The sculptor's most famous work is the Bronze Horseman. History of creation and analysis of the poem "The Bronze Horseman" by A.S. Pushkin

A.N. Ostrovsky created the play "The Thunderstorm" in 1859 - a work in which difficult issues of turning point were touched upon public life, changes in social foundations. Alexander Nikolaevich penetrated into the essence of the contradictions of his time. He created colorful characters of tyrants, described their morals and way of life. Two images act as a counterbalance to tyranny - these are Kuligin and Katerina. Our article is devoted to the first of them. “The image of Kuligin in the play “The Thunderstorm” is a topic that interests us. Portrait of A.N. Ostrovsky is presented below.

Brief description of Kuligin

Kuligin is a self-taught mechanic and tradesman. In a conversation with Kudryash (first act), he appears to the reader as a poetic connoisseur of nature. admires the Volga, calls what opened up to him a miracle extraordinary view. The image of Kuligin in the play by A.N. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm" can be supplemented with the following details. A dreamer by nature, nevertheless this hero understands the injustice of the existing system, in which the brute power of money and force decides everything. He tells Boris Grigorievich that there are “cruel morals” in this city. After all, whoever has money seeks to enslave the poor in order to gain even more capital from his labors. The hero himself is not at all like that. The characteristics of Kuligin's image are exactly the opposite. He dreams of prosperity for the entire people and strives to do good deeds. Let us now present in more detail the image of Kuligin in the play "The Thunderstorm".

Kuligin's conversation with Boris

Boris meets the character we are interested in on an evening walk in the third act. Kuligin again admires nature, silence, air. However, at the same time, he complains that the city still hasn’t made a boulevard, and people don’t walk in Kalinov: everyone’s gates are locked. But not at all from thieves, but so that others do not see how they tyrannize the family. Behind these castles there is a lot, as Kuligin says, of “drunkenness” and “dark debauchery.” The hero is outraged by the foundations of the “dark kingdom”, but immediately after his angry speech he says: “Well, God bless them!”, as if backing away from the words spoken.

His protest remains almost silent; it is expressed only in objections. The image of Kuligin in the play is characterized by the fact that this character is not ready for an open challenge, like Katerina. Kuligin exclaims at Boris’s proposal to write poetry that he will be “swallowed alive,” and complains that he already gets it for his speeches.

Request addressed to the Wild

It is worth giving Kuligin his due for the fact that he persistently and at the same time politely asks Dikiy to give money for materials. He needs them to install a sundial on the boulevard “for the general benefit.”

Kuligin, unfortunately, only encounters ignorance and rudeness on the part of this man. Then the hero tries to at least persuade Savely Prokofich to use thunderstorms, since thunderstorms are a frequent occurrence in the city. Having failed to achieve success in this matter, Kuligin can do nothing more than wave his hand and leave.

Kuligin - a man of science

The hero we are interested in is a man of science, who respects nature and subtly senses its beauty. In the fourth act, he addresses the crowd with a monologue, trying to explain to people that they should not be afraid of thunderstorms and any others, they should be admired and admired. However, the city's residents do not want to listen to him. They live according to old customs, continue to believe that this is God's punishment, that a thunderstorm is bound to bring disaster.

Kuligin's knowledge of people

The image of Kuligin in the play "The Thunderstorm" is characterized by the fact that this hero is well versed in people. He is able to empathize and give practical, good advice. The hero showed these qualities, in particular, in a conversation with Tikhon. He tells him that one must forgive enemies, and one should also live by one’s own wits.

It was this hero who pulled Katerina out and brought her to the Kabanovs, saying that they could take her body, but her soul did not belong to them. She now appears before a Judge who is much more merciful than the Kabanovs. Kuligin runs away after these words. This hero experiences the grief that happened in his own way and is unable to share it with the people who are responsible for this girl’s suicide.

White crow

In Kalinov, the hero we are interested in is White crow. The image of Kuligin in Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" is characterized by the fact that this character's thinking is significantly different from the way of thinking of the rest of the inhabitants. He has different aspirations and values. Kuligin realizes that the foundations of the “dark kingdom” are unfair, tries to fight them, strives to make the lives of ordinary people better.

The hero we are interested in dreams of social reconstruction of Kalinov. And probably, if he had found material support and like-minded people, he would have been able to significantly improve this city. The desire for the well-being of the people is perhaps the most attractive feature that, together with others, makes up the image of Kuligin in the play “The Thunderstorm”.

The poem “The Bronze Horseman” was written by Pushkin in Boldin in October 1833 and is considered the most perfect of his poems in terms of meaning, depth, complexity of content and talent of writing, since it was written in a period of absolute heyday, at the peak of the poet’s creative rise.
In 1824, on November 7, a severe flood occurred in St. Petersburg. At this time, Pushkin was in exile in Mikhailovsky. The poet worried mainly about ordinary people who found themselves in dire straits. The upper classes could not suffer much from the flood, and they were not so concerned about the problems of the poor. Apparently, this sad event remained deeply in the poet’s mind, because nine years later this theme was reflected in “The Bronze Horseman.”
In August 1833, Pushkin himself found himself in the beginning of a flood on the Neva, and this could have revived in him the idea of ​​​​creating the “Petersburg Tale” (as he called his poem).
In his work, Pushkin touched on two themes - “Petrine”, about the personality and activities of Peter the Great, and “the theme of the small hero”, about a small man compared to a huge city, a tradesman.
The outline of the poem "The Bronze Horseman" was based on many lines of the poem "Yezersky", the main character of which has much in common with the hero of "The Horseman", in particular, landscapes, a description of the urban city and the general tone of the work were taken from the unfinished work. The main character is an “insignificant person”, unremarkable, not belonging to the St. Petersburg society.
Main creative work over the "Petersburg story" was made by Pushkin in about 26-27 days. While in Boldin, the poet almost did not indicate in his letters about his work on his works; this was due to the reluctance for his work to be known in St. Petersburg before the circulation, and with the poet’s bad mood (this can be seen from his letters). Simultaneously with “The Horseman,” the poet wrote “The History of Pugchev” and “The Captain’s Daughter,” they were his main work. Also, fairy tales and poems, the poem “Angelo” and other works were written at the same time.
Pushkin began creating the poem on October 6, 1833, by which time he had a completely clear plan for creating the work, the main lines and images. There are few drafts of the creation of the poem, because the poet almost immediately wrote the final copy, and the beginning of the poem was exactly taken from the first words in the drafts. At the end of the introduction there were also several reworked lines from " Bakhchisarai fountain". And later, lines from the unfinished “Yezersky” appeared many times in the poem; the poet decided not to finish the old work, but to include it in “The Horseman”. When describing the flood, the poet used Bulgarin-Berkh’s article, supplementing it with his own ideas and eyewitness accounts. Rewrite Pushkin began to write out his poem without having yet finished writing it - this is how the first white manuscript appeared. Subsequently, the poet supplemented, condensed, added, crossed out, and in the end created a very condensed and very complex, rich in thought text of his “Petersburg Tale.” Latest edition The poet wrote the poem already in St. Petersburg, at the end of November. Then he turned to Benckendorff with a request to submit it to the censor (Pushkin’s works were reread by censors many times and very critically, including by the emperor’s gendarmes). Censorship, and in particular the emperor, who was Pushkin’s personal censor, did not let The Bronze Horseman pass. Formally there was no ban, but from the outside royal court There were comments that were quite equivalent to a ban, because the poem contained a lot of political implications, and this was a very big blow for the poet, for whom “The Horseman” became one of the most important and expensive works.
Only in 1834 did Pushkin give the “Library for Reading” an introduction to the poem for publication.
In 1836, the poet again wanted to publish his work and even made amendments to the poem. But he did not remove several aspects that Nikolai especially did not like, for example, the comparison of Moscow and St. Petersburg as old and new capitals. Pushkin did not want to follow the lead of the censor and because of this spoil the lines of the work he created so reverently. So he never managed to publish the poem during his lifetime.
“The Bronze Horseman” was published by Zhukovsky after the poet’s death, in Sovremennik in 1837.

"The Story of the Bronze Horseman"

Charity wall newspaper for schoolchildren, parents and teachers “Briefly and clearly about the most interesting things.” Issue 98, August 2016.

Catherine II, Denis Diderot, Dmitry Golitsyn, Etienne Falconet, Yuri Felten, Ivan Bakmeister, Alexander Radishchev, Ludwig Nikolai, Lewis Carroll and many others: quotes from correspondence and memoirs.

Charity wall newspapers educational project“Briefly and clearly about the most interesting things” (site site) are intended for schoolchildren, parents and teachers of St. Petersburg. They are delivered free of charge to most educational institutions, as well as to a number of hospitals, orphanages and other institutions in the city. The project's publications do not contain any advertising (only founders' logos), are politically and religiously neutral, written in easy language, and well illustrated. They are intended as informational “inhibition” of students, awakening cognitive activity and the desire to read. Authors and publishers, without claiming to be academically complete in presenting the material, publish Interesting Facts, illustrations, interviews with famous figures science and culture and thereby hope to increase the interest of schoolchildren in the educational process..ru. We thank the Education Department of the Administration Kirovsky district St. Petersburg and everyone who selflessly helps in distributing our wall newspapers. Special thanks to Nadezhda Nikolaevna Efremova, Deputy Director for Research, for the materials and consultations provided.

2016 marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of the French sculptor Etienne Maurice Falconet. His only monumental work is the world-famous monument to Peter I on Senate Square, known to everyone as the Bronze Horseman. Our wall newspaper contains the main stages of the creation of this, perhaps, the most striking symbol of St. Petersburg. In order to feel the atmosphere of the enlightened Catherine’s era together with the reader, we tried to give the floor to direct participants and eyewitnesses of the events described. Secrets of the Bronze Horseman revealed during the restoration, as well as fascinating story We plan to discuss its pedestal - the “Thunder Stone” - in our next issues.

"Leading to Amazement"

Senate square. Drawing by an unknown author.

“The monument to Peter the Great in Leningrad is an outstanding work of Russian and world sculpture. Erected on the banks of the Neva almost two hundred years ago, it became a vivid example of the triumph of educational ideas, - this is how Doctor of Art History, Professor Abraham Kaganovich begins his fundamental book “The Bronze Horseman” (1975). – Time turned out to have no power over the monument; it only further confirmed its imperishability historical meaning and aesthetic value. The monument not only glorifies the hero, the outstanding statesman, - in a vivid figurative form it captures the changes that occurred in Russia in the first quarter of the 18th century, at the time of state reforms that radically changed the life of the country... Big interest represents not only the content of the monument, its plastic merits, but also the history of its creation.”

Earlier authors also spoke in the same enthusiastic tone (and emphasizing a special interest in the history of the creation of the monument). So, the librarian of the Imperial public library, writer and theologian Anton Ivanovsky in the book “Conversations about Peter the Great and His Colleagues” (1872) exclaimed: “Which of us, passing through Petrovskaya Square, did not stop in front of the monument to Peter I... which, in its beauty, majesty and lofty idea, does not has its equal in everything globe... how much work and incredible effort did it take to build this marvelous monument, which amazes not only us, but also foreigners? The history of the construction of this monument is so interesting and at the same time instructive...” Whole volumes have been written about the creation of the Bronze Horseman (the most interesting books are listed at the end of the wall newspaper), so we will very briefly note here the key points of this “entertaining and cautionary tale”, trying to adhere to the memories of contemporaries and the assessments of recognized experts.

“Not made by art like this”

Why did Catherine not like the statue by Rastrelli?

Monument to Peter I by B.K. Rastrelli in front of the Mikhailovsky Castle.

In 1762, Catherine II began to reign. The Senate immediately obsequiously proposed erecting a monument to herself. The young empress decided that she would act more wisely, perpetuating the memory not of herself, but of Peter the Great, the transformer of Russia, thereby emphasizing the continuity of her rule.

It is noteworthy that by the time the need arose to erect an equestrian monument to Peter I in St. Petersburg, an equestrian statue of Peter I in St. Petersburg... already existed. We are talking about a sculpture by authorship Italian sculptor Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli. He made a model of the monument during the life of Peter I, having previously made a wax mask-cast directly from the emperor’s face and thereby achieved the greatest portrait resemblance. In 1747, the sculpture was cast in bronze, but after that, forgotten by everyone, it was stored in a barn. Catherine, having examined the monument, came to the conclusion that “it was not made by art in the way that it should represent such a great monarch and serve to decorate the capital city of St. Petersburg.” Why?

With the death of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the Baroque era ended in Russia. It's amazing how quickly even the most beautiful creations may go out of style! Empress Catherine the Great and her associates were no longer attracted to lush “curls”; the time of classicism was coming. In art, the simplicity and clarity of the image, the rejection of decorative details, respect for the free personality of the enlightened hero, the motives for conquering wild prejudices and ascending from dense ignorance to bright reason began to be valued. It is natural that during this period architects appreciated the pristine beauty of natural stone. So, “the image created by Rastrelli, where the formidable emperor dominated,” Kaganovich concludes, “in many ways looked like an anachronism. The Age of Enlightenment could not accept such a limited interpretation of it. What was needed was a new, deeper and modern solution monument."

"An experienced and talented sculptor"

Why did you choose Falcon?

Sculptural portrait of Etienne Falconet, made by his student Marie-Anne Collot (1773). Museum of the city of Nancy, France.

As Mikhail Pylyaev reports in his famous book “Old Petersburg. Stories from the former life of the capital,” in 1765, Catherine ordered the Russian envoy in Paris, Prince Dmitry Golitsyn, to find her “an experienced and talented sculptor.” Famous French sculptors were considered as candidates for the role of creator of the monument to Peter the Great: Augustin Pajou, Guillaume Coustou (the younger), Louis-Claude Vasse and Etienne Falconet (according to French tradition, the emphasis is placed on the last syllable). The presence of Golitsyn’s impeccable artistic flair is confirmed, in particular, by one of his friends, the philosopher-educator Denis Diderot: “The prince... has incredibly succeeded in his knowledge of art... he has lofty thoughts and a beautiful soul. And a person with such a soul does not have bad taste.” Diderot recommended Golitsyn (as well as Catherine herself, since they were in friendly correspondence) to opt for Falcon: “Here man of genius, full of all sorts of qualities characteristic and unusual of genius. He has an abyss of subtle taste, intelligence, delicacy, charm and grace... he crushes clay, processes marble, and at the same time reads and reflects... this man thinks and feels with greatness.”

On August 27, 1766 (250 years ago), Falcone signed a contract for the production of an “equestrian statue of colossal size” in St. Petersburg. In September of the same year, accompanied by his student Marie-Anne Collot, he left Paris for St. Petersburg, where he arrived about a month later and immediately began work. Russian Secretary historical society Alexander Polovtsov, in the preface to “Correspondence of Empress Catherine II with Falconet” (published in 1876), pointed out: “The artist who undertook such a difficult task and such a long journey was not one of those foreigners who fled to Russia, who were not lucky at home, and who thought to find easy bread in a barbaric country, in their opinion, no, Falconet was exactly fifty years old, and in these fifty years he had already earned an honorable place among his fellow citizens...

On September 10, 1766, Falconet left Paris; his things were sent by sea... it turns out that in 25 boxes one only contained the artist’s belongings, the rest were filled with books, engravings, marble, as well as casts and photographs for the Academy of Arts.” Advising his friend, Diderot exclaimed: “Remember, Falconet, that you must either die at work, or create something great!”

“Diderot gave me the opportunity to acquire a person who, I think, has no equal: this is Falconet; he will soon start a statue of Peter the Great, and if there are artists who are equal to him in art, then I boldly think that there are none who could be compared with him in feelings: in a word, he is Diderot’s soulmate,” - so Catherine herself responded about the arriving sculptor.

"Great Deeds and Most Memorable Adventures"

What's "bad" about antique statues?

The statue of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Rome is the only equestrian statue to survive from antiquity.

One of the projects of the monument to Peter I by B.K. Rastrelli “with allegorical figures.” Detail of the “Plan of the capital city of St. Petersburg...” by Mikhail Makhaev (1753).

At first, Catherine’s entourage was inclined to copy the composition of one of the equestrian monuments to kings and commanders installed by that time in European countries. This is, first of all, a statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in Rome (160–180s); statue of the Italian condottiere (mercenary) Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice (sculptor Andrea Verrocchio, 1480s); statue of the Elector (ruler) of Brandenburg Friedrich Wilhelm in Berlin (sculptor Andreas Schlüter, 1703); statue of King Louis XIV of France in Paris (sculptor François Girardon, 1683; destroyed during French Revolution 1789-1799) and other outstanding works.

So, Jacob Staehlin, activist Russian Academy scientist and memoirist, wrote: “A statue of His Majesty on a horse will be erected, and its pedestal will be decorated with bas-reliefs glorifying his great deeds and his most memorable adventures.” At the corners of the pedestal there were supposed to be statues of the vices that Peter “with undaunted courage deposed,” namely: “gross ignorance, insane superstition, mendicant laziness and evil deception.” As a backup, there was an option with statues of “heroic spirit, untiring courage, victory and immortal glory.”

Architect Johann Schumacher proposed to build in front of the Winter Palace or in front of the Kunstkamera building “in view of the courtyard, the collegium, the Admiralty, and especially the ships sailing along the Neva River... a building... of white marble, cast metal and red gilded copper and with convex work ", surrounded by allegorical figures of seas and rivers, "showing the space of this state."

Baron Bilinstein proposed erecting a monument on the banks of the Neva - so that Peter would look with his right eye at the Admiralty and towards the entire Empire, and with his left eye at Vasilyevsky Island and the Ingria he conquered. Falcone retorted that such a thing was only possible with strabismus. “The right and left eyes of Peter the Great made me laugh very much; this is more than stupid,” Catherine echoed him. “You seem to think, dear sir,” Falconet wrote to the baron, “that the sculptor is deprived of the ability to think, and that his hands can only act with the help of someone else’s head, and not his own. So find out that the artist is the creator of his work... Give him advice, he listens to it because in the most smart head there is always enough room to place error. But if you act as an official distributor of ideas, then you will only be funny.”

Even Diderot recommended a convoluted solution to Falconet: “Show them your hero... driving barbarism before him... with his hair half loose, half braided, with his body covered with wild skin, casting a fierce, menacing look at your hero, fearing him and preparing to be trampled under the hooves his horse; so that on the one hand I see the love of the people stretching out their hands to their legislator, watching him off and blessing him, so that on the other hand I see the symbol of the nation, spread out on the earth and calmly enjoying peace, relaxation and carelessness.”
Ivan Betskoy, president of the Academy of Arts, head of the Commission on Stone Construction (and also the official appointed by Catherine to be in charge of everything related to the construction of the monument to Peter), insisted that Falcone take the statue of Marcus Aurelius as a model. Their dispute went so far that Falcone was forced to write an entire treatise, “Observations on the Statue of Marcus Aurelius.” Along with a deep analysis of ancient sculpture, Falcone ironically notes that in such a pose the horse will not be able to take a single step, since the movements of all its legs do not correspond to each other.

Catherine supported Falcone as best she could: “Listen, throw away... the statue of Marcus Aurelius and the bad reasoning of people who do not understand any sense, go your own way, you will do a hundred times better by listening to your stubbornness...”

“The ancients were not so superior to us; they did not do everything so well that there was nothing left for us to do,” the sculptor believed. It required unsurpassed courage and confidence in own strength, in order to move away from the age-old traditions of depicting rulers in military armor calmly sitting in identical poses on measuredly walking horses, surrounded by allegorical figures.
The place for the monument was determined on May 5, 1768, when Betskoy announced to the Senate: “Her Imperial Majesty deigned to verbally command the monument to be erected on the square between the Neva River, from the Admiralty and the house in which the Governing Senate is present.”

"Hero on the Emblematic Rock"

How was Falconet's idea born?

Engraving “Equestrian statue of Peter the Great” from the album “Costume Russian Empire"(London, 1811).

A snake under a horse’s hooves is a symbol of defeated envy.

While still in Paris, Falconet thought about the design of the future monument and made its first sketches. “That day when I sketched on the corner of your table a hero and his horse jumping over an emblematic rock, and you were so pleased with my idea,” he later wrote to Diderot. – The monument will be made simply. There will be no barbarity, people's love, or a symbol of the nation there. Peter the Great is his own subject and attribute: all that remains is to show it. I imagine the hero not as a great commander and conqueror, although he was, of course, both. We must show humanity a more beautiful sight, the creator, legislator, benefactor of his country... My king does not hold a rod in his hand, he extends his beneficent hand over the country over which he flies, he climbs this rock, which serves as his foundation - an emblem of difficulties which he overcame. So, this fatherly hand, this jump over a steep cliff—this is the plot that Peter the Great gives me.”

The clothes of the future rider caused serious thought. The options offered included a European suit that was fashionable at the time, a Roman toga, military armor, and ancient Russian attire. Ivan Bakmeister, a librarian of the Academy of Sciences who personally knew Falcone, spoke categorically about modern clothing in his remarkable work “Historical News of the Statued Equestrian Image of Peter the Great” (1783): “French clothing for the heroic sculptured image is completely obscene, erect and sea-buckthorny.” . Antique and knightly clothing “is a masquerade when worn by a person who was not a Roman, and especially when he is not depicted as a warrior... If this is an old Moscow caftan, then it is not suitable for someone who has declared war on beards and caftans. If you dress Peter in the clothes that he wore, then it will not make it possible to convey movement and lightness in a large sculpture, especially in an equestrian monument. Therefore, Peter’s costume is the clothing of all nations, all people, all times - in a word, a heroic costume,” Falcone concluded.

The snake as an important element of the composition also appeared as a result of much thought. “This allegory gives the object all the power inherent to it, which it did not have before... Peter the Great was opposed by envy, that is certain; he bravely overcame it... such is the fate of every great man,” Falcone convinced Catherine. “If I ever made a statue of Your Majesty, and if the composition allowed it, then I would throw envy at the bottom of the pedestal.” The Empress answered evasively: “I neither like nor dislike the allegorical snake. I wanted to find out all sorts of objections to the snake...” And there were many objections: some thought that the snake was too “smooth” and it would be better “made with greater curvatures,” others that it was too big or too small. And Betskoy, in conversations with Catherine, presented the snake only as a manifestation of the sculptor’s whim. It soon became clear that the wise Falcone conceived the snake not only as a bright artistic image, but also as part of the supporting structure: “People... perhaps too sensitive to the slightly bold but simple trick of my inspiration, believe that the snake should be removed... But these people They don’t know, like me, that without this happy episode the support of the statue would have been very unreliable. They didn't calculate the strength I needed with me. They do not know that if they listened to their advice, the monument would be unstable.” The fate of the snake was decided by these words of Catherine: “there is one old song that says: if it is necessary, then it is necessary, this is my answer regarding the snake.”

As Kaganovich figuratively put it, “the horseman crushed with his passionate energy, the swiftness of his impulse, a deadly obstacle, a clot of envy, deceit and betrayal that interfered with the free movement of progress.”

Let us finally cite a significant remark by Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland) from his Diary of a Travel to Russia (1867): “If this monument had stood in Berlin, Peter would undoubtedly have been busy directly killing this monster, but here he doesn’t even look at him: obviously, the “killer” principle is not recognized here.”

“I have completed my main job!”

How was the work on the model?

Adolphe Charlemagne. M.-A. Collo sculpts the head of Peter I, fragment (1867). Filmstrip “The Bronze Horseman” (1981).

Drawing of a model of the monument to Peter the Great, made by artist Anton Losenko in Falconet’s workshop (1770). Museum of the city of Nancy (France).

Falconet arrived in St. Petersburg at the end of 1766 and, already at the beginning next year Having agreed on the composition of the future monument, he began making its “small model”. A year later she was ready and received the highest approval. On February 1, 1768, " big model" – life-size of the future bronze statue.

The master’s selfless and thoughtful work on every detail is emphasized by the following memories: “... when I had the idea to depict a horse in a gallop and on the rise in sculpture, I turned not to my memory, and even less to my imagination, in order to make an accurate model. I studied nature. To do this, I commissioned the making of a slide, which I gave the slope that my pedestal should have. I made the rider gallop: first, not just once, but more than a hundred times; the second - at different times; third - on different horses. For the eye can only grasp the effects of such rapid movements by means of many repeated impressions. Having studied the movement of the horse I had chosen as a whole, I moved on to studying the details. I examined, sculpted, drew every part - from below, from above, in front, behind, on both sides, because there is no other means of obtaining an exact knowledge of the subject; only after these studies did I believe that I had seen and was able to convey a horse rising up in a gallop, to convey the true shape of the muscles and ligaments...” (Note that the camera was invented only 60 years later).

In the contract, Falcone specifically stipulated the possibility of an unhindered choice of horses and sitters. The sculptor chose the best stallions from the court stable - they turned out to be the handsome Brilliant and Caprice. The name of one of the riders is known - Afanasy Telezhnikov. According to legend, Colonel Peter Melissino also posed for Falcone, “with a face and physique very similar to the emperor.” The sculptor was advised by a major horse expert, the English Ambassador Lord Cathcard.

A significant problem turned out to be sculpting the emperor's head.
“In order... to depict the facial features of the original in the model as accurately as possible, he received, by the highest order from the Academy of Sciences, a very similar plaster head of Peter the Great, he also ordered from Bologna an image cast from the chest image located there, very similar to the emperor ; In addition, he was allowed to look at his will at the image made from wax, located in the Academy, taken from the face of the emperor himself,” Backmeister testified. Apparently, after several unsuccessful attempts to produce a sculptural portrait of Peter that fully corresponded to the plan, Falconet entrusted this task to Marie-Anne Collot, with whom she, being a portrait painter, coped brilliantly.

In July 1769, a life-size clay model of the future monument was made. Until the spring of next year she was “transferred to plaster.” “I have completed my main work! – Falcone wrote to a friend. “Oh, if the monument I brought to the end was worthy of the great man he depicts, if this monument did not disgrace either art or my fatherland, then I could say with Horace: “Not all of me will die!”

"A fragment of a great epic poem"

What did the public say when the model was unveiled?

This is how the monument to Peter the Great was remembered by the Japanese traveler Daikokuya Kodai, who visited St. Petersburg in 1791. National Museum Tokyo.

Falcone contacted the Academy of Arts and invited Russian artists to discuss the shortcomings of the model, “which may still be there, in order to correct them if possible,” after which the model was exhibited “for two whole weeks for a national spectacle.” “St. Petersburg Vedomosti” wrote about this: “On May 19 from 11 to 2 and in the afternoon from 6 to 8 o’clock, the model Petru Vel will be shown for two weeks from now on. in a building located on the site of the former winter palace on Nevsky Prospekt.”
“Finally, the curtain has risen,” Falcone wrote with excitement. “I am, of course, at the mercy of the public; my workshop is jam-packed.”

“Some praised her, others blasphemed her,” Backmeister testified. – The front part of the horse’s neck, according to the expert’s notes, is made a quarter of an inch thicker than it should be... the astute husband, perhaps not without reason, noticed that the fingers of the outstretched hand were very wide. Does it follow from this, as some have thought, that they were coupled together? Such a hand would not express anything and would not mean anything. Others found that the content of the size of the head in the discussion of the legs was wrong... Others still thought simple clothing was obscene...” Someone Yakovlev “found the emperor’s mustache terrible.” The Synod prosecutor was indignant at the fact that “a man and a horse are twice as large as they usually are.” A certain Englishman demanded a “written explanation” so that he could understand “the meaning of the rock and the position of the horse.” Ludwig von Nicolai, future president of the Academy of Sciences, recalled: “Falcone... had a lot of fun at the judgments of his visitors. One kind fellow exclaimed: “My God! What was this man thinking? Of course, Peter I is called great, and that is what he was. But not the same giant!” Falcone met one privy councilor near the door, and, as usual, asked his opinion. “Oh, oh,” he began at first sight. - How could you make such a gross mistake? Don’t you see that one leg is much longer than the other?” - “I thank you for your remark, but let’s explore this matter in more detail.” “Falcone led him to the other side. - “Here you go! Now the other one is longer!” Two men stopped in front of the statue: “Why is Peter extending his hand into the air like that?” “You’re a fool,” the other objected, “he’s testing whether it’s raining or not.” Further, Nikolai wrote: “Falcone paid exceptional attention to the horse, and considered the image of Peter to be almost a secondary matter. He felt that in creating a horse he could surpass the ancient sculptors, but in depicting Peter he could barely reach the old masters. The Russian people, who were expecting a monument to Peter, and not his horse, did not like this, especially when he commissioned his student, Mademoiselle Collot, to sculpt the hero’s head, the main part of the whole work.”

Such criticism both amused and hurt Falcone. “Laugh at fools and go your way. This is my rule,” Catherine encouraged him. However, there were much more rave reviews.
"Today I saw the famous equestrian statue Peter I,” wrote the French diplomat Marie Corberon, “is the best of all the similar ones that I know. You know all the controversy, abuse and ridicule that it caused; I can assure you that she will make you forget all this.” Here is the testimony of one English traveler: “This work combines simplicity with the grandeur of the concept... This monument is one of a kind, and it perfectly expresses the character of both the man and the nation over which he ruled.” Falconet's teacher, Jean-Louis Lemoine (he received a small copy of the sculpture by mail) wrote this: “I always considered Falconet very talented and was firmly convinced that he would create a magnificent monument to the Russian Tsar, but what I saw exceeded all expectations.” .

Diderot, who visited St. Petersburg in 1773-1774, responded, as one would expect, enthusiastically: “This work, like a truly beautiful work, is distinguished by the fact that it seems beautiful when you see it for the first time, but the second, third, fourth time seems even more beautiful: you leave it with regret and always willingly return to it.” “The hero and the horse together make up the beautiful Centaur, whose human and thinking part is surprisingly calm in contrast to the part of the furious animal.” And again: “The truth of nature has retained all its purity; but your genius merged with it the brilliance of ever-increasing and amazing poetry. Your horse is not a snapshot of the most beautiful of existing horses, just as Apollo Belvedere is not a repetition of the most beautiful of people: both are the essence of the work of both the creator and the artist. He is colossal but light, he is powerful and graceful, his head is full of intelligence and life. As far as I could judge, it was executed with extreme observation, but deep study of the details does not harm the overall impression; everything is done in a big way. You don’t feel any tension or labor anywhere; You'll think it's just one day's work. Let me state a hard truth. I knew you to be a very skilled person, but I never imagined anything like this in your head... You managed to create in life... a fragment of a great epic poem.”

Probably, the sculptor most rejoiced at the empress’s words about “that smart beast that occupies the middle... of the workshop”: “This horse, in spite of you and between your fingers touching the clay, gallops straight to posterity, which, of course, will appreciate its perfection better than its contemporaries.” .

"Like Boldness"

History of the Thunder Stone

Medal “Like Daring”, minted in honor of the unique transportation of the Thunder Stone - from the Lakhtinsky swamp to Senate Square.

“An ordinary base, on which most of the statues are mounted,” wrote Backmeister, “means nothing and is not capable of arousing a new reverent thought in the soul of the viewer... The chosen base for the sculptured image of the Russian hero should be a wild and intractable stone... New, daring and expressive a lot thought! The stone itself, with its decoration, should remind of the then state of the state and of the difficulties that its creator had to overcome in achieving his intentions... At a distance of almost six miles from St. Petersburg, near the village of Lakhta, in a flat and swampy country, nature produced a stone of terrible size... Looking at it was exciting surprise, and the thought of moving him to another place was terrifying.”

They dug up a huge stone, hoisted it onto a platform with levers, dragged it along special rails to the shore of the Gulf of Finland, loaded it onto a specially designed barge and delivered it to St. Petersburg. The history of the Thunderstone is so fascinating that we decided to dedicate one of the next issues of the wall newspaper to it.

Detailed description of the casting of the statue

Making a plaster mold for the subsequent casting of the statue of Louis XIV. Yverdon Encyclopedia (1777).

Wax copy of the statue of Louis XIV with a system of tubes - for pouring bronze, flowing out wax and releasing steam. Yverdon Encyclopedia (1777).

A mold covered with iron hoops, ready to begin casting the statue of Louis XIV. Yverdon Encyclopedia (1777).
The inscription on the pedestal is in Latin. Can you translate it? What about the bottom line?

The technology of casting small bronze figurines was known back in III millennium BC. First, they made a model of the future figurine (for example, from wood). The model was covered with a layer of clay. After hardening, this clay shell was cut into two halves, carefully separated, the model was taken out, and the halves were again connected and wrapped with wire. A hole was drilled at the top of the mold thus obtained and molten bronze was poured inside. All that remained was to wait until the bronze hardened, remove the mold and admire the resulting figurine.

In order to save expensive metal, they learned how to make hollow figurines. In this case, the inside of the mold was coated with a layer of soft wax and the remaining void was filled with sand. A fire was lit under the mold, the wax melted and flowed out. Now the molten bronze poured on top occupied the volume in which the wax had previously been located. The bronze froze, after which the mold was dismantled, and the sand from inside the figurine was poured out through a hole left in advance.

Falcone acted on approximately the same principle (taking into account the fact that the result should have been an eight-ton, five-meter giant, and not a small figurine). Unfortunately, neither Falcone nor anyone around him made any sketches (or they have not yet been discovered). Therefore, we present here drawings illustrating the casting of the monument to Louis XIV in Paris.

"WITH big model The sculptured image had to first of all be removed from the plaster mold,” says Backmeister. This means that the model was coated on all sides with a thick layer of semi-hardened plaster, trying to fill every fold. The model was first coated with fat so that the plaster would not stick to it. After this plaster mold had hardened, it was cut into pieces, numbered and removed from the model. A layer of melted wax was applied to the inner surface of each piece with a brush.
Falcone understood: in order to ensure the stability of the statue, its center of gravity should be made as low as possible (like that of a tumbler doll). To do this, the walls of the statue must be thick and heavy at the bottom, and very thin at the top, no more than 7.5 mm. Taking this into account, wax of different thicknesses was applied to the mold. Then the pieces of the mold, coated with wax on the inside, were reassembled into in the right places reinforced with a steel frame. The void inside was filled with a special hardening composition of gypsum and ground brick. Now, having carefully removed the plaster mold, Falcone had the opportunity to carefully examine the wax copy of the future statue in order to make final adjustments. “Any remaining unnoticed error in the large model could then be corrected, every feature in the face brought to greater perfection. The maiden Kollot practiced especially in straightening the model of the horseman's head she had made. Several weeks were spent on this work.”
Now it was necessary to carry many wax rods to the most secluded corners of the future statue. Subsequently, having melted inside the clay mass, each such wax rod will turn into a tube - a sprue. The sprues were combined into five large pipes. Special tubes were intended to drain the melted wax, as well as to allow air to escape as the mold was filled with bronze. All these numerous tubes “fit tightly to the model and gave the appearance of a branched tree.”

This entire structure, with the greatest precautions, “had to be covered with a clay composition. The wax was coated with this liquefied matter several times until it was half an inch thick; The dry and hardened bark was covered alternately with brick, glue and earth until it became eight inches thick. In order to properly strengthen the clay mold, they surrounded it with iron strips and rims. The last job left was melting the wax." A huge fire was lit around this new, downright armored mold, which burned for eight days, after which all the wax (and there were 100 pounds of it!) flowed out, making room for subsequent bronze pouring, and the mold itself hardened and became even stronger.

“The time for casting the statue was approaching. The day before, the smelting furnace was fired, the supervision of which was entrusted to the cannon foundry master Khailov. The next day, when the copper had already melted enough, the five main pipes that were led up were opened and the copper was let in” (it should be noted that previously the word “copper” was used to refer to all metals similar in composition, including bronze). “The lower parts of the mold were all already filled, which promised the best success, but suddenly the copper flowed out of the clay mold and spilled onto the floor, which began to burn. The astonished Falconet (and what artist would not be astonished to see his nine-year work destroyed in a few minutes, that his honor was perishing, and that his envious people were already triumphant) hurried ahead of everyone else from there, and the danger also forced others to quickly follow him. Only Khailov, who looked with indignation at the leaking copper, stayed until the end... and picked up the leaked molten copper to the last drop into the mold, not in the least afraid of the danger to which his life was exposed. Falconet was so touched by this brave and honest act of the foundry master that, at the end of the work, he ran up to him, kissed him heartily and showed his most sensitive gratitude with the gift of several money from his own wallet... However, this casting can be considered the best, which is hardly anywhere committed. For neither in the rider nor in the horse is there a single shell or crack visible in the copper, but everything was cast as cleanly as wax.” As a result of this accident, the upper part of the monument was nevertheless damaged. “The shoulder-length horseman's head was so bad that I broke that ugly piece of bronze. The upper half of the horse’s head along a horizontal line is in the same position,” Falcone grieved. In 1777, he topped up - this time flawlessly.

“A lot of work was still required to finish the cast so that it could be publicly displayed. The composition filling the inside of the mold... and the excess iron device had to be removed; it was necessary to saw off the pipes located along the entire surface of the sculpture, which served to drain the wax, allow air to flow out, and spill molten copper; soak the bark that comes from mixing copper with clay, and beat it off with special tools; fill cracks and crevices with copper; give uneven or thickly cast parts a proportionate thickness and generally try to polish the entire sculpture in the most perfect way... Finally, Falconet enjoyed the pleasure of seeing his creation completely finished.” In memory of these events, the sculptor left the inscription on the fold of Peter I’s cloak: “Sculpted and cast by Etienne Falconet, a Parisian in 1778.”
Alas, at this stage, Falconet’s relations with Catherine’s entourage, primarily with Betsky, deteriorated so much that the master was forced to leave St. Petersburg forever, without waiting for the opening of his main creation. Backmeister wrote bitterly: “The confluence of various circumstances... made his further stay in St. Petersburg unpleasant for him, despite all the respect that his art and scholarship deserved. His departure was left to his will, and after a twelve-year stay here, he left in September 1778...”

The completion of the unfinished work was entrusted to Yuri Felten, academician, chief architect of the Office of Her Imperial Majesty's Houses and Gardens, who had been working with Falcone for several years. I wonder what was left to do? “Under the leadership of Felten,” Kaganovich reports, “two stones were placed in front and behind the rock, which somewhat lengthened the pedestal and gave it the shape that it retains to this day. Placing the statue on the pedestal was undoubtedly a great challenge. However, in this case, Felten did not encounter undue difficulties, since it is known that the calculations during casting turned out to be so accurate, and the casting itself was carried out with such skill that the rider, mounted vertically and not yet strengthened in any way, retained reliable stability. Felten also had to, according to his “report” to the Office of Buildings, “... make a model of the parts of the snake, pour them out and strengthen them on stone. Around the monument, pave the area with large pieces of wild stone and surround it with a lattice with decent decorations,” and also “strengthen the inscription on both sides of the pedestal.” By the way, Falcone was against the fence: “There will be no bars around Peter the Great - why put him in a cage?”

The inscription on the pedestal also has its own interesting history. Diderot proposed this option: “Catherine the Second dedicated the monument to Peter the Great. The resurrected valor brought this huge rock with colossal effort and threw it under the feet of the hero.” Falcone, in a letter to Catherine, insisted on more short inscription: “Peter the First was erected by Catherine the Second” and clarified: “I would very much like that... they didn’t think of writing anything more... thanks to the newest bad minds, they began to make endless inscriptions, in which chatter is wasted, when one well-aimed word would have been enough.” Catherine, having removed the word “erected” with a royal flourish, gave her descendants a laconic and deeply meaningful motto in St. Petersburg: “Catherine the Second to Peter the Great.”

“This simple, noble and lofty inscription expresses everything that only the reader should think about it,” sums up Backmeister.

“The image of the monarch appeared in the highest perfection”

Description of the opening of the monument

Unveiling of the monument to Peter I on Senate Square in St. Petersburg. Engraving by A.K. Melnikov from a drawing by A.P. Davydov (1782). State Hermitage Museum.

View of St. Isaac's Bridge. Colorized lithograph (1830s). The impression of the monument to Peter the Great was further enhanced by the fact that a floating bridge across the Neva was built directly opposite it (existed in 1727-1916 with interruptions).
“Behind him everywhere the Bronze Horseman galloped with a heavy stomp...” Illustration by A.N. Benois (1903) for the poem “The Bronze Horseman” by A.S. Pushkin.

Many descriptions of this spectacular festival have been preserved; The most valuable thing for us is the memories of eyewitnesses. Let's listen to Ivan Backmeister: “...Everyone looked forward with pleasure to the day on which this monument was to be opened to the people. Her Imperial Majesty deigned to set this celebration on the 7th day of August 1782... The opening of this monument followed exactly one hundred years after the accession to the All-Russian throne of the hero to whom it was erected in honor. Before the grand opening of the statue... a linen fence was placed near it, on which stones and mountainous countries were depicted in various colors. The weather was... at first cloudy and rainy; but, despite this, people flocked from all parts of the city... in the thousands. Finally, as the sky began to brighten, spectators began to gather in great crowds in galleries specially made for this occasion. The Admiralty Wall and all the windows near the houses were filled with spectators, even the very roofs of the houses were covered with them. At noon, the regiments designated for this celebration, under the leadership of their commanders, set off from their places and took the places shown to them... The number of troops extended to 15,000 people... At the fourth hour, Her Imperial Majesty deigned to arrive on a boat. Soon after this, the monarch appeared on the balcony of the Senate. Her favorable appearance attracted the gaze of countless people, filled with reverent surprise. The signal followed - at that very moment the fence fell to the ground without visible support, and the sculptured image of the Great Monarch appeared in the highest perfection. What a disgrace! (Have you noticed, dear reader, this word? A linguistic gift straight from the 18th century! You can conduct your own little research into why the author wrote it that way). “The Great Catherine, filled with feeling for the feats undertaken by her ancestor for the bliss and glory of Russia, bows her head before him. Her eyes are filled with tears!.. Then nationwide exclamations were heard. All regiments congratulated the sculptured image of the hero by beating drums and saluting, bowing banners and proclaiming three times congratulations, accompanied by the thunder of cannons from the fortress, from the Admiralty and from the imperial yachts, which were immediately decorated with flags and proclaimed this joyful triumph in all parts of the city, to which it should forever be precious and holy. At the end of the day, the whole city was illuminated, and especially Petrovskaya Square, with a great variety of lights.”

Alexander Radishchev, the author of the famous “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” also impressed by the opening of the monument, wrote in a letter to a friend: “Yesterday the dedication of the monument to Peter the Great took place here with splendor in honor of the erected... The statue represents a powerful horseman, on a greyhound horse, rushing up the mountain steep, the top of which he had already reached, crushing the snake lying on the way and stopping the encroaching snake with his sting, the rapid rise of horse and rider... The steepness of the mountain is the essence of the obstacles that Peter had in putting his intentions into action; the snake lying on the way - deceit and malice that sought his death for the introduction of new morals; ancient clothing, animal skin and all the simple attire of horse and rider - the essence of simple and rude morals and lack of enlightenment that Peter found in the people whom he set out to transform; a head crowned with laurels - for the conqueror was before the legislator; the appearance of manly and powerful and the strength of the transformer; an outstretched hand, protective, as Diderot calls it, and a cheerful gaze are the essence of inner assurance that has reached the goal, and the outstretched hand shows that a strong husband, having overcome all the vices that opposed his aspirations, gives his protection to everyone called his children. Here, dear friend, is a faint image of what, looking at the image of Petrov, I feel.”

There is no need to say that even today Falcone’s immortal creation continues to inspire admiration. Art critic Solomon Volkov writes in his book “The Cultural History of St. Petersburg from the Founding to the Present Day”: “Although almost everyone understood and recognized the high merits of the monument, it was hardly clear to the first viewers that before them was one of the greatest works of sculpture of the 18th century. And of course, walking around the statue of equestrian Peter and as they moved, discovering more and more new aspects of his image - a wise and decisive legislator, a fearless commander, an unyielding monarch who did not tolerate obstacles - the crowd did not realize that before them was the most important, eternal, forever the most a popular symbol of their city."

“However, no one perceived the sculptor’s creation as deeply and subtly as Pushkin,” Kaganovich rightly concludes. In the fall of 1833 in Boldino, the monument to Peter the Great forever became the Bronze Horseman for us. Impressed by Pushkin's poem, composer Reinhold Glier created a ballet of the same name, a fragment of which became the official anthem of St. Petersburg.

"Protect the stone and bronze"

How to behave with monuments?

Employee State Museum city ​​sculpture applies a special restoration agent to the statue.

The Bronze Horseman today.

Since 1932, the study, protection and restoration of the Bronze Horseman (along with other monuments of monumental art in our city) has been the responsibility of the State Museum of Urban Sculpture. Nadezhda Nikolaevna Efremova, Deputy Director of the Museum for scientific work, told us about the culture of handling monuments.

“Monuments are the most accessible type visual arts. To see, for example, a painting or theatrical production, you need to put in some effort. And the monuments are always in front of us - in the city squares. It is difficult for monuments to live in the modern world. Negative impacts that the author could not even foresee are intensifying. For example, vibration. After all, the monuments were created at a time when heavy vehicles had not yet walked the streets. Another problem is blocking of streams groundwater as a result of economic activities. As a result, water flows under the heavy pedestal, setting its constituent stone blocks in motion. At the same time, the gaps between them increase and the seams are destroyed, which we treat with a special mastic. Monuments, although made of metal and stone, are generally defenseless against humans. I saw how on holidays people climbed onto the neck of a horse, grabbing its front legs, not realizing that the thickness of the metal here was insignificant. Pressing bronze even with the soles of boots is as easy as shelling pears. This unusual stress causes invisible cracks in the metal. In our climate - from temperature changes, from water getting inside - any microcrack grows rapidly. It is also very important not to disturb the patina - the thinnest film covering the bronze. Coloristic features of patina – business card each monument. And if someone (it is not clear why) scratches or polishes some part of the statue to a shine, he not only makes the bronze unprotected, but also destroys the unique shade of patina, which is extremely difficult to reproduce. Falcone from the very beginning refused to install a fence: “If you need to protect stone and bronze from crazy people and children, then there are sentries in the Russian Empire.” Without relying on the “sentinels,” it would be good for us to realize that any contact with the monument (except visual) is detrimental to it.”

In one of the next issues we will continue the conversation about the secrets of the Bronze Horseman revealed during its latest restoration.

What to read about the Bronze Horseman?

Kaganovich, A. L. The Bronze Horseman. History of the creation of the monument. L.: Art, 1982. 2nd edition, revised. and additional

Ivanov, G.I. Stone-Thunder: history. story. (To the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg). St. Petersburg: Stroyizdat, 1994.

Arkin, D. E. The Bronze Horseman. Monument to Peter I in Leningrad. M.-L.: Art, 1958.

Creation of a model and casting of the monument to Peter I in St. Petersburg. Extract from the work of I. G. Backmeister 1782-1786.

Opening of the monument to Peter I in St. Petersburg. August 7, 1782 Extract from the work of I. G. Backmeister. 1786

Lewis Carroll. Diary of a trip to Russia in 1867. Translation by N. Demurova

Radishchev A.N. Letter to a friend living in Tobolsk/Communication. P.A. Efremov // Russian antiquity, 1871. – T. 4. – No. 9.

Correspondence of Empress Catherine II with Falconet. The text of the letters is in French, with translation into Russian. Collection of the Imperial Russian Historical Society. Volume 17. St. Petersburg, 1876. Electronic version- Online Presidential Library by application.

Shubinsky S.N. Historical essays and stories. SPb.: Type. M. Khan, 1869.

Ivanovsky, A. Conversations about Peter the Great and his employees. SPb.: type. Children's care homes. poor, 1872.

Drawing by A. P. Losenko from the Falconet monument to Peter the Great. P. Ettinger. Based on materials from the monthly for lovers of art and antiquity “Old Years”, March 1915.

Newspapers for the holidays by selecting the appropriate menu item there. We remind you that our partners in their organizations distribute our wall newspapers for free.

Yours Georgy Popov, site editor

On August 27, 2016, the premiere of the cartoon “The Bronze Horseman” took place at the “Chaika” cinema center, created by the children of the “CartoonChaika” studio based on the idea and under the direction of our friend Lena Pilipovskaya. In close contact with our project. An excellent educational cartoon in the Mustlook category!

"The Bronze Horseman" - a monument to the first Russian Emperor Peter I, has become one of the symbols of St. Petersburg. Its grand opening, timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the reign of Empress Catherine II, took place on August 18 (August 7, old style) 1782 on Senate Square.

The initiative to create a monument to Peter I belongs to Catherine II. It was on her orders that Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Golitsyn turned to the professors of the Paris Academy of Painting and Sculpture Diderot and Voltaire, whose opinion Catherine II completely trusted.

Famous masters They recommended Etienne-Maurice Falconet for this work, who had long dreamed of creating a monumental work. The wax sketch was made by the master in Paris, and after his arrival in Russia in 1766, work began on a plaster model the size of the statue.

Refusing the allegorical solution proposed to him by those around Catherine II, Falcone decided to present the king as “the creator, legislator and benefactor of his country,” who “extends his right hand over the country he travels around.” He instructed his student Marie Anne Collot to model the head of the statue, but subsequently made changes to the image, trying to express in the face of Peter a combination of thought and strength.

The casting of the monument took place at the end of August 1774. But it was not possible to complete it in one go, as Falcone had hoped. During casting, cracks formed in the mold, through which liquid metal began to flow. A fire started in the workshop.

The dedication and resourcefulness of the foundry master Emelyan Khailov allowed the flames to be extinguished, but the entire upper part of the casting from the rider's knees and the horse's chest to their heads was irreparably damaged and had to be cut down. During the time between the first and second casting, the craftsmen sealed and caulked the holes left in the cast part of the monument from the pipes (sprues) through which liquid metal was fed into the mold, and polished the bronze. The upper part of the statue was cast in the summer of 1777.

Then the joining of the two parts of the sculpture and the sealing of the seam between them, chasing, polishing and patina of the bronze began. In the summer of 1778, the decoration of the monument was largely completed. In memory of this, Falconet engraved on one of the folds of Peter I’s cloak an inscription in Latin: “Sculpted and cast by Etienne Falconet, Parisian 1778.” In August of the same year, the sculptor left Russia without waiting for the opening of the monument.

Architect Yuri Felten monitored the progress of work on the construction of the monument after the French sculptor left Russia.

The support for the monument is a snake trampled by a horse by the sculptor Fyodor Gordeev, symbolizing envy, inertia and malice.

The base of the sculpture - a giant granite block, the so-called thunder stone, was found in 1768 on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, near the village of Konnaya Lakhta. The delivery of the colossal monolith weighing about 1.6 thousand tons to the site of the monument was completed in 1770. First it was transported overland on a platform with grooved runners, which, through 32 bronze balls, rested on portable rails laid on a prepared surface, and then on a specially built barge. According to a drawing by architect Yuri Felten, the stone was given the shape of a rock; as a result of processing, its size was significantly reduced. On the pedestal there is an inscription in Russian and Latin: “Catherine the Second to Peter the Great.” The installation of the monument was supervised by the sculptor Gordeev.

The height of the sculpture of Peter I is 5.35 meters, the height of the pedestal is 5.1 meters, the length of the pedestal is 8.5 meters.

In the statue of Peter pacifying his horse on a steep cliff top, the unity of movement and rest is superbly conveyed; The monument is given special grandeur by the royally proud seat of the king, the commanding gesture of his hand, the turn of his raised head in a laurel wreath, personifying resistance to the elements and the affirmation of the sovereign will.

The monumental statue of a horseman, with an imperious hand squeezing the reins of a horse rearing in a swift rush, symbolizes the growth of the power of Russia.

The location of the monument to Peter I on Senate Square was not chosen by chance. Nearby are the Admiralty, the building of the main legislative body founded by the emperor. Tsarist Russia- Senate. Catherine II insisted on placing the monument in the center of Senate Square. The author of the sculpture, Etienne Falconet, did things his own way by erecting the monument closer to the Neva.

After the opening of the monument, Senate Square received the name Petrovskaya; in 1925-2008 it was called Decembrists Square. In 2008, it was returned to its previous name - Senate.

Thanks to Alexander Pushkin, who used a fantastic story about a monument coming to life during a flood that shook the city in his poem, the bronze monument of Peter.

During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), the monument was covered with sandbags, on top of which a wooden case was built.

The Bronze Horseman has been restored several times. In particular, in 1909, the water that had accumulated inside the monument was drained and the cracks were sealed; in 1912, holes were drilled in the sculpture for water drainage; in 1935, all newly formed defects were eliminated. Complex restoration work was implemented in 1976.

The monument to Peter I is an integral part of the city center ensemble.

On City Day in St. Petersburg, official holiday events traditionally on Senate Square.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

The last poem written by Pushkin in Boldin in October 1833 is the artistic result of his thoughts about the personality of Peter I, about the “St. Petersburg” period of Russian history. Two themes “met” in the poem: the theme of Peter, “the miraculous builder,” and the theme of the “simple” (“little”) man, the “insignificant hero,” which worried the poet since the late 1820s. The story of the tragic fate of an ordinary resident of St. Petersburg, who suffered during a flood, became the plot basis for historical and philosophical generalizations related to the role of Peter in the modern history of Russia, with the fate of his brainchild - St. Petersburg.

"The Bronze Horseman" is one of the most perfect poetic works Pushkin. The poem is written, like “Eugene Onegin,” in iambic tetrameter. Pay attention to the variety of its rhythms and intonations, its amazing sound design. The poet creates vivid visual and auditory images, using the richest rhythmic, intonation and sound capabilities of Russian verse (repetitions, caesuras, alliteration, assonance). Many fragments of the poem have become textbooks. We hear the festive polyphony of St. Petersburg life (“And the glitter and noise and talk of balls, / And at the hour of a bachelor’s feast / The hissing of foamy glasses / And the blue flame of punch”), we see the confused and shocked Eugene (“He stopped. / He went back and came back. / He looks... he walks... he still looks. / Here is the place where their house stands, / Here is a willow tree. There was a gate here, / They were blown away, you can see. Where is the house?”), we are deafened by “as if thunder roaring - / Heavy, ringing galloping / Along the shaken pavement.” “In terms of sound imagery, the verse of “The Bronze Horseman” has few rivals,” noted the poet V.Ya. Bryusov, a subtle researcher of Pushkin's poetry.

The short poem (less than 500 verses) combines history and modernity, the hero’s private life with historical life, reality with myth. Perfection of poetic forms and innovative principles artistic embodiment historical and modern material made “The Bronze Horseman” a unique work, a kind of “monument not made by hands” to Peter, Petersburg, the “St. Petersburg” period of Russian history.

Pushkin overcame the genre canons of the historical poem. Peter I does not appear in the poem as a historical character (he is an “idol” - a sculpture, a deified statue), and nothing is said about the time of his reign. For Pushkin, the Peter the Great era was a long period in the history of Russia, which did not end with the death of the reformer Tsar. The poet turns not to the origins of this era, but to its results, that is, to modernity. The high historical point from which Pushkin looked at Peter was an event of the recent past - the St. Petersburg flood of November 7, 1824, “ terrible time", which, as the poet emphasized, is "a fresh memory." This is a living, not yet “cooled down” story.

The flood, one of many that have struck the city since its founding, is the central event of the work. The story of the flood shapes the first semantic plan of the poem is historical. The documentary nature of the story is noted in the author’s “Preface” and in the “Notes”. In one of the episodes, the “late tsar”, the unnamed Alexander I, appears. For Pushkin, the flood is not just bright historical fact. He looked at it as a kind of final “document” of the era. This is, as it were, the “last legend” in her St. Petersburg “chronicle”, begun by Peter’s decision to found a city on the Neva. The flood is the historical basis of the plot and the source of one of the conflicts of the poem - the conflict between the city and the elements.

The second semantic plan of the poem is conventionally literary, fictional- given by the subtitle: “Petersburg Tale.” Eugene - central character this story. The faces of the remaining residents of St. Petersburg are indistinguishable. These are the “people” crowding on the streets, drowning during a flood (the first part), and the cold, indifferent St. Petersburg people in the second part. The real background of the story about the fate of Evgeniy was St. Petersburg: Senate Square, the streets and the outskirts where the “dilapidated house” of Parasha stood. Pay attention to. the fact that the action in the poem was transferred to the street: during the flood, Evgeny found himself “on Petrovaya Square”, home, in his “deserted corner”, he, distraught with grief, no longer returned, becoming an inhabitant of the streets of St. Petersburg. “The Bronze Horseman” is the first urban poem in Russian literature.

Historical and conventionally literary plans dominate in realistic story telling(first and second parts).

Plays an important role third semantic plane - legendary-mythological. It is given by the title of the poem - “The Bronze Horseman”. This semantic plan interacts with the historical in the introduction, sets off the plot narrative about the flood and the fate of Eugene, reminding itself from time to time (primarily with the figure of an “idol on a bronze horse”), and dominates at the climax of the poem (the Bronze Horseman’s pursuit of Eugene). A mythological hero appears, a revived statue - the Bronze Horseman. In this episode, St. Petersburg seems to lose its real outlines, turning into a conventional, mythological space.

The Bronze Horseman is an unusual literary image. It is a figurative interpretation of a sculptural composition that embodies the idea of ​​its creator, sculptor E. Falcone, but at the same time it is a grotesque, fantastic image, overcoming the boundary between the real (“plausible”) and the mythological (“wonderful”). The Bronze Horseman, awakened by the words of Eugene, falling from his pedestal, ceases to be only an “idol on a bronze horse,” that is, a monument to Peter. He becomes the mythological embodiment of the “formidable king”.

Since the founding of St. Petersburg real story the city has been interpreted in a variety of myths, legends and prophecies. The “City of Peter” was presented in them not as an ordinary city, but as the embodiment of mysterious, fatal forces. Depending on the assessment of the personality of the tsar and his reforms, these forces were understood as divine, good, gifting the Russian people with a city-paradise, or, on the contrary, as evil, demonic, and therefore anti-people.

In the XVIII - early XIX centuries. Two groups of myths developed in parallel, mirroring each other. In some myths, Peter was represented as the “father of the Fatherland,” a deity who founded a certain intelligent cosmos, a “glorious city,” a “dear country,” a stronghold of state and military power. These myths arose in poetry (including odes and epic poems A.P. Sumarokova, V.K. Trediakovsky, G.R. Derzhavin) and were officially encouraged. In other myths that developed in folk tales and prophecies of schismatics, Peter was the spawn of Satan, the living Antichrist, and Petersburg, founded by him, was a “non-Russian” city, a satanic chaos, doomed to inevitable extinction. If the first, semi-official, poetic myths were myths about the miraculous founding of the city, with which the “Golden Age” began in Russia, then the second, folk, were myths about its destruction or desolation. “Petersburg will be empty”, “the city will burn and drown” - this is how Peter’s opponents answered those who saw in Petersburg a man-made “northern Rome”.

Pushkin created synthetic images of Peter and St. Petersburg. In them, both mutually exclusive mythological concepts complemented each other. Poetic myth about the founding of the city is developed in the introduction, focused on literary tradition, and the myth about its destruction and flooding is in the first and second parts of the poem.

The originality of Pushkin's poem lies in the complex interaction of historical, conventionally literary and legendary-mythological semantic plans. In the introduction, the founding of the city is shown in two plans. First - legendary-mythological: Peter appears here not as a historical character, but as an unnamed hero of legend. He- founder and future builder of the city, fulfilling the will of nature itself. However, his “great thoughts” are historically specific: the city is created by the Russian Tsar “to spite an arrogant neighbor”, so that Russia can “cut a window to Europe.” Historical semantic plan underlined by the words “a hundred years have passed.” But these same words shroud the historical event in a mythological haze: in place of the story about how the “city was founded”, how it was built, there is a graphic pause, a “dash”. The emergence of the “young city” “from the darkness of the forests, from the swamps of blat” is like a miracle: the city was not built, but “ascended magnificently, proudly.” The story about the city begins in 1803 (this year St. Petersburg turned one hundred years old). Third - conventionally literary- the semantic plan appears in the poem immediately after the historically accurate picture of “darkened Petrograd” on the eve of the flood (the beginning of the first part). The author declares the conventionality of the hero’s name, hints at his “literariness” (in 1833 the first complete edition of the novel “Eugene Onegin” appeared),

Let us note that in the poem there is a change of semantic plans, and their overlap and intersection. Let us give several examples illustrating the interaction of the historical and legendary-mythological plans. The poetic “report” of the violence of the elements is interrupted by a comparison of the city (its name is replaced by a mythopoetic “pseudonym”) with a river deity (hereinafter our italics - Auto.): “the waters suddenly / Flowed into the underground cellars, / Channels rushed to the gratings, / And Petropol surfaced like Triton, / Waist-deep in water».

The enraged Neva is compared either to a frenzied “beast,” or to “thieves” climbing through the windows, or to a “villain” who burst into the village “with his ferocious gang.” The story of the flood takes on a folklore and mythological overtones. The water element evokes in the poet strong associations with rebellion and the villainous raid of robbers. In the second part, the story about the “brave merchant” is interrupted by an ironic mention of the modern myth-maker - the graphomaniac poet Khvostov, who “was already singing in immortal verse / The misfortune of the Neva banks.”

The poem has many compositional and semantic parallels. Their basis is the relationships established between fictional hero poem, the water element, the city and the sculptural composition - “an idol on a bronze horse.” For example, a parallel to the “great thoughts” of the city founder (introduction) - “excitement different thoughts» Evgeniya (part one). The legendary He thought about the city and state interests, Eugene - about simple, everyday things: “He will somehow arrange for himself / A humble and simple shelter / And in it he will calm Parasha.” The dreams of Peter, the “miraculous builder,” came true: the city was built, he himself became the “ruler of half the world.” Evgeniy’s dreams of family and home collapsed with the death of Parasha. In the first part, other parallels arise: between Peter and the “late tsar” (Peter’s legendary double “looked into the distance” - the tsar “in his thoughts with sorrowful eyes / looked at the evil disaster”); the king and the people (the sad king “said: “Tsars cannot cope with God’s elements” - the people “see God’s wrath and await execution”). The king is powerless against the elements, the distraught townspeople feel abandoned to the mercy of fate: “Alas! everything perishes: shelter and food! / Where will I get it?

Eugene, sitting “astride a marble beast” in the pose of Napoleon (“his hands clasped in a cross”), is compared with the monument to Peter:

And my back is turned to him

In the unshakable heights,

Above the indignant Neva

Standing with outstretched hand

Idol on a bronze horse.

A compositional parallel to this scene is drawn in the second part: a year later, the mad Eugene again found himself in the same “empty square” where the waves splashed during the flood:

He found himself under the pillars

Big house. On the porch

With a raised paw, as if alive,

The lions stood guard,

And right in the dark heights

Above the fenced rock

Idol with outstretched hand

Sat on a bronze horse.

In the figurative system of the poem, two seemingly opposite principles coexist - principle of similarity and principle of contrast. Parallels and comparisons not only indicate the similarities that arise between different phenomena or situations, but also reveal unresolved (and unresolvable) contradictions between them. For example, Eugene, fleeing the elements on a marble lion, is a tragicomic “double” of the guardian of the city, “an idol on a bronze horse” standing “in an unshakable height.” The parallel between them emphasizes the sharp contrast between the greatness of the “idol” raised above the city and the pitiful situation of Eugene. In the second scene, the “idol” himself becomes different: losing his greatness (“He is terrible in the surrounding darkness!”), he looks like a captive, sitting surrounded by “guard lions,” “above a fenced rock.” The “unshakable height” becomes “dark”, and the “idol” in front of which Eugene stands turns into a “proud idol”.

The majestic and “terrible” appearance of the monument in two scenes reveals the contradictions that objectively existed in Peter: the greatness of the statesman who cared for the good of Russia, and the cruelty and inhumanity of the autocrat, many of whose decrees, as Pushkin noted, were “written with a whip.” These contradictions are merged in a sculptural composition - the material “double” of Peter.

A poem is a living figurative organism that resists any unambiguous interpretations. All images of the poem are multi-valued images-symbols. The images of St. Petersburg, the Bronze Horseman, the Neva, and “poor Eugene” have independent meaning, but, unfolding in the poem, they enter into complex interaction with each other. The seemingly “cramped” space of a small poem expands.

The poet explains history and modernity, creating a capacious symbolic picture of St. Petersburg. “The City of Petrov” is not only a historical stage on which both real and fictitious events unfold. St. Petersburg is a symbol of the Peter the Great era, the “Petersburg” period of Russian history. The city in Pushkin’s poem has many faces: it is both a “monument” to its founder, and a “monument” to the entire Peter the Great era, and an ordinary city in distress and busy with everyday bustle. The flood and the fate of Evgeniy are only part of St. Petersburg history, one of the many stories suggested by the life of the city. For example, in the first part, a storyline is outlined, but not developed, related to the unsuccessful attempts of the military governor-general of St. Petersburg, Count M.A. Miloradovich and Adjutant General A.H. Benckendorf to help the city residents, to encourage them: “On a dangerous path among the turbulent waters / The generals set out / To save him and were overwhelmed with fear / And the drowning people at home.” This was written about in the historical “news” about the St. Petersburg floods, compiled by V.N. Verkh, to which Pushkin refers in the “Preface.”

The St. Petersburg world appears in the poem as a kind of closed space. The city lives according to its own laws, outlined by its founder. It's like new civilization, opposed to both wild nature and the old Russia. The “Moscow” period of its history, symbolized by “old Moscow” (“porphyry-bearing widow”), is a thing of the past.

St. Petersburg is full of sharp conflicts and insoluble contradictions. A majestic but internally contradictory image of the city is created in the introduction. Pushkin emphasizes the duality of St. Petersburg: it “ascended magnificently, proudly,” but “from the darkness of the forests, from the swamp of blat.” This is a colossal city, under which there is a swamp. Conceived by Peter as a spacious place for the coming “feast,” it is cramped: along the banks of the Neva, “slender masses are crowded together.” St. Petersburg is a “military capital,” but parades and the thunder of cannon salutes make it so. This is a “stronghold” that no one storms, and the Fields of Mars - the fields of military glory - are “amusing”.

The introduction is a panegyric to state and ceremonial St. Petersburg. But the more the poet talks about the lush beauty of the city, the more it seems that it is somehow motionless, ghostly. “Ships in a crowd” are “rushing towards rich marinas,” but there are no people on the streets. The poet sees “sleeping communities / Deserted streets" The very air of the city is “motionless”. “The running of sleighs along the wide Neva”, “and the shine and noise and talk of balls”, “the hiss of foamy glasses” - everything is beautiful, sonorous, but the faces of the city residents are not visible. There is something alarming hidden in the proud appearance of the “younger” capital. The word “love” is repeated five times in the introduction. This is a declaration of love for St. Petersburg, but it is pronounced like a spell, a compulsion to love. It seems that the poet is trying with all his might to fall in love with the beautiful city, which evokes contradictory, disturbing feelings in him.

The alarm sounds in the wish to the “city of Peter”: “Beauty, city of Petrov, and stand / Unshakable, like Russia. / May the defeated elements make peace with you / And the defeated elements...” The beauty of the stronghold city is not eternal: it stands firmly, but can be destroyed by the elements. In the very comparison of the city with Russia there is a dual meaning: here is both a recognition of the steadfastness of Russia and a feeling of the fragility of the city. For the first time, the image of the water element, which has not been completely tamed, appears: it appears as a powerful living creature. The elements were defeated, but not “pacified.” “The Finnish waves,” it turns out, have not forgotten “their enmity and their ancient captivity.” A city founded “out of spite for an arrogant neighbor” can itself be disturbed by the “vain malice” of the elements.

The introduction outlines the main principle of depicting the city, implemented in two parts of the “St. Petersburg story” - contrast. In the first part, the appearance of St. Petersburg changes, as if its mythological gilding is falling off. The “golden skies” disappear and are replaced by “the darkness of a stormy night” and “a pale day.” This is no longer a lush “young city”, “full of beauty and wonder of the land”, but “darkened Petrograd”. He is at the mercy of the “autumn cold,” the howling wind, and the “angry” rain. The city turns into a fortress, besieged by the Neva. Please note: The Neva is also part of the city. He himself harbored evil energy, which was released by the “violent foolishness” of the Finnish waves. The Neva, stopping its “sovereign flow” in the granite banks, breaks free and destroys the “strict, harmonious appearance” of St. Petersburg. It’s as if the city itself is taking itself by storm, tearing its womb apart. Everything that was hidden behind the front facade of the “city of Peter” is exposed in the introduction, as unworthy of odic delight:

Trays under a wet veil,

Wrecks of huts, logs, roofs,

Stock trade goods,

The belongings of pale poverty,

Bridges demolished by thunderstorms,

Coffins from a washed-out cemetery

Floating through the streets!

People appear on the streets, “crowd in heaps” on the banks of the Neva, the Tsar comes out onto the balcony of the Winter Palace, Eugene looks with fear at the raging waves, worrying about Parasha. The city was transformed, filled with people, ceasing to be just a museum city. The entire first part is a picture of a national disaster. Petersburg was besieged by officials, shopkeepers, and poor hut dwellers. There is no rest for the dead either. The figure of an “idol on a bronze horse” appears for the first time. A living king is powerless to resist the “divine element.” Unlike the imperturbable “idol”, he is “sad”, “confused”.

The third part shows St. Petersburg after the flood. But the city's contradictions have not only not been eliminated, but have become even more intensified. Peace and tranquility are fraught with a threat, the possibility of a new conflict with the elements (“But the victories are full of triumph, / The waves were still seething angrily, / As if there was a fire smoldering underneath them"). The outskirts of St. Petersburg, where Evgeny rushed, resembles a “battlefield” - “the view is terrible,” but the next morning “everything returned to the same order.” The city again became cold and indifferent to people. This is a city of officials, calculating merchants, “evil children” throwing stones at the mad Eugene, coachmen lashing him with whips. But this is still a “sovereign” city - an “idol on a bronze horse” hovers above it.

The line of realistic depiction of St. Petersburg and the “little” man is developed in the “Petersburg stories” of N.V. Gogol, in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky. The mythological version of the St. Petersburg theme was picked up by both Gogol and Dostoevsky, but especially by the symbolists of the early 20th century. - Andrei Bely in the novel “Petersburg” and D.S. Merezhkovsky in the novel “Peter and Alexei”.

St. Petersburg is a huge “man-made” monument to Peter I. The city’s contradictions reflect the contradictions of its founder. The poet considered Peter an exceptional person: a true hero of history, a builder, an eternal “worker” on the throne (see “Stanzas”, 1826). Peter, Pushkin emphasized, is a solid figure in which two opposite principles are combined - spontaneously revolutionary and despotic: “Peter I is simultaneously Robespierre and Napoleon, the Incarnate Revolution.”

Peter appears in the poem in his mythological “reflections” and material incarnations. It is in the legend of the founding of St. Petersburg, in the monument, in the urban environment - the “hulks of slender” palaces and towers, in the granite of the Neva banks, in the bridges, in the “warlike liveliness” of the “amusing Fields of Mars”, in the Admiralty needle, as if piercing the sky. Petersburg - as if the will and deed of Peter were embodied, turned into stone and cast iron, cast in bronze.

The images of the statues are impressive images of Pushkin's poetry. They were created in the poems “Memoirs in Tsarskoye Selo” (1814), “To the Bust of the Conqueror” (1829), “The Tsarskoye Selo Statue” (1830), “To the Artist” (1836), and images of animated statues destroying people - in tragedies “The Stone Guest” (1830) and “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel” (1834). The two material “faces” of Peter I in Pushkin’s poem are his statue, “an idol on a bronze horse,” and a revived statue, the Bronze Horseman.

To understand these Pushkin images, it is necessary to take into account the sculptor’s idea, embodied in the monument to Peter itself. Monument - complex sculptural composition. Its main meaning is given by the unity of horse and rider, each of which has its own meaning. The author of the monument wanted to show “the personality of the creator, legislator, benefactor of his country.” “My king does not hold any rod,” noted Etienne-Maurice Falconet in a letter to D. Diderot, “he extends his beneficent hand over the country he travels around. He climbs to the top of the rock, which serves as his pedestal - this is an emblem of the difficulties he has overcome.”

This understanding of the role of Peter partly coincides with Pushkin’s: the poet saw in Peter a “powerful lord of fate” who was able to subjugate the spontaneous power of Russia. But his interpretation of Peter and Russia is richer and more significant than the sculptural allegory. What is given in the sculpture in the form of a statement, in Pushkin sounds like a rhetorical question that does not have a clear answer: “Isn’t it true that you are above the abyss, / At the height, with an iron bridle / You raised Russia on its hind legs?” Pay attention to the difference in intonation of the author’s speech, addressed alternately to the “idol” - Peter and to the “bronze horse” - the symbol of Russia. “He is terrible in the surrounding darkness! / What a thought on my brow! What power is hidden in him! - the poet recognizes the will and creative genius of Peter, which turned into the brutal force of the “iron bridle” that reared up Russia. “And what fire there is in this horse! / Where are you galloping, proud horse, / And where will you land your hooves?” - the exclamation is replaced by a question in which the poet’s thought is addressed not to the country bridled by Peter, but to the mystery of Russian history and to modern Russia. She continues her run, and not only natural disasters, but also popular riots are disturbing " last sleep» Petra.

Bronze Peter in Pushkin's poem is a symbol of state will, the energy of power, freed from the human principle. Even in the poem “Hero” (1830), Pushkin called: “Leave your heart to the hero! What / He will do without him? Tyrant...". “The idol on a bronze horse” - “the pure embodiment of autocratic power” (V.Ya. Brusov) - is devoid of a heart. He is a “miraculous builder”; at the wave of his hand, Petersburg “ascended”. But Peter's brainchild is a miracle created not for man. The autocrat opened a window to Europe. He envisioned the future Petersburg as a city-state, a symbol of autocratic power alienated from the people. Peter created a “cold” city, uncomfortable for the Russian people, elevated above him.

Having pitted the bronze Peter against the poor St. Petersburg official Eugene in the poem, Pushkin emphasized that state power and people are separated by an abyss. By leveling all classes with one “club”, pacifying the human element of Russia with an “iron bridle,” Peter wanted to turn it into submissive and pliable material. Eugene was supposed to become the embodiment of the autocrat’s dream of a puppet man, deprived of historical memory, who had forgotten both “native traditions” and his “nickname” (that is, surname, family), which “in bygone times” “perhaps shone / And under the pen of Karamzin / It sounded in native legends.” The goal was partly achieved: Pushkin’s hero is a product and victim of St. Petersburg “civilization”, one of the countless number of officials without a “nickname” who “serve somewhere”, without thinking about the meaning of their service, dreaming of “philistine happiness”: a good place , home, family, well-being. In the sketches of the unfinished poem “Yezersky” (1832), which many researchers compare with “The Bronze Horseman,” Pushkin gave a detailed description of his hero, a descendant of a noble family who turned into an ordinary St. Petersburg official. In “The Bronze Horseman,” the story about Eugene’s genealogy and everyday life is extremely laconic: the poet emphasized the generalized meaning of the fate of the hero of the “St. Petersburg Tale.”

But Evgeny, even in his modest desires, which separate him from the imperious Peter, is not humiliated by Pushkin. The hero of the poem - a captive of the city and the “St. Petersburg” period of Russian history - is not only a reproach to Peter and the city he created, the symbol of Russia, numb from the angry gaze of the “formidable king”. Evgeniy is the antipode of the “idol on a bronze horse.” He has what the bronze Peter lacks: heart and soul. He is capable of dreaming, grieving, “fearing” for the fate of his beloved, and exhausting himself from torment. Deep meaning the poem is that Eugene is compared not with Peter the man, but with Peter’s “idol”, with a statue. Pushkin found his “unit of measurement” of unbridled, but metal-bound power - humanity. Measured by this measure, the “idol” and the hero become closer. “Insignificant” in comparison with the real Peter, “poor Eugene,” compared with a dead statue, finds himself next to the “miraculous builder.”

The hero of the “Petersburg story”, having become a madman, lost his social certainty. Eugene, who has gone mad, “dragged out his unhappy life, neither beast nor man, / Neither this nor that, nor the inhabitant of the world, / Nor a dead ghost...”. He wanders around St. Petersburg, not noticing humiliation and human anger, deafened by the “noise internal anxiety" Pay attention to this remark of the poet, because it is the “noise” in Eugene’s soul, which coincided with the noise of the natural elements (“It was gloomy: / The rain was dripping, the wind howled sadly”) awakens in the madman what for Pushkin was the main sign of a person - memory : “Eugene jumped up; remembered vividly / He remembered the past horror.” It is the memory of the flood he experienced that brings him to Senate Square, where he meets the “idol on a bronze horse” for the second time.

This climactic episode The poem, which ended with the Bronze Horseman chasing the “poor madman,” is especially important for understanding the meaning of the entire work. Starting with V.G. Belinsky, it was interpreted differently by researchers. Often in the words of Eugene addressed to the bronze Peter (“Good, miraculous builder! - / He whispered, trembling angrily, - / It’s too bad for you!..”), they see a rebellion, an uprising against the “ruler of half the world” (sometimes analogies were drawn between this episode and the Decembrist uprising). In this case, the question inevitably arises: who is the winner - statehood, embodied in the “proud idol,” or humanity, embodied in Eugene?

However, it is hardly possible to consider the words of Eugene, who, having whispered them, “suddenly set off headlong / to run,” a rebellion or an uprising. The words of the mad hero are caused by the memory that has awakened in him: “Eugene shuddered. The thoughts became clearer in him.” This is not only a memory of the horror of last year's flood, but above all historical memory, seemingly etched into him by Peter’s “civilization.” Only then did Eugene recognize “the lions, and the square, and the One / Who stood motionless / In the darkness with a copper head, / The One by whose fatal will / The city was founded under the sea.” Once again, as in the introduction, the legendary “double” of Peter appears - He. The statue comes to life, what is happening loses its real features, the realistic narrative becomes a mythological story.

Like a fairy-tale, mythological hero (see, for example, “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights,” 1833), the stupid Eugene “comes to life”: “His eyes became foggy, / A flame ran through his heart, / His blood boiled.” He turns into a Man in his generic essence (note: the hero in this fragment is never called Eugene). He, "formidable king", the personification of power, and Human, having a heart and endowed with memory, inspired by the demonic power of the elements (“as if overcome by black power”), came together in a tragic confrontation. In the whisper of a man who has regained his sight, one can hear a threat and a promise of retribution, for which the revived statue, “instantly burning with anger,” punishes the “poor madman.” A “realistic” explanation of this episode impoverishes its meaning: everything that happened turns out to be a figment of the sick imagination of the insane Eugene.

In the chase scene, the second reincarnation of the “idol on a bronze horse” takes place - He turns into Horseman of the Bronze. A mechanical creature gallops after Man, having become the pure embodiment of power, punishing even a timid threat and a reminder of retribution:

And illuminated by the pale moon,

Stretching out your hand on high,

The Bronze Horseman rushes after him

On a loudly galloping horse.

This conclusion can be drawn from Pushkin’s poetic “study” of one of the episodes of the “St. Petersburg” period of Russian history. The first stone in its foundation was laid by Peter I - the “powerful ruler of fate”, who built St. Petersburg and the new Russia, but was unable to bind a person with an “iron bridle”. Power is powerless against “human, all too human” - the heart, memory and elements human soul. Any “idol” is only a dead statue that a Man can crush or, at least, make him fall from his place in unrighteous and impotent anger.