【英语语言学习】列宁的最后一尊雕塑

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This fall, Germans will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, marking the end of the Cold War and the end of a divided Germany. Yet a generation later, many Germans are still conflicted about their former communist half. That's certainly the case in the country's smallest state capital, which is home to perhaps the last statue in Germany of Soviet¹ Union founder² Vladimir Lenin. NPR's Berlin correspondent Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson recently visited that monument. She has this report.

SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE³: It's easy to miss the controversial bronze statue. It stands in front of a Soviet style apartment high-rise here in the East German city of Schwerin. Far removed from the ornate city center, this 13-foot tall depiction⁴ of Lenin has him looking relaxed. His hands are tucked in his coat pockets and he's gazing off into the distance. But an angry message is scrawled⁵ in red paint across the sidewalk at his feet. In German it reads - Lenin stays.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (German spoken).

NELSON: An elderly resident, hobbling past with a walker, mistakes me for a protester and scolds me to leave the statue alone. She says he doesn't bother me. Many others agree with her. They say they can't understand why anyone wants one of the last Lenin statues in Western Europe torn down. One of them is Angelika Gramkow, the mayor of Schwerin. She's determined⁶ to see the monument say. She says it's artwork that reflects an important period in the city's eight and a half century history. If the city has to keep shelling out to blast away graffiti and chase off vandals, so be it.

MAYOR ANGELUIKA GRAMKOW: (Through translator) You see him and ask - why is there a Lenin statue still here? What was it he actually stood for? This is the kind of debate that a public work of art makes possible. It won't change the way people think just by getting rid of a monument.

NELSON: But she lost a recent court case, brought by opponents of the statue, who sought to cover its head with a hood⁷ for three hours. Several dozen out-of-town protesters did so three weeks ago. The organizer was Hanufa resident Alexander Bauersfeld. He's 66 and was a political prisoner in the former East Germany.

ALEXANDER BAUERSFELD: (German spoken).

NELSON: Bauersfeld says putting Lenin like a prisoner was meant to get people thinking about his crimes. He said they wanted to make it clear to the areas officials that it's not acceptable to leave them a monument to the founder of the Soviet Union standing⁸. Schwerin resident Anne Drescher agrees. She's the archivist in charge of local documents and files related to the former East German Stasi, or secret police. Drescher recalls how the Schwerin Council almost voted to tear down the Lenin statue in 2007.

ANNE DRESCHER: (German spoken).

NELSON: She says Estonian sculptor⁹ Jaak Soans, who made the monument, offered seven years ago to melt the statue and use the bronze to build another sculpture. But the City Council refused. Instead, it added a small sign to the monument, addressing Lenin's more controversial history. Drescher calls the tablet laughable and an insult to East German victims of Soviet terror, murder and oppression. She hopes the short protest last month will lead to further debate, if not a vote, to remove the statue. But, she says, it's unlikely Schwerin residents will lead those discussion.

DRESCHER: (German spoken).

NELSON: Drescher says that's because there's too much fear here of being branded a pariah¹⁰ by one's neighbors. She explains many former East Germans still believe that anyone who was imprisoned¹¹ had it coming. But Mayor Gramkow believes there's another reason why residents won't protest - East German pride. She says too many wounds remain from reunification. Many citizens of the former German Democratic Republic still don't feel they are treated as equals by their Western counterparts, the mayor explains, and that their history is being stripped away from them.

GRAMKOW: (Through translator) I'm a child of the GDR, and a lot of who I am comes from that. I also learned that an undemocratic society is not good. But that legacy¹² is something all sides can learn to deal with without revising history.

NELSON: Gramkow says that you change street names and tear down monuments, but the history remains¹³ Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR News.

1 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

2 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 depiction   

n.描述

参考例句：

• Double rhythms, resounding through the lyric depiction and connecting with each other, indicate the thespian place of mankind and the cognition of the writer to this thespian place. 这双重旋律互为表里，表明了人类的某种悲剧性处境以及作家对这种悲剧性处境的感受和认识。
• A realistic depiction of scenes from everyday domestic life. 日常家居生活的写实画。

5 scrawled   

乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I tried to read his directions, scrawled on a piece of paper. 我尽量弄明白他草草写在一片纸上的指示。
• Tom scrawled on his slate, "Please take it -- I got more." 汤姆在他的写字板上写了几个字：“请你收下吧，我多得是哩。”

6 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

7 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

8 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

9 sculptor   

n.雕刻家，雕刻家

参考例句：

• A sculptor forms her material.雕塑家把材料塑造成雕塑品。
• The sculptor rounded the clay into a sphere.那位雕塑家把黏土做成了一个球状。

10 pariah   

n.被社会抛弃者

参考例句：

• Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village.不一会儿，汤姆碰上了村里的少年弃儿。
• His landlady had treated him like a dangerous criminal,a pariah.房东太太对待他就像对待危险的罪犯、对待社会弃儿一样。

11 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

12 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

13 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。