A new bronze bust of Leo Tolstoy is on its way to Bender Library, according to the Initiative for Russian Culture Executive Director Anton Fedyashin. The bust will be displayed on the third floor in a glass case with a camera trained on it for security purposes.
Members of the initiative are still in the process of debating what the design of the pedestal will look like. Once fully designed, the bust will move to the library.
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Peter Starr and IRC Chair Sue Lehrman asked Gregory Potosky, the sculptor who cast the original, to create another around the time the original bust of Tolstoy was stolen on March 1.
The Department of Public Safety is still investigating the first bust’s disappearance.
The new bust briefly resurfaced in the same area between the Battelle-Tomkins Building and the Kogod of School of Business on April 12. Its disappearance prompted speculation that the second bust was stolen.
However, the IRC was just displaying the bust outdoors for a symposium on the Cold War titled “The Strength of Dialogue,” according to Fedyashin.
Fedyashin still thinks AU is the right place for the Tolstoy bust and its celebration of Russian culture.
“Tolstoy is very much at home here,” Fedyashin said.
dmitchell@theeagleonline.com
