"The Bronze Horseman" ... the history of creation and legends

P The monument to Peter I ("The Bronze Horseman") is located in the heart of St. Petersburg - on Senate Square.
The location of the monument to Peter I was not chosen by chance. Nearby are the Admiralty founded by the emperor and the building of the main legislative body of tsarist Russia - the Senate.

In 1710, the very first wooden St. Isaac's Church was located in the place of the current Bronze Horseman in the premises of the "drawing anbar".

Catherine II insisted on placing the monument in the center of Senate Square. The author of the sculpture, Etienne-Maurice Falcone, did his own thing, setting the "Bronze Horseman" closer to the Neva.

Falcone was invited to St. Petersburg by Prince Golitsyn. Professors of the Paris Academy of Painting Diderot and Voltaire, whose taste Catherine II trusted, were advised to turn to this particular master.
Falcone was already fifty years old. He worked at a porcelain factory, but dreamed of great and monumental art. When an invitation was received to erect a monument in Russia, Falcone signed the contract without hesitation on September 6, 1766. Its conditions determined: the monument to Peter should consist of "mainly an equestrian statue of colossal size." The sculptor was offered a rather modest fee (200 thousand livres), other masters asked twice as much.

Falcone arrived in St. Petersburg with his seventeen-year-old assistant Marie-Anne Collot. Most likely, she also helped him in bed, but history is silent about this ...
The vision of the monument to Peter I by the author of the sculpture was strikingly different from the desire of the Empress and the majority of the Russian nobility. Catherine II expected to see Peter I with a rod or scepter in his hand, sitting on a horse like a Roman emperor. State Councilor Shtelin saw the figure of Peter surrounded by allegories of Prudence, Diligence, Justice and Victory. I. I. Betskoy, who supervised the construction of the monument, represented him as a full-length figure, holding a commander's baton in his hand.

Falcone was advised to direct the emperor's right eye to the Admiralty, and the left to the building of the Twelve Collegia. Diderot, who visited St. Petersburg in 1773, conceived the monument in the form of a fountain, decorated with allegorical figures.

Falcone, on the other hand, had a completely different idea. He was stubborn and persistent. The sculptor wrote:
“I will confine myself to the statue of this hero, whom I do not interpret either as a great commander or as a winner, although he, of course, was both. people. My king does not hold any wand, he stretches out his beneficent right hand over the country he travels around. He rises to the top of the rock that serves him as a pedestal - this is the emblem of the difficulties he has overcome."

Defending the right to his opinion regarding the appearance of the monument, Falcone wrote to I. I. Betsky:

"Could you imagine that the sculptor chosen to create such a significant monument would be deprived of the ability to think and that the movements of his hands were controlled by someone else's head, and not his own?"

Disputes also arose around the clothes of Peter I. The sculptor wrote to Diderot:

"You know that I will not dress him in Roman fashion, just as I would not dress Julius Caesar or Scipio in Russian."

Falcone worked on a life-size model of the monument for three years. Work on The Bronze Horseman was carried out on the site of the former temporary Winter Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna.
In 1769, passers-by could watch here how a guards officer took off on a horse on a wooden platform and put it on its hind legs. This went on for several hours a day. Falcone sat at the window in front of the platform and carefully sketched what he saw. Horses for work on the monument were taken from the imperial stables: horses Brilliant and Caprice. The sculptor chose the Russian "Orlov" breed for the monument.

Falcone's student Marie-Anne Collot sculpted the head of the Bronze Horseman. The sculptor himself undertook this work three times, but each time Catherine II advised to remake the model. Marie herself offered her sketch, which was accepted by the Empress. For her work, the girl was accepted as a member of the Russian Academy of Arts, Catherine II appointed her a lifelong pension of 10,000 livres.

The snake under the horse's foot was sculpted by the Russian sculptor F. G. Gordeev.

The full-size plaster model of the monument took twelve years to prepare, and was ready by 1778. The model was opened for public viewing in a workshop on the corner of Kirpichny Lane and Bolshaya Morskaya Street. Opinions were expressed very different. The chief prosecutor of the Synod did not accept the project decisively. Diderot was pleased with what he saw. Catherine II, on the other hand, turned out to be indifferent to the model of the monument - she did not like Falcone's arbitrariness in choosing the appearance of the monument.

On the left in the photo is a bust of Falcone Marie-Anne Collot 1773.

For a long time, no one wanted to take on the casting of the statue. Foreign masters demanded too much money, and local craftsmen were frightened by its size and complexity of work. According to the calculations of the sculptor, in order to maintain the balance of the monument, the front walls of the monument had to be made very thin - no more than a centimeter. Even a specially invited caster from France refused such work. He called Falcone crazy and said that there is no such example of casting in the world, that it will not succeed.

Finally, a caster was found - a cannon master Emelyan Khailov. Together with him, Falcone selected the alloy, made samples. For three years, the sculptor mastered casting to perfection. They began to cast the "Bronze Horseman" in 1774.

The technology was very complex. The thickness of the front walls must necessarily be less than the thickness of the rear. At the same time, the back part became heavier, which gave stability to the statue, based on only two points of support (the snake is not a point of support, more on that below).

One filling, which began on August 25, 1775, did not work out. Khailov was assigned to supervise her. 1,350 pounds of bronze were prepared, and when all of it, molten, flowed into the mold, the mold cracked and the metal poured onto the floor. A fire started. Falcone ran out of the workshop in horror, the workers ran after him, and only Khailov remained in place. Risking his life, he wrapped the form with his sermyaga and smeared it with clay, picked up the flowing bronze and poured it back into the form. The monument was saved, and the errors that arose due to the accident were later corrected when polishing the statue.

Saint-Petersburg Vedomosti wrote about these events:

"The casting succeeded, except in places two feet by two at the top. This regrettable failure occurred through an incident that was not at all foreseeable, and therefore preventable. The aforementioned incident seemed so terrible that they feared that the entire building would not go on fire, but consequently, the whole thing would not have failed. Khailov remained motionless and poured the molten metal into a mold, without losing his vigor in the least in the face of danger to his life. Touched by such courage, Falcone, at the end of the case, rushed to him and kissed him wholeheartedly and gave him from himself money."

However, as a result of the accident, numerous large defects (underfilling, joints) were formed in the head of the horse and the figure of the rider above the waist.

A bold plan was devised to save the statue. It was decided to cut off the defective part of the statue and refill it, building up a new shape directly on the remaining parts of the monument. With the help of pieces of a plaster mold, a wax model of the top of the casting was obtained, which is a continuation of the wall of the previously cast part of the statue.

The second filling was made in November 1777, and it was completely successful. In memory of this unique operation, on one of the folds of the cloak of Peter I, the sculptor left the inscription "Sculpted and cast by Etienne Falcone, a Parisian of 1778." Not a word about Haylov.

According to the sculptor's idea, the base of the monument is a natural rock in the form of a wave. The waveform serves as a reminder that it was Peter I who brought Russia to the sea. The Academy of Arts began searching for the monolithic stone when the model of the monument was not even ready. A stone was needed, the height of which would be 11.2 meters.

The granite monolith was found in the Lakhta region, twelve versts from St. Petersburg.

Once upon a time, according to local legends, lightning hit the rock, forming a crack in it. Among the locals, the rock was called "Thunder-stone".

So they began to call a piece of rock later, when they installed it on the banks of the Neva for the famous monument. There were rumors that in the old days there was a temple on it. And sacrifices were made.

The initial weight of the monolith is about 2000 tons. Catherine II announced a reward of 7,000 rubles to anyone who comes up with the most effective way to deliver the rock to Senate Square. Of the many projects, the method proposed by someone Carburi was chosen. There were rumors that he bought this project from some Russian merchant.

A clearing was cut through from the location of the stone to the shore of the bay, and the soil was strengthened. The rock was freed from unnecessary layers, it immediately became lighter by 600 tons. The thunderstone was hoisted with levers onto a wooden platform resting on copper balls. These balls moved along grooved wooden rails, upholstered in copper. The passage was winding. Work on the transportation of the rock continued in frost and heat. Hundreds of people worked. Many Petersburgers came to watch this action. Some of the observers collected fragments of stone and ordered from them knobs for a cane or cufflinks. In honor of the extraordinary transport operation, Catherine II ordered the minting of a medal on which is written "It is like boldness. Genvara, 20. 1770."

The poet Vasily Rubin in the same year wrote:
Mount Rosskaya, not made by hands, Heeding the voice of God from the lips of Catherine, Passed into the city of Petrov through the Neva deeps. And fell under the feet of Great Peter.

By the time the monument to Peter I was erected, the relationship between the sculptor and the imperial court had finally deteriorated. It got to the point that Falcone began to attribute only a technical attitude to the monument.

Portrait of Marie-Anne Collot

The offended master did not wait for the opening of the monument; in September 1778, together with Marie-Anne Collot, he left for Paris.

And a monument weighing under 10 tons had yet to be erected ...

The installation of the "Bronze Horseman" on the pedestal was led by the architect F. G. Gordeev.

The grand opening of the monument to Peter I took place on August 7, 1782 (according to the old style). The sculpture was closed from the eyes of observers by a linen fence depicting mountain landscapes.

It was raining in the morning, but it did not prevent a significant number of people from gathering on Senate Square. By noon the clouds had cleared. Guards entered the square. The military parade was led by Prince A. M. Golitsyn. At four o'clock, Empress Catherine II herself arrived on a boat. She went up to the balcony of the Senate building in a crown and purple and gave a sign for the opening of the monument. The fence fell, to the drumming of the regiments moved along the Neva embankment.

By order of Catherine II, the pedestal is inscribed: "Catherine II to Peter I". Thus, the empress stressed her commitment to Peter's reforms. Immediately after the appearance of the "Bronze Horseman" on the Senate Square, the square was named Petrovskaya.

A. S. Pushkin called the sculpture "The Bronze Horseman" in his poem of the same name. This expression has become so popular that it has become almost official. And the monument to Peter I itself has become one of the symbols of St. Petersburg.
The weight of the "Bronze Horseman" is 8 tons, the height is more than 5 meters.

Neither the wind nor the terrible floods could defeat the monument.

legends

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.

The legend is believed to have originated in the memoirs of Baroness von Oberkirch, who details the circumstances under which Paul himself told the story publicly. Bearing in mind the high reliability of the memoirs based on many years of diary entries and the friendship between the baroness and Maria Fedorovna, Pavel's wife, most likely, the future sovereign himself is the source of the legend...

There is another legend. During the war of 1812, when the threat of a Napoleonic invasion was real, Alexander I decided to move the monument to Peter to Vologda. A certain captain Baturin had a strange dream: as if the Bronze Horseman was moving down from the pedestal and galloping to Kamenny Island, where Emperor Alexander I was at that time. as long as I stand where I am, my city has nothing to fear." Then the horseman, announcing the city with a "heavy ringing gallop", returned to Senate Square. According to legend, the dream of the unknown captain was brought to the attention of the emperor, as a result of which the statue of Peter the Great remained in St. Petersburg.
As you know, the boot of the Napoleonic soldier, like the fascist one, did not touch the St. Petersburg pavements.

The well-known mystic and visionary of the 20th century, Daniil Andreev, in The Rose of the World, described one of the hellish worlds. There he reports that in infernal Petersburg the torch in the hand of the Bronze Horseman is the only source of light, while Peter is not sitting on a horse, but on a terrible dragon...

During the blockade of Leningrad, the "Bronze Horseman" was covered with bags of earth and sand, sheathed with logs and boards.

When, after the war, the monument was freed from boards and bags, the Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union appeared on Peter's chest. Someone drew it with chalk...

The monument was restored in 1909 and 1976. During the last of them, the sculpture was studied using gamma rays. For this, the space around the monument was fenced off with sandbags and concrete blocks. The cobalt gun was controlled from a nearby bus. Thanks to this study, it turned out that the frame of the monument can serve for many more years. A capsule was placed inside the figure with a note about the restoration and about its participants, a newspaper dated September 3, 1976.

Etienne-Maurice Falcone conceived "The Bronze Horseman" without a fence. But it was still created, it has not survived to this day. "Thanks" to the vandals, who left their autographs on the thunder-stone and the sculpture itself, the idea of restoring the fence was realized.

The snake trampled by the horse and tail serve only to separate the air currents and reduce the windage of the monument.

2. Peter's pupils are made in the form of hearts. Peter looks at the city with loving eyes. So Falcone passed on to the descendants the news of Peter's love for his offspring - St. Petersburg.

3. Thanks to Pushkin and his poem, the monument is called "Copper", but it is not made of copper, but of bronze (even though bronze consists mostly of copper).

4. The monument was depicted on the money of Yudenich, who went to Petrograd, but did not reach.

The monument is covered with myths and legends. It is also found in foreign collections. This is how the Japanese represented him.

Illustration from the 11th Kankai Ibun scroll. The monument was drawn by a Japanese artist from the words of sailors)))

Previously, graduates of submariners VVMIOL them. F.E. Dzerzhinsky (located in the building of the Admiralty) there was a tradition, on the night before the release, rub eggs on Peter's horse. After that they shone brightly, for almost half a year))) now the school has been moved and the tradition has died ...