An explicit sculpture erected in Gdansk, Poland has received severe backlash from Eastern neighbour, Russia.
The artwork titled, “Komm, Faur”, meaning ‘come, woman’, depicts a Soviet soldier raping a pregnant woman.
The controversial work, by artist, Jerzy Bohdan Szumcyk, was placed in the city without permission from authorities last Saturday and could be viewed right next to a communist-era monument dedicated to Red Army solders.
Szumczyk explained the piece was a political statement condemning the history of wartime rape by Russian soldiers.
In an interview with the Moscow Times the artists referred to the estimated figure that up to two million woman were attacked by the army Red Army in the last months of World War II.
The Russian ambassador to Poland Alexander Alexeyev issued a statement on his website: “I am deeply outraged by the stunt by a Gdansk Fine Arts Academy student, who has defiled the memory of 600,000 Soviet servicemen who gave their lives in the fight for the freedom and the independence of Poland with his pseudo-art.”
According to Huffington Post the 26-year-old artist will now face up to two years in prison for charges of inciting racial and national hatred.
