David Wakstein painting team: Compulsory Service (Chelouche Gallery, Tel
Aviv). Till August 4



Anyone for Lenin?
By Meir Ronnen


(July 23) - Sotheby's annual Political Sale, offering a large selection of
material mostly relating to three centuries of British politics, and in
particular political affairs over the last 100 years, is being held for the
first time online at www.sothebys.com until Monday, July 31.

It includes political memorabilia such as photographs, portraits and bronze
statues of famous 19th- and 20th-century politicians and also a bas-relief
bronze of David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir - and a number of cartoons by
renowned political cartoonists.

A monumental bronze statue of Lenin which once stood in the town square of
Sokolov in former Czechoslovakia is an odd feature of this on-line sale.
Nearly three meters high and weighing several tons, it depicts Lenin as a
young man in a three-piece suit and tie, with one arm raised. The sculpture
is estimated to fetch $30,000-$50,000 (£20,000-£33,500).

The statue was produced as the result of a national competition in the 1950s
to commission a larger-than-life statue of Lenin. A little-known artist
called Relich produced the winning design, which was judged by a jury of
important socialist government officials. Who was Relich? Sotheby's doesn't
know and neither does the consignor, Michael Genger, an American-born
antique dealer who moved to Prague in 1990, only weeks after the revolution.
He found the statue under a pile of leaves in a park in Prague and purchased
it from the government. The statue will be at Sotheby's South,
Billingshurst, West Sussex, until the end of the sale.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Collett" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, October 14, 2002 6:00 PM
Subject: Questions from my spouse


> For all you knowledgeable folk out there. Please respond to the following:
>
> Can you ask the List if anyone knows anything about this thing I heard,
that
> there used to be a statue of Lenin in London? When, why, where exactly?
> And what happened to it?
>
> Also, anyone know about Jewish folksong? (Ryfsis??) typical formats,
> subjects, etc. I
> mean, like do they usually have a refrain, or do the verses tend to a
> particular metre and number of lines?
>
> Roger.