An antique portrait by Felix Dzerzhinsky. Tinted cast iron, USSR, XX century.  Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (1877-1926) was a prominent Soviet statesman and party leader of Polish origin. His name is translated from Latin.  it means "lucky, fertile, successful" as his life path turned out to be: difficult, but yielding rich fruits. He was chairman of the Cheka, a special security body of the Soviet state, and after the Cheka was abolished, he became chairman of the Main Political Directorate of the NKVD of the RSFSR.  Dzerzhinsky was a significant and prominent figure in the country's revolutionary past, as well as the founder of the USSR's security and intelligence agencies.