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Prototype of Treptower Park Monument

The biography of Ivan Stepanovich Odarchenko, who became the prototype of the monument to the Soldier the Liberator in Treptower Park in Berlin, was usual for people of the WWII generation. Before being drafted into the army, Odarchenko lived in Magnitogorsk, where his family moved from the village of Novoaleksandrovka, fleeing starvation. At the age of seventeen, Ivan was already a strong young man, two meters tall, so for his exteriors he was appointed as foreman in kolkhoze, on a suburban collective farm, and in fact as its chairman.

Liberating Europe

Ivan Odarchenko was called to the front in January 1944. He fought in the 114th Guards Division of the 9th Guards Army. Odarchenko participated in liberation of Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Army. He received the medal “For Courage” and continued his military service in Berlin after WWII in Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany (SOZG).

In August 1947, on the Day of the Athlete, sports competitions of Soviet soldiers were held at a stadium in the Weissensee district of Berlin, and Odarchenko also participated in them. After having run a cross, the sculptor Evgeny Vuchetich approached him and asked him to pose for a sculpture. Vuchetich said that he was working on a monument to the Soldier the Liberator.

Being noticed

He posed for the sculptor with a girl in her arms for almost six months. At first it was a real German girl, and then she was replaced by the three-year-old Svetlana Kotikov, the daughter of the commandant of Berlin. The plot for the monument was an event that happened during the storming of Berlin. On 30th of April 1945, sergeant Nikolai Masalov, risking his life, took out a three-year-old German girl from the shelling zone.

Odarchenko also posed for the artist Anatoly Gorpenko, who created a mosaic panel inside the pedestal of the monument. This panel depicts Odarchenko twice – as a soldier with the Golden Star medal and a steel helmet in his hands, as well as a worker in a blue overalls with his head bowed, holding a wreath.

As monument and as human

A twelve-meter bronze monument was made in Leningrad and transported in parts to Berlin. The monument was inaugurated on May 8, 1949. Several times, Ivan Odarchenko had to stand in the guard of honnor at the monument, the prototype of which he was himself.

Odarchenko arrived in Tambov in the same 1949, shortly after the opening of the monument. After the discharge to the reserve, he was going to return to Kazakhstan, but on the way he stopped by to visit his sister in Tambov and decided to stay. He built a house, got married and worked for almost forty years as a turner and milling machine operator at the Tambov enterprise Avtotraktorodetal. Odarchenko didn’t advertise his involvement in the creation of the famous monument until he was found by collector Nikiforov and journalists.

The double fame

Odarchenko became famous in 1965, when the country celebrated the 20th anniversary of victory in the war. On this occasion, a ruble coin depicting the Berlin “Soldier the Liberator” was issued. Nikiforov was one of the first to have this coin. He immediately appeared with her in the regional museum of local lore, where the design of the exposition dedicated to the Great Patriotic War ended, and told employees that the turner of the Tambov plain bearings factory Ivan Stepanovich Odarchenko was minted on a coin.

Soon, a sculptural portrait of Odarchenko appeared in the regional museum of local lore, made by the monument’s author Eugene Vuchetich and donated to Tambov.

Secondly, fame came to Odarchenko 45 years later, when on May 8, 2010 in the Victory Park in Tambov a monument of the veterans was opened. According to the plans of the Tambov sculptors Viktor Kulaev and Valery Paramonov, the same Ivan Odarchenko became the model for the monument.

“Honestly, when they informed me that they would again make a monument to me,” said Odarchenko, “I thought that he would again be like in Berlin — let him do it from Vuchetich’s work.” But when the sculptor explained that he wanted to do me, as a veteran, I agreed …”

So after 65 years, the warrior-liberator “returned” home, sat down on a bench in Victory Park, put his great-granddaughter on his knees and became a symbol of the connection of time and generation. Ivan Stepanovich died on July 2, 2013 at the age of 87.

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OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Guido Lessing (July 28, 2020). Prototype of Treptower Park Monument. Intersections of Luxembourgish-Russian History. Retrieved April 29, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/ul9x


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