St. Petersburg remembers and honors the name of its founder. Citizens installed dozens of images of Peter the Great, but the Bronze Horseman, a monument on Senate Square, is undoubtedly the most popular. He is considered the hallmark of the Northern capital.
Title
Alexander Pushkin was born seventeen years after the installation of the monument. It was to this Russian poet in a work of the same name that he was able to accurately convey the power and energy of the Bronze Horseman and the whole composition: “What a thought on the forehead! What strength is hidden in it” and “O powerful sovereign of fate”. With these words, the poet expresses admiration for the Russian emperor. The monument, named after Pushkin’s creation, is actually made not of copper, but of bronze.
History of creation
The initiator of the installation of the monument was Empress Catherine II, so she wanted to note personal admiration for the affairs of the great reformer. The monument was decided to be installed in the city, founded by him in 1703.
The first statue was created by Francesco Rastrelli, but the Tsarina did not approve of the monument and for many years he was hidden in Petersburg barns. The next step was taken by the sculptor Etienne Falcone, Catherine invited the master on the recommendation of the philosopher Didro. In 1766, a contract was signed, and work began. The Frenchman was assigned a place to work in the Winter Palace of Tsarina Elizabeth, and housing was in the old stable. The architectural part of the monument was performed by Yuri Felten, who was appointed to replace the dismissed captain de Laskari.
For three years, Falcone and his assistants created a model of the monument from plaster. The approved sculpture was soon to be cast from metal. Master Ersmann, who arrived from France, was unable to do this, and Falcone took charge of the process. The situation was not easy, the tension of the situation was growing.
The first casting of the monument took place in 1775. There is a legend that during casting a pipe with hot bronze suddenly burst. Thanks to the efforts of Yevgeny Khaylov, the lower half of the monument was saved. The master made guns all his life and knew a lot about working with metal. Two years later, the upper part of the monument was cast.
But this happened without Falcone, since he soon left Russia. Leaving the country, the Frenchman took with him all the calculations, drawings and drawings. Felten completed the case. The celebration associated with the opening of the monument was scheduled for August 7, 1782, it was the result of twelve years of painstaking work. During the presentation, only Etienne Falcone was absent from the audience. The quick departure of the sculptor was the final confrontation between the artist and the palace nobility. The image created by the Frenchman on historical materials about the life of Peter I did not correspond to the ideas of Catherine. She saw in him, first of all, the great commander, the French sculptor put at the forefront his achievements in the field of rapprochement with Europe and access to the sea. Perhaps if the sculptor would then give up his own opinion, today the monument looked different and had a different name.
Thunder Stone
The monument turned out to be quite impressive in size. In order to ensure the integrity of the composition, it was decided to install it on a pedestal. The selected stone block, according to the author, was supposed to imitate a rising wave.
Once lightning broke a block, so its name "Thunder-stone" appeared. The path from the village of Konnaya Lakhta, where it was discovered, to the installation site was almost eight kilometers. At first, the stone was moved overland in winter, after that it was loaded onto a ship and taken from the Gulf of Finland to St. Petersburg. The block lost its original appearance after processing and installation.
Monument Description
The Falcone project is not the only equestrian monument to the emperor. “My monument will be simple, ” the author wrote. The king was depicted on a horse in dynamics. For Falconet, Peter the Great is a legislator and creator. The horseman is dressed in light clothing: a long shirt and a raincoat fluttering in the wind. Such simple clothes are inherent in all nations - “heroic attire”.
The emperor is seated on a horse that has reared up and is climbing a stone. The sovereign extends his hand in the direction of the current nearby Neva. It is noteworthy that the creator depicted Peter not in the saddle, but on a bear's skin as a symbol of involvement in the Russian nation, of which the emperor is a representative. The king is confident and calm. In the struggle with the elements and prejudices, he sees the meaning of life. The stone symbolizes the primordial nature. Sculpture is a symbol of the superiority of civilization over wildlife.
In addition to the solid size of the monument, the observance of the weight balance became a problem. The sculpture had three reference points - this was to maintain stability. Then a snake was added to the composition, which symbolized evil, ignorance and enmity. It was located at the feet of the horse that trampled it, and gave the sculptural composition additional support. Peter's head was created by Maria Anne Collot, a student of Falcone. A posthumous mask helped to make the face, despite this, the work took a rather long period of time, for a long time Catherine was not happy with her results. Years later, for her contribution to the perpetuation of the memory of Peter Collot received a life annuity. The snake was created by the domestic master Fedor Gordeev. Only one detail - a wreath on the head of the emperor and a sword hanging on the belt, created the image of the winner. On one of the folds of the cloak, the sculptor Falcone indicated his own name - he left information about authorship.
Catherine ordered that the inscription "Catherine II Peter the Great" appear on the base of granite. Nearby there is the date of 1872. On the reverse side, the same inscription is duplicated in Latin. The weight of a metal sculpture without a pedestal is about nine tons, its height is more than five meters. After two centuries of existence, cracks appeared in the monument. Serious restoration measures carried out in 1976 extended his life.
