This granite sculpture of Lenin in Memento Park in Budapest is a three-quarter length study in granite. The statue stood originally in Eger and it was made by the famous Greek sculptor Memos Makris (1913-1993).

In the quiet outskirts of Budapest lies Memento Park, an open-air museum that keeps alive the memory of Hungary’s Communist past. Here, 42 statues of Lenin, Marx, Engels, and Hungarian Communist leaders once filled the streets and squares of the country. After 1989, these symbols of dictatorship were removed and placed here.

Half-length red granite statue

Among these figures stands a lesser-known Lenin, different from the others. This half-length red granite statue, did not belong to the park’s original collection. It arrived much later, quietly, and without ceremony. There is no information plate, no serial number, and unlike the other statues, it has no brick pedestal. It simply stands on the gravel ground.

Eger

The statue originally stood in Eger, a city in northern Hungary. It was inaugurated in 1970, after workers from the local Light Fittings Factory collected money for its creation. They approached Memos Makris, a well-known sculptor whose works already decorated the city. Together, the artist and the workers discussed what kind of Lenin they wanted: a revolutionary, a thinker, or a statesman. In the end, they chose a half-length, portrait-like composition, carved from red marble. Realistic, human, and symbolic.

Memos Makris

Memos Makris, also known by his Hungarian name Makrisz Agamemnon, was born in 1913 in Patras, Greece, and he went on to become one of the most significant sculptors of the 20th century. During World War II, Makris joined the Greek National Resistance against the German occupation. After the war, he continued his studies in Paris, but in 1950 he was deported for his left-wing political views. Seeking safety, he moved to Hungary, where he lived for many years and became a respected artist and cultural figure.

In Hungary, Makris created many public monuments and became part of the country’s cultural identity. His works often carried strong social and political messages. Among his most famous sculptures are the memorial to the victims of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, the monument to the Hungarian volunteers of the Spanish Civil War in Budapest, and the monument of Liberation in Pécs.

After being stripped of his Greek citizenship in 1964, he regained it in 1975 when democracy was restored in Greece. Four years later, the National Art Gallery of Greece hosted his first retrospective exhibition. Today, his sculptures can be seen in Hungary, Greece, Austria, and Cyprus.

Makris died in Athens in 1993, leaving behind a legacy of art that bridges nations and ideologies, from Greece to Hungary, from resistance to remembrance.

Tribune for parades

In Eger, the statue stood proudly on a tall pedestal, opposite the theater. The base also served as a tribune for parades and official events. But after the fall of Communism, it was removed. Today, it stands in Memento Park, its nose damaged, its pedestal gone, and its meaning changed.

Placed beside the fallen reliefs of the Stalin monument, the half-length Lenin seems to share their fate; both cut down, both silent witnesses to a time now past. It is a fragment of history, quietly reminding visitors how Hungary reshaped its symbols after the end of the Soviet era.