What does the Bronze Horseman symbolize? Composition on the topic “The depth of thought of the poem“ The Bronze Horseman ”
Bronze Horseman- a monument sculpted by Falconet - was an allegorical image of Peter and his deeds. Long before the opening of the monument, back in 1768, by order of Catherine II, its plaster model was put up for public viewing, and the official interpretation of the allegory was printed in the newspapers, and the “properties” of the monument were listed. “In order to find out the properties of the statue now being made by Mr. Falconet, it is necessary to know that Emperor Peter the Great is depicted striving for a quick run to a steep mountain that forms the base, and stretching out his right hand to his people. This mountain of stone, which has no other adornment, as soon as its natural appearance, marks the difficulties suffered by Peter I; the galloping of a runner is the speedy course of his affairs. The right hand of the country does not require explanation.
The Bronze Horseman - an image-symbol - is the ideological center of the poem. All the events of the Petersburg story are connected with him, Yevgeny’s life irresistibly leads him to the monument, the theme of the city naturally closes on the monument to the one whose “fatal will” the city was founded. Finally, the flood that broke out in the capital threatened the monument as well; - “the flood played” in the square where the bronze horseman towered, and “predatory waves crowded, rebelling viciously around him.” The "evil rebellion" of the "predatory waves" against the Bronze Horseman highlighted the main metamorphosis of the image of Peter. The living personality of Peter in the Introduction turned into a monument in the Petersburg story, into an idol. The living is opposed to the dead, acting in its bronzed imperial majesty.
This is just a statement of duality. The question is - did Petersburg become a city of captivity? - is not put, yes, and was not yet realized by Pushkin. In The Bronze Horseman both the question is posed and the answer is given: the spirit of bondage is peculiar to the city as a citadel of autocracy. This answer, as a result of artistic research, is most fully given in the symbolic image of the monument.
Radishchev was the first to introduce the huge theme of the Bronze Horseman into literature: he was present at the opening of the monument on August 7, 1782, and in his “Letter to a friend living in Tobolsk, but duty bound by his title” gave a description of the “powerful horseman”, and most importantly, not limited to guessing “the thoughts of the sculptor ” and the meaning of his allegory (which means “the steepness of the mountain”, the snake “lying on the way”, the head, “crowned with laurels”), wisely interpreted the activities of Peter I.
- The city is magnificent, the city is poor,
- Boredom, cold and granite.
- Spirit of bondage, slender appearance,
- The vault of heaven is green-pale,
The idea of the dual nature of St. Petersburg had long tormented and disturbed Pushkin. She broke through and in a small lyric poem in 1828:
After the Introduction, the Petersburg story begins, the plot of which is the life and death of a resident of the capital, little official Evgenia. And the image of the city immediately changes - the image-symbol acquires even greater scale, its content is enriched and aggravated - it appears in its new face.
A new image-symbol appears - a monument, a statue, an idol on a bronze horse. He, too, turns out to be merged with the new face of the city - a stronghold of autocracy, highlighting a different face of Peter - the emperor. In the two faces of the city, acting in the image-symbol, the inconsistency of the figure of Peter is manifested - a wise man-doer and an autocratic emperor. What the people created turned out to be turned against them - the capital of the empire personifies the power of the autocrats, their inhuman policy. The image-symbol of the city acquired an acutely political character when the symbol of the capital city intersected and interacted with the image-symbol of the monument, the Bronze Horseman.
What is this new face of the city? Petersburg appears as a stronghold of Russian autocracy, as a stronghold of autocracy; it is fundamentally and consistently hostile to man. The capital of Russia, created by the people, turned into a hostile force both for himself and for the individual V person. That is why gloomy, dark colors appear, rivers that disturb the imagination (“Over the darkened Petrograd November breathed autumn chill”), the Neva became formidable, foreshadowing misfortune (“Splashing with a noisy wave At the edges of its slender fence, the Neva rushed about like a sick person In her bed restless"), the streets were homeless and anxious ("It was already late and dark; Angrily the rain beat against the window, And the wind blew, howling sadly").
Radishchev answered the question why any monarch, including an enlightened one, cannot express the interests of the people: “And I will say that Peter could have been more glorious, ascending himself and exalting his fatherland, asserting private liberty; but if we have examples that kings left their dignity in order to live in peace, which did not come from generosity, but from the satiety of their dignity, then there is no example until the end of the world, perhaps there will not be that the king voluntarily missed something from his power, sitting on the throne"
When one gets acquainted with the extensive scientific literature on Pushkin - articles and books written long ago and in recent years - a strange fact attracts attention - the lack of interest of the most diverse researchers in the extremely important area of Pushkin's poetics. Not studied - moreover, systematically left in the shade - what, as they say, lies on the surface, which is visible to anyone who reads Pushkin - those poetic images of a special nature in which the deepest, truly suffering and striving Pushkin's thought into the future. I mean Pushkin's symbolic images.
The use of symbols is characteristic of Pushkin's entire work. In the lyceum period, they were included in poetry as a tribute to the poetic tradition of the beginning of the century; in the years after the lyceum, romantic aesthetics prompted its symbols (the sea and the thunderstorm as symbols of rebellious freedom - “Where are you, the thunderstorm is a symbol of freedom ...”) and determined the symbolization of biblical and mythological images to justify the high mission of the poet in the dark years of the Nikolaev action, which came ... immediately after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising ("The Prophet", "Arion", etc.). Symbols in realistic works - The Bronze Horseman, The Queen of Spades, The Tale of the Golden Cockerel - have special poetic power and deep content.
It is impossible not to notice Pushkin's symbols. But it turns out; they can be left unexplained, ignored when analyzing works, completely bypassing their symbolic origin, or limited to a simple statement of the fact of the presence of symbols in a particular work. works". Without this knowledge, the artist's creations cannot be understood. The use of symbols was Pushkin's "rule", which guided him in many of his works. Ignoring this Pushkin "rule" is unacceptable.
Meanwhile, ignoring it is an objective fact that requires its own explanation. And the first thing that turns out is that not only Pushkinists do not explain symbols, a similar situation is observed in the scientific literature devoted to realism in general. literature XIX century. The symbols of Gogol and Turgenev, Nekrasov and Tolstoy, Lermontov and Dostoevsky are not the subject of deep research. Why is this so?; Apparently, the point is in the very problem of the symbol, in the nature of its scientific understanding, in the history of its existence in various aesthetic systems over many centuries.
It is an obvious and indisputable truth for everyone that at the dawn of the formation of human thinking, symbols spontaneously formed, and this was a natural phenomenon, since it reflected a person’s desire to know reality. The same patterns determined the use of symbols in the field of art. In each new era, the very understanding of the symbol, its nature and function was determined by the nature of the knowledge achieved by mankind. That is why, for example, in the Middle Ages it was religious symbols that were the main means and weapon of the artist. About symbols in medieval art, there is a huge scientific literature. On the nature of artistic symbols in Russian medieval literature, he wrote in detail and interestingly in recent times Academician D.S. Likhachev in the book "The Poetics of Old Russian Literature". In general, the high scientific level of the methodological approach to symbols in pre-realist literature is obvious. Yes, and the main works on the symbol refer specifically to literature and art before the establishment of realism.
The use of symbols in Romantic literature is recognized. True, the closer scientists come to realism, their restraint and wary attitude towards the symbol begin to manifest themselves more clearly. So - romanticism, although in a limited way, uses the symbol for both reactionary and progressive purposes. Author historical background avoided answering the question - how did the new artistic method relate to the symbol? Is it characteristic of realism, a direction based on scientific knowledge, to use symbols, or is the appearance of symbolic images in this or that realist writer explained solely by the peculiarity of his artistic individuality?
Modernists gave the symbol a mystical function, adapted it for intuitive insight into the essence of truth, which, according to their ideas, is rationalistically incomprehensible, for the knowledge of "superbeing". That is why they began to treat the symbol with caution, believing that it was the modernists who revealed its secret essence. The symbol turned out to be separated from the image, devoid of the main content - to be a powerful means of knowing reality.
Of course, a symbol can also act as a trope and be closely related to its, so to speak, "neighbors" - a metaphor and an allegory (it is very important to establish a connection, and, above all, significant differences). But the reduction to the path practically deprives it of the function of a cognitive tool. True, the same dictionary says, as if by the way, that "a symbol is also called an artistic image that embodies with the greatest expressiveness the features of a phenomenon, its defining role." But about originality cognitive function not a word is said about the symbol-image, everything is reduced to a definition - they call it an artistic image.
The system of symbols in the poem "The Bronze Horseman"
Other essays on the topic:
- The “Introduction”, dedicated to the solemn description of the capital, is interpreted as the glorification of the deeds and personality of Peter, as the victory of the king over the elements. But Belinsky...
- The Bronze Horseman is a philosophical-historical, lyrical-epic poem, reflecting the complexity and depth of Pushkin's thoughts on history. However, the poem is...
- The poem "The Bronze Horseman" was written by Pushkin in 1833. In it, the author for the first time in Russian literature contrasted the state, personified in ...
- One of the main issues in the work of A. S. Pushkin was the question of the relationship between the individual and the state, as well as the ensuing problem of "small ...
- In the second Boldino autumn, Pushkin wrote the poem "The Bronze Horseman", one of the highest and eternal creations of his poetic spirit....
- In 1833 Pushkin wrote the poem "The Bronze Horseman". One of the ideas of this poem is the idea that autocracy, when ...
- In one of the poems of the St. Petersburg cycle - "Monument to Peter the Great" - Mickiewicz depicted Pushkin and put freedom-loving, ...
- “On the bank of the desert waves” of the Neva, Peter is standing and thinking about the city that will be built here and which will become the window of Russia ...
- The greatest work Dante has become The Divine Comedy”, the approximate chronological framework of which is 1300-1321. Above this main work of his life, the poet ...
- The unit of Chekhov's drama, its atom, is not an idea, as in Dostoevsky, not a type, as in the "natural school", not a character, as...
- In 1919, Bernard Shaw's play Heartbreak House was published, a bitter, tragic recognition of the crisis of English bourgeois civilization, the sharpest ...
- The appearance of the image of a bird refers us to another part of the zoomorphic model of the Universe - to the periphery in relation to the center. Snakes -...
- Chekhov belonged to the writers who depicted the life of the people as if from the outside, with observation and sympathy, from the position of a humanist who could not ...
- The idea for The Enchanted Soul arose and matured with Rolland long ago, back in those years when Jean-Christophe was not completed. An artist's fantasy... The action takes place in the 1850s. Wagons are driving across the Texas prairie - this is the ruined planter Woodley moving from Louisiana to Texas ...
The images of The Bronze Horseman have a generalized philosophical, allegorical and symbolic character.
When Pushkin writes about the Neva, which "breathes like a horse running from a battle," the river appears as an element not only natural, but also social. The actions of the flood are socially destructive. The Neva manifests itself as a thief, a robber, a villain, that is, not as a natural, but as a human force. The Neva is sometimes sovereign, sometimes revolutionary. Bringing the Neva closer to the rebellious force of popular indignation, the poet uses the image of the besieged Winter Palace (“the palace seemed like a sad island” in the midst of the flood).
The Bronze Horseman on a horse is a rider who saddled the elements, controlling it with the help of an iron bridle. Horse - Neva - sovereign power - people - rebellion - all these are links of a metaphorical chain, a cascade of transfers of meaning, a “semantic game”, allegorical rapprochements, an extravaganza of semantic content. This short poem is the focus of the "superdense substance" of meaning. Its small volume is not only the result of a great sense of artistic proportion, but also a sign of the compactness of its meaning. Of course, the element of the flood is not directly identical to the popular revolt, but it has a well-known artistic and modeling significance: the flood is sometimes really similar to popular indignation, sometimes it directly interfaces, echoes with the real people standing along the banks of the Neva in anticipation of the denouement of events:
The people sees God's wrath and awaits execution.
The image of the water element plays a huge role in the poem "The Bronze Horseman". The poet described the real flood that happened in St. Petersburg, but managed to see in it a deep symbolic meaning. In the introduction to the poem, Pushkin draws the figure of Peter I, who, with his unbending will, managed to curb Russia like a zealous horse. The poet calls Petersburg the creation of Peter, because the city was built in defiance of everything by the will of the tsar. However, the natural element does not obey even the kings. Pushkin does not spare bright colors when describing the flood. Both the wind that drives the water back from the Gulf of Finland, and the Neva, which floods the city, act as animated beings in the poem. The author uses the method of personification, when nature is endowed with human qualities. The sea element seems to be angry with the people who dared to build a city in such a dangerous place. Alexander I says in a poem that the kings cannot cope with the divine element. The famous monument to Peter I, the Bronze Horseman, rises above the waves. The elements cannot do anything with him.
Chapter 3. Peter's transformations in Pushkin's assessment. Image of Eugene. The problem of personality and state in the poem.
Peter's transformations in Pushkin's assessment. The reputation of a mysterious work has firmly established itself behind The Bronze Horseman, and this despite the fact that it has been studied from various angles and it is probably difficult to make a new judgment about the poem or make a new observation that in one form or another has not already been expressed. The mystery of the poem itself is mysterious. There are no obscure places, dark symbols in it. It is not individual particulars that are mysterious, but the whole, the general idea, the thought of the poet.
Highly appreciating the personality of Peter (“Strong man”, “northern giant”) and the progressiveness of his transformations (Peter introduced European enlightenment, which should have had people's freedom as its inevitable consequence), Pushkin does not close his eyes to the shady sides of Peter's reforms: the disunity of the enlightened, Europeanized parts of the nobility and the people, general slavery and silent obedience (“History suddenly presents his general slavery ... all states bound indiscriminately were equal before his club. Everything trembled, everything silently obeyed. Nevertheless, the poet is full of historical optimism. It seemed to him that the Russian nobility, deprived of political freedoms, would replace the third estate, which was absent in Russia, and, despite cultural disunity with the people, would unite with them in the struggle "against the common evil", and would be able to win without even resorting to bloodshed. “The desire for the best unites all conditions” and “firm peaceful unanimity”, and not “a terrible shock”, will destroy “inveterate slavery” in Russia and “soon put us along with the enlightened peoples of Europe”. (VIII, 125-127).
But these hopes were not destined to come true. Pushkin thought a lot about the failure of the December uprising. In the “Note on Public Education,” he wrote that people who shared the mindset of the conspirators “on the one hand ... saw the insignificance of their plans and means, on the other, the immense power of the government, based on the power of things.” By "the power of things" Pushkin meant the "spirit of the people" and what is missing in Russia public opinion. ("General opinion, not yet existing"). This means that the gap between the Europeanized enlightened part of the Russian nobility and the people who managed to “keep a beard and a Russian caftan” is not in vain, and “universal slavery”, universal silent obedience is not in vain.
Therefore, the assessment of Peter's reforms also changes. According to Pushkin, it was Peter who managed to destroy the hereditary nobility by "ranks" as a social force that played such important role in the Moscow period of Russian history. And in place of the old hereditary nobility, whose main qualities are independence, courage and honor, and whose significance is to be "powerful defenders" of the people "la sauvegarde of the industrious class", came the bureaucracy. “Despotism surrounds itself with loyal mercenaries and by this all opposition and all independence is suppressed. The offspring of the higher nobility is a guarantee of this independence. The opposite is inevitably connected with tyranny, or rather, with base and flabby despotism. Hence the conclusion: the end of the nobility in a monarchical state means the slavery of the people (VIII, 147-148).
The image of Eugene. Complicated image Evgenia. Evgeniy- a poor official, a representative of the metropolitan petty, those urban lower classes, for whom the flood is just the most terrible thing. And at the same time, intense historical and political reflections were characteristically reflected in the image of Eugene. Pushkin on the topic of the Russian nobility, which found a place in his numerous notes, plans, sketches, and finally, in a number of works of the thirties. Eugene, like the poet himself, comes from that feudal "old nobility", which, as a result of Peter's centralizing state policy, "fell, - in the words of Pushkin, - into the unknown": "impoverished", "declined", "made up the genus of the third estate ". And poet considers it necessary to bring this to the attention of readers, introducing them to his hero:
We don't need his nickname
Although in the past
It may have shone
And under the pen of Karamzin
In native legends it sounded;
But now with light and rumor
It is forgotten.
All this determines the complex historical and social generalization that stands behind the "mutiny" of Eugene, which follows immediately after Pushkin's lyrical digression. The fist on the Bronze Horseman is clenched not only by the St. Petersburg poor, whose happiness and life are shattered by the choice of a place for the new capital, but also by the “dark descendant” of the “once noble, boyar family”, an avenger for the insults of the “humiliated” and “crushed” by Peter ancestors. Eugene's "mutiny" - the main content of his second meeting with the Bronze Horseman - is given with even greater plastic expressiveness and power than all the previous ones. At first, as during the first meeting, Eugene is behind the Bronze Horseman, who now turns his back to him. Then, after “terrible thoughts cleared up in him,” Eugene goes around the monument and finds himself face to face with the Bronze Horseman. There - Eugene and the Bronze Horseman were placed next to each other, here - opposite each other. There - comparison, here - opposition, conflict.
Around the foot of the idol
The poor madman walked around
And brought wild eyes
On the face of the ruler of the semi-world.
His chest was shy.
The forehead lay down on the cold grate,
Eyes clouded over,
A fire ran through my heart,
The blood boiled up.
He became gloomy
Before the proud idol
And, clenching his teeth, clenching his fingers,
As if possessed by black power,
“Good, miraculous builder!
He whispered, trembling angrily, - Already you! .. "
The word “already” is very expressive both in its stylistic, purely colloquial coloring, and in its semantics (it means “later”, “later” and at the same time is often used as a threat of revenge, punishment).
And Yevgeny's "Already for you! .." contains an extremely significant historical and political content. Its character can be judged by the following. It has long been established, already found in Russian journalism of the 16th century, the symbolism of a horse and a rider: the people and the tsar (see Krylov's fable "The Horse and the Rider", first published in 1816 and put in the first place in the 1825 edition; see a similar comparison in Pushkin's "Boris Godunov" - in Basmanov's dialogue with Boris). The same symbolism is directly expressed in Pushkin's "Raised Russia". On the Falconet monument to Peter, the horse and rider are merged into one. But in Pushkin's poem, a subtle distinction is made between them: in contrast to the "proud" horseman, the horse is given the epithet "proud"; about the horseman it is said in the past tense: “He raised Russia ...”, about the horse - in the present and future: “Where do you ride ...” and “where will you lower ...” In this regard, the drawing of the Falcoket monument to Peter, sketched by Pushkin in his drafts, acquires special expressiveness notebooks around the same time. In the picture - a rock; on it is a horse; but there is no rider.
In response to Basmanov's words:
The people are always secretly prone to confusion:
So the greyhound gnaws its reins
Why? The rider calmly rules the horse
Tsar Boris answers)
The horse sometimes knocks down the rider.
In Pushkin's drawing, a proud horse knocked down a proud rider. This, undoubtedly, casts a bright light on Evgeniy's "You already! .." But Yevgeny’s exclamation-threat is an insight into the distant future.’ As for Yevgeny’s “rebellion”, this is still only a rebellion of the “private” against the “general”, and - most importantly - a rebellion in the name of only the “private”. Therefore, Eugene's "rebellion" is a revolt of a loner, an insane and hopeless protest, not only inevitable, but also legally doomed to failure. And all this is also expressed with extraordinary plasticity, in the bright and lively artistic images of The Bronze Horseman - the harmonic name of the beginning of the poem with its end.
The problem of personality and state in the poem. If we accept the term "masterpieces of Pushkin's creativity", then the poem "The Bronze Horseman" undoubtedly belongs to their number. Historical, philosophical, lyrical motifs merged into a single artistic alloy. And the “Petersburg story”, as Pushkin defined it by genre, acquired those features of scale that make it possible to attribute The Bronze Horseman to the “eternal”, priceless monuments of poetry, not completely unraveled.
In the center of the poem is the personality of Peter I, the great reformer, whose activities constantly interested the poet, because the Petrine era is one of the major turning points in the history of Russia.
The poem "The Bronze Horseman" is Pushkin's grandiose philosophical reflection on the progressive course of history. The introduction is compositionally opposed to two parts in which the plot of the "Petersburg story" unfolds. It gives a majestic image of Peter - a reformer, carrying out a great national cause, which many generations dreamed of - strengthening the Russian state on the shores of the Baltic Sea:
From here we will threaten the Swede,
Here the city will be founded
To spite an arrogant neighbor
Nature here is destined for us
Cut a window to Europe...
Peter appears here both as a conqueror of nature itself, its elements, and as the embodiment of the victory of culture and civilization over the savagery and backwardness that had reigned for centuries “on the shore of desert waves” before him.
Pushkin composed a poetic hymn to the mighty power of the mind, will and creative labor of a person capable of such a miracle as the construction of a great and beautiful city, a symbol of a new, transformed Russia, from the "darkness of forests" and "swamp blat".
This is an example of a person who, it seemed, could foresee the turn in the course of history and turn Russia into its new direction, could, it turns out, become the “master of fate” not only of his own, but of all of Russia:
O mighty lord of destiny!
Are you not so above the abyss
At a height, in the bridle of an iron ...
Raised Russia on its hind legs?
Yes, Peter raised Russia on its hind legs, but also on its hind legs at the same time. Autocrat and tyrant. A man of power, corrupted by this power, using it for great and low things. A great person who humiliates the dignity of other people. Herzen wrote: “Peter I is the most complete type of the era or a genius-executioner called to life, for whom the state was everything, and man was nothing, he began our hard labor of history, lasting a century and a half and achieving colossal results.” These words can be put as an epigraph to The Bronze Horseman.
... A hundred years pass, Peter's brilliant plan is realized. The appearance of St. Petersburg - "Peter's creations" - Pushkin draws with a sense of pride and admiration. The lyrical part of the introduction ends with a hymn to Peter and his cause, the inviolability of which is a guarantee of the dignity and greatness of Russia renewed by him:
Show off, city of Petrov, and stop
Unshakable, like Russia.
But the sublime pathos of the introduction is replaced by the sad story of subsequent chapters. What did Peter's reforms lead to? Is it better for an ordinary, poor person? Pushkin tells the story of the life of a poor official, Yevgeny, who is tenderly in love with Parasha.
Eugene's dreams of family happiness and personal independence are quite legitimate, but, alas, they are not destined to come true. The spontaneous perturbation of nature, opposed to the reasonable will of Peter, brings death to both Parasha and all the poor people.
Pushkin transfers the clash between the elements and the rational activity of Peter into a socio-philosophical plane. Eugene is no longer confronted by Peter the Transformer, but by that autocratic order, which is personified in a bronze statue (“an idol on a bronze horse”). Eugene feels the power of the despotism of Peter, who appeared to him in the form of the Bronze Horseman, a "proud idol." And he bravely challenges him: “You already! ... ". But the rebellion of a desperate loner is meaningless. Having barely challenged the idol, Eugene, horrified by his own audacity, runs away. Broken, crushed, he ends his days miserably.
And what about the proud horseman, "the ruler of half the world"? All the tension, all the climax of the poem in a terrible, mystical picture that followed the challenge of Eugene.
Runs and hears behind him
As if thunder rumbles
Heavy-voiced galloping
On the shaken pavement.
And, illuminated by the pale moon,
Stretch out your hand above
Behind him rushes the Bronze Horseman
On a galloping horse.
It turns out that the pitiful cry of the poor madman was enough for the proud idol to lose his peace and, with satanic zeal, began to pursue his victim.
Poems can be judged in different ways. In it, many saw the glorification of a strong state power that has the right to neglect the fate of an individual for the sake of the common good. But there is something else in Pushkin's poem - a hymn to humanism, sympathy for the "little man" who rebelled against the "fatal will."
The will of Peter, the inconsistency of his actions, is the point of symbolic conjugation of all the plot components of the story about the poor Petersburg official - natural, fantastic, historical, mysteriously connected with the fate of post-Petrine Russia.
The greatness of Peter, the progressiveness of his deeds turn into the death of a poor man who has the right to happiness. The conflict between the state and the individual is inevitable. The individual is always defeated when his interests collide with the autocratic order. Harmony between the individual and the state cannot be achieved on the basis of an unjust social order. This thought of Pushkin is confirmed by the entire tragic history of our country.
Images at Wikimedia CommonsBronze Horseman (detail)
In August 1766, the Russian envoy in Paris, Dmitry Golitsyn, signed a contract with the French sculptor Falcone, who was recommended to Catherine II by her correspondent, philosopher and enlightener Denis Diderot. Soon after Falcone's arrival in St. Petersburg, on October 15 (26), the work on the creation of the monument moved in full swing. The workshop was set up in the former Throne Room. The stone building of the former stable at the palace was adapted for Falcone's housing. At the beginning of 1773, Felten was appointed to help Falcone: he was supposed to replace the one dismissed from work, and, in addition, by this time the supervision of a professional architect was needed for the installation of the monument.
"Thunder Stone" [ | ]
The thunder stone was found in the vicinity of the village of Horse Lakhta. After it was removed from the ground, the pit was filled with water, and a reservoir was formed, which has survived to this day - Petrovsky Pond (since 2011 - a protected area). The path of the stone to the place of loading was 7855 meters.
Transporting the Thunder Stone
The winter months were chosen for transporting the stone, when the soil froze and was able to withstand the weight. This unique operation lasted from November 15 (26) to March 27 (April 7) of the year. The stone was delivered to the coast of the Gulf of Finland, where a special pier was built for its loading.
Transportation of stone by water was carried out on a ship specially built according to the drawing of the famous shipbuilder Grigory Korchebnikov, and began only in the fall. The giant "Thunder-stone" with a huge crowd of people arrived in St. Petersburg on Senate Square on September 26 (October 7) of the year. To unload the stone near the banks of the Neva, a technique already used during loading was used: the ship was sunk and sat on piles previously driven into the bottom of the river, which made it possible to move the stone to the shore.
The work on the trimming of the pedestal was carried out while the stone was moving, until Ekaterina, who visited Lakhta and wanted to look at the movement of the stone, forbade its further processing, wanting the stone to arrive in St. Petersburg in its “wild” form without losing volume. The stone acquired its final form already on the Senate Square, having significantly lost its original dimensions after processing.
Monument [ | ]
Opening of the monument to Peter the Great. Engraving by A. K. Melnikov from a drawing by A. P. Davydov, 1782
The monument to Peter I is already in late XVIII century became the object of urban legends and anecdotes, and in early XIX century - one of the most popular themes in Russian poetry.
Legend of Major Baturin[ | ]
There is an assumption that the legend of Major Baturin formed the basis of the plot of A. S. Pushkin's poem The Bronze Horseman.
"Poor Pavel!" [ | ]
In St. Petersburg folklore, there is a widespread legend about the vision of the ghost of Peter the Great to the future Emperor Paul I at the place where the Bronze Horseman is now located.
One evening, Pavel, accompanied by his friend Prince Kurakin, was walking through the streets of St. Petersburg. Suddenly a man appeared ahead, wrapped in a wide cloak. He seemed to be waiting for the travelers, and when they approached, he walked beside them. Pavel shuddered and turned to Kurakin: "Someone is walking beside us." However, he did not see anyone and tried to convince the Grand Duke of this. Suddenly the ghost spoke: “Paul! Poor Pavel! I am the one who takes part in you." Then the ghost went ahead of the travelers, as if leading them along. Approaching the middle of the square, he indicated the place for the future monument. "Farewell, Pavel," said the ghost, "you will see me here again." And when, as he was leaving, he raised his hat, Paul looked with horror at Peter's face.
As a textual analysis of the legend shows, it goes back to the memoirs of Baroness von Oberkirch. The baroness details the circumstances under which Paul himself publicly, albeit against his will, told the story. Bearing in mind the high reliability of memoirs based on many years of diary entries and the friendship between the baroness and Maria Feodorovna, Paul's wife, most likely, the future sovereign himself is the source of the legend.
Did Paul regard this story as an amusing anecdote invented by chance? From a memoirist's point of view, this is not the case. G. von Oberkirch reports that a month and a half after the memorable dinner, Pavel received a letter from St. Petersburg. The letter informed about the grand opening of the monument to Peter the Great, later known as the Bronze Horseman. According to G. von Oberkirch, although the sovereign tried to smile while reading the letter, a deathly pallor covered his face.
In culture [ | ]
The Bronze Horseman and the "mystical Petersburg text"[ | ]
The motif of the Bronze Horseman is placed by Russian literature at the very center of the "mystical Petersburg text", imbued with duality and surrealism.
The Bronze Horseman owes its name to the work of the same name by A. S. Pushkin. The official Eugene, who lost his beloved Parasha in the flood of 1824, wanders unconsciously around St. Petersburg. Having stumbled upon a monument to Peter the Great, the hero realizes that it is the sovereign who is to blame for his disasters - he founded the city on a place prone to floods and alien to humans. Eugene threatens the monument, and the Bronze Horseman jumps off his pedestal and rushes after the madman. Whether the bronze idol is carried in the sick mind of an official or in reality is unclear.
The same motif is conveyed in the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky "The Teenager": “But what if this fog will fly apart and go up, if this whole rotten, slimy city will go with it, it will rise with fog and disappear like smoke, and the former Finnish swamp will remain, and in the middle of it, perhaps for beauty, a bronze rider on a hot-breathing, driven horse? .
Finally, the famous mystic and visionary of the 20th century Daniil Andreev, describing one of the hellish worlds in The Rose of the World, reports that in infernal Petersburg the torch in the hand of the Bronze Horseman is the only source of light, while Peter sits not on a horse, but on creepy dragon.
Commemorative coins [ | ]
In 1988, the State Bank of the USSR issued a 5-ruble commemorative coin depicting the monument to Peter I (the Bronze Horseman) in St. Petersburg. The coin is made of copper-nickel alloy with a circulation of 2 million copies and weighs 19.8 grams
Bronze Horseman- a monument to Peter I on the Senate Square in St. Petersburg.
The opening of the monument took place on August 7 (August 18), 1782.
Later, the monument got its name thanks to the famous poem of the same name by A. S. Pushkin, although it is actually made of bronze.
History of the monument
The model of the equestrian statue of Peter was made by the sculptor Etienne Falcone in -. Peter's head was sculpted by his student, Marie-Anne Collot. Fyodor Gordeev fashioned the snake according to Falcone's plan. The casting of the statue was carried out under the guidance of master Yemelyan Khailov and was completed in 1778. Architectural and planning decisions and general management were carried out by Yu. M. Felten.
In August 1766, the Russian envoy in Paris, D. A. Golitsyn, signed a contract with the French sculptor Falconet, recommended to Catherine II by her correspondent, the philosopher-educator D. Diderot. Soon after the arrival of Falcone in St. Petersburg, October 15, 1766, work on the creation of the monument moved in full swing. The workshop was set up in the former Throne Room of the wooden Winter Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna. The stone building of the former stable at the palace was adapted for Falcone's housing. At the beginning of 1773, Felten was appointed to help Falconet: he was supposed to replace Captain de Lascari, who was dismissed from work, and, in addition, by this time, the supervision of a professional architect over the installation of the monument was needed.
"Thunder Stone"
It was not immediately possible to find suitable stones for the monument, and then an appeal was published in the newspaper "Saint Petersburg Vedomosti" to private individuals who would like to "for the decision ... break the monument uphill and bring it here, to St. Petersburg."
A suitable stone was indicated by the state peasant Semyon Grigoryevich Vishnyakov, a supplier of building stone to St. Petersburg, who had long known about this block and had the intention of finding a use for it for his own needs, splitting it into pieces, but not finding the right tool for this. He reported this to Captain Laskari, the head of search operations in this project.
The place where the Thunder Stone was found has not yet been precisely established. It is only known that it was a wooded and very damp place near the village of Lakhta, and that the path of the stone to the place of loading was approximately 8 versts, that is, approximately 8.5 kilometers. Considering that the path of the stone has repeatedly changed, and it was not moved in a straight line, it should be expected that the stone was found within the following modern boundaries: in the west - the village of Lisiy Nos, straight to the north - to the current Ring Road, along the road and south of it to the east to the Chernaya River and then south through the Yuntolovsky forest dacha, including its entirety, to the northern shore of the Lakhtinsky spill.
Transporting the Thunder Stone
Serious preparation corresponded to the beginning of the transportation of the stone. The recommendations developed by I. I. Betskoy were taken into account, a study was made of the model of the “machine” proposed for transporting stone. It was found that the most appropriate task was to place the stone on a wooden platform rolled over two parallel troughs in which 30 five-inch balls were placed. Through the experiment, a sufficiently strong material for these balls was chosen, consisting of a copper-based alloy, and the technology for its manufacture was worked out. A technological process has been developed for lifting a stone with the help of levers and jacks to bring a platform under it. At the same time, special measures were taken to insure the stone from falling during an accident. It took the work of thousands of people to extract it, for whom the village was built. The stone weighed 1600 tons. Its transportation to the coast of the Gulf of Finland was carried out by several gates. The winter months were chosen for transporting the stone, when the soil froze and was able to withstand the weight. By order of Catherine, the stone was to be delivered to the place intact. The 46 stonemasons who worked on the stone constantly during the entire movement only gave it the proper shape.
This unique operation lasted from November 15, 1769 to March 27, 1770. The stone was delivered to the coast of the Gulf of Finland, where a special pier was built for its loading. At low water, the remains of this pier can be seen near the shore, not far from a broken boulder lying at the very edge of the water.
Transportation of stone by water was carried out on a ship specially built for this purpose according to the drawing of the famous shipbuilder Grigory Korchebnikov and began only in the fall. The giant "Thunder-stone" with a huge crowd of people arrived in St. Petersburg on Senate Square on September 26, 1770. To unload the stone near the banks of the Neva, a technique was used that had already been used during loading: the ship was sunk and sat on piles prudently driven into the bottom of the river, which made it possible to move the stone to the shore.
Despite all the measures taken, during the entire journey, emergency situations were repeatedly created that threatened the collapse of the entire enterprise, which was followed with interest by the public throughout Europe. Nevertheless, work managers always found a way out. In honor of the transportation of the stone, a commemorative medal with the inscription "It is like boldness" was knocked out.
This transportation was really unique and unique so far: this is the movement of the largest monolith (the largest not only in its original form, but even in the final, hewn one) ever moved by man, and monoliths of at least a comparable mass moved only in antiquity .
Monument
Opening of the monument to Peter the Great. Engraving by A. K. Melnikov from a drawing by A. P. Davydov, 1782There is an assumption that the legend of Major Baturin formed the basis of the plot of A. S. Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman". There is also an assumption that the legend of Major Baturin became the reason that during the Great Patriotic War the monument remained in place and was not hidden, like other sculptures.
Literature
- Buckmaster, I. G. librarian imp. Academy of Sciences translation of an article from "Neues St. Petersburgisches Journal” (1782. Vol. 4. P. 1-71), which was published as a separate edition in 1783 (“Nachricht von der metallenen Bildsäule Peters des Grossen”). Russian edition of 1786.
- Architectural monuments of Leningrad. - L .: Stroyizdat, 1975..
- Knabe G.S. Imagination of a Sign: Falcone and Pushkin's Bronze Horseman. - M., 1993..
- Ivanov G.I. Stone-Thunder. Historical story. - St. Petersburg: Stroyizdat - St. Petersburg, 1994. - 112 p. - ISBN 5-87897-001-5.
- Toporov V. N. On the dynamic context of three-dimensional works visual arts(semiotic view). Falconet's monument to Peter I // Lotman's collection. 1. M., 1995.
- Proskurina V. Petersburg Myth and the Politics of Monuments: Peter the Great to Catherine the Second // New Literary Review. - 2005. - № 72.
- Report to Empress Catherine II from the Senate on the location for erecting a monument to Emperor Peter the Great / Soobshch. Jean-Zhank // Russian antiquity, 1872. - T. 5. - No. 6. - S. 957-958.
Notes
Links
Bronze Horseman at Wikimedia Commons |
- The Bronze Horseman in the Wedding Encyclopedia