Motherland Calls

The Motherland Calls is a colossal concrete statue standing atop Mamayev Kurgan, a hill overlooking the city of Volgograd in Russia, known as Stalingrad at the time of the Second World War battle the monument commemorates. Designed by the sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich with structural engineering by Nikolai Nikitin, the statue depicts a striding female figure personifying the Russian motherland, one arm raised holding aloft an enormous sword, and was completed in 1967 as the centerpiece of a large memorial complex dedicated to the Soviet defenders of the Battle of Stalingrad. Including its sword the statue reaches a height cited at roughly eighty-five meters, and at the time of its completion it was among the tallest freestanding statues in the world, engineered without an internal frame around the raised sword arm, an achievement made possible by Nikitin's structural calculations. The surrounding Mamayev Kurgan complex, built over ground where intense fighting had taken place, also includes a hall of military glory and an eternal flame, and the site remains one of the principal Russian memorials to the Second World War.