I think it is a beautiful testament to the independent mind of Seattle to have this statue so prominently displayed.
To have this relic removed from the corner of North 36th Street and Evanston Avenue North for political reasons would be akin to having the works of Marx removed from our libraries. America has nothing to fear from either man. Our world is rich in thought and art, the wisdom or foolishness of which it sometimes takes centuries to prove out.
albaniacalling 