The monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden of St. Petersburg was erected in 1855, eleven years after the death of the great Russian fabulist. It is installed in front of the Tea House, and it should be noted that this place was not chosen immediately. At first, they wanted to put the sculptural composition near the Public Library, the last place of work of the writer, then next to the university building on Vasilyevsky Island of the Northern Capital. The option of placing the monument in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts (the burial place of Krylov) was also considered. But, in the end, it was decided to put a sculptural group in the Summer Garden, where the fabulist liked to walk and, probably, think over the plots of his works.
Many Russian celebrities were self-taught
Famous writer, journalist, academician, Ivan Andreevich Krylov, whose monumentsnow it can be found not only in the northern capital, he was born in the family of a retired military man in 1769. His life path began in the Urals and in Tver, where the family lived more than poorly. Interestingly, the great Russian writer never received an education. The most enlightened person of his time owed his knowledge of two foreign languages, literature and mathematics to self-education and work from an early age as a sub-clerk.
Monument to an accomplished person
Monuments to Ivan Krylov, whose works during his lifetime were printed abroad (in Paris), reflect a man of age. After all, it was in his mature years that fame and prosperity came to the writer. In his youth, he worked as a petty official, after moving to St. Petersburg. At the age of fourteen, he wrote the libretto for the opera The Coffee House, dedicated to the morals of petty provincial officials, whom the writer knew very well from his own life. Closer to his thirtieth birthday, he releases several comedies, which, however, are not successful, publishes a magazine in which he denounces the vices of public servants (“The Spirit Mail”).
Russian rulers were unhappy with him
In 1792, Ivan Andreevich Krylov, whose monuments are erected in Moscow, Tver, Novosibirsk, begins to engage in political satire, so successfully that Empress Catherine II herself draws attention to him, which leads to the journalist moving from St. Petersburg to Riga and Moscow in connection with the discontent of the first persons of the state. In the next 10 years, Krylov departsfrom journalistic practice and travels a lot, visiting Ukraine, Tambov, Saratov and other cities.
After the death of the Empress, I. Krylov becomes the secretary of Prince Golitsyn and a teacher of his children, writes comedies, including anti-government ones ("Subtype, or Triumph"), translates La Fontaine's fables and writes his own works of this genre. And by 1808, he had already released seventeen fables, including the eminent "Elephant and Pug".
The writer created and translated about 200 fables
The monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden, made by P. Klodt, has a granite cube as a base, on which bas-reliefs are made with the plots of the writer's most famous fables, where the fable was a work in verse or prose, which contains any moralizing (at the beginning or end). In this genre, Krylov's talent was especially pronounced. In total, he composed and translated about 200 fables, among which at first the motives of translations from French prevailed, and then unique stories appeared that reflected the realities of Russian life at that time.
The monument to Krylov's fables and their creator was made with donations from fans of his work. Admirers of his talent helped the writer in publishing his works. Beginning in 1809, Krylov published nine books containing the above two hundred fables. And in 1825, Count Orlov printed two volumes of the fabulist's works in Italian, Russian and French at his own expense in the French capital. In the last years of his life, Krylov receivedthe position of State Councilor, a good boarding school in the amount of six thousand rubles and led a rather unsociable life, being known as an eccentric, which allowed him to engage in creativity without interference.
Zoo at the home of the sculptor Klodt
The monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden provides an opportunity to get acquainted with stories from thirty-six of his fables. It is known that the sculptor Klodt was a very meticulous person and master. Therefore, in order to make the characters of literary works as realistic as possible, he ordered living animals for himself, which were located both in the courtyard and right in the sculptor's house. There were cats, dogs, donkeys, horses, a crane, a frog and even a wolf, a bear and a bear cub. Klodt heroically endured such a neighborhood, with the exception of the goat, with whom he did not want to be under the same roof, perhaps because of the smell. This "model" was brought to him by a woman who lived nearby. Moreover, as the legend says, the goat in every possible way refused to go where the predators were and pose as a sitter.
Contemporaries about the St. Petersburg monument
Where the monument to Krylov in St. Petersburg is located, many of his contemporaries visited, who left reviews about the monument, sometimes peculiar ones. For example, in the guidebook of that time it is indicated that the writer is depicted "truthfully". The poet Maikov composed poems about the sculptural composition, in which he points out that the fabulist embodied in metal looks like a grandfather telling people and children who came to him about the stupidities and oddities of animals. satirist P. Schumacher quipped that the monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden reflects how the writer "from a granite height" looks at frolicking children and thinks: "Oh dear guys, what kind of cattle you will be when you grow up." Taras Shevchenko did not like the sculptor's idea at all, and he considered the monument intended for children, but not for adults. Nevertheless, this sculptural composition has been standing in the Summer Garden for almost 160 years, invariably delighting visitors.
Where is the monument to grandfather Krylov in Moscow? The most famous monument visited by tourists is, of course, on the Patriarch's Ponds. However, original monuments to the writer can be found in ordinary Moscow courtyards. Most recently, in 2013, Andrey Aseryants, a sculptor, made two compositions based on the legendary "Elephant and Pug" and "Foxes and Crows". In the Kolomenskoye district, in the courtyard of a house on Sudostroitelnaya Street, you can see a rather large elephant, followed by a small Pug, and a crow sitting on a pole with cheese that has not yet been lost and a fox waiting below. In addition, here you can find sculptural compositions of a typewriter and a sheet of paper with a pen and an inkwell.
The author and the characters of his works on the Patriarchs
The monument to Krylov on the Patriarch's Ponds was installed much earlier than the figures on Sudostroitelnaya Street. The architect Ch altykyan and the sculptors Mitlyansky and Drevin worked on its creation. The composition was installed in 1976 and represents a fabulist sitting imposingly in an armchair, at a distance from which the heroes of hisworks. Here you can find an elephant going into space and a Pug rubbed to a shine, a duet of Pava and Crow, on which newlyweds periodically manage to attach a padlock, indicating a marriage. The nose and ears of the wolf from the fable "The Wolf and the Lamb" are popular, while the lamb is worn almost entirely. Visitors again love to rub the nose of the fox from the fable, and the crow's cheese is polished by the hands of numerous passers-by.
The monument to Krylov on the Patriarchs reflects an aged man, casually dressed. It is believed that the sculptors accurately noticed the lifetime habit of the great writer not to be too interested in the world around him, with the exception of gastronomic pleasures. According to contemporaries, Ivan Andreevich really loved to eat. And in the mirror, perhaps, he looked infrequently, unlike his heroine - the Monkey, who is also represented on the Patriarchs with her own reflection.
Part of the composition may be present in the environment of the sculpture
Perhaps the sculptors of figurines from the fables on the Patriarchs, just like master Klodt once, did not really like goats, since in the composition dedicated to the work "Quartet", a monkey, a bear and a donkey are highlighted, while the horned character is only "drawn" on a metal sheet. A separate "stele" is dedicated to the relationship of the famous couple from the fable "The Cuckoo and the Rooster". Here we can see a rooster in a bow tie and a friend admiring him. But the sparrow, who uttered words about mutual boasting, is not in the compositionobserved. Maybe it is in the flocks of sparrows that fly back and forth through the park near the ponds.
A pig ruining a tree and a monkey with glasses and locks
Among the numerous green spaces, there is also one metallic one - this is an oak tree, the roots of which are undermined by a well-fed pig from the work “Pig under an oak tree”. According to the text, this tree is a hundred years old, while among the vegetation around there may be older specimens, since the square in the former estate of Patriarch German was laid out at the beginning of the nineteenth century. And there are numerous monkeys in it, including one that had vision problems, but at the same time did not know how to handle glasses, on the arms of which the newlyweds also like to fasten locks on the monument.
Tourists did not find mystics near the monument to Krylov
It is not known if there are real nightingales in the park, but the long-eared "critic" from the fable "The Donkey and the Nightingale" comfortably perched in an armchair with a staff on one of the parts of the sculptural composition. There are plenty of birds in this green zone, so there are many objects for possible criticism. The monument to Krylov at the Patriarch's Ponds is located in a mystical place. Events from Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" developed here. The alley where Berlioz met Woland and his retinue is not far away. But tourists who have been here note that they do not notice anything mysterious these days. Just a square where grandmothers with children walk, Russian tourists and, of course, foreigners. Today the park is equipped with enougha large modern playground and there are no stalls with the inscription "Beer and water", as in Bulgakov's work.
To know and remember
Monuments to Krylov in different cities (Tver, Novosibirsk) were erected in Soviet times and in the history of modern Russia. In particular, the Tver sculptural composition was opened on the occasion of the centenary of the death of the master in 1959 on the street of the same name in this city (the anniversary date fell on the military year of 1944). Here the fabulist is depicted in a thoughtful pose, standing on an almost three-meter pedestal (the figure itself is four meters tall), in the middle of the streets on which he spent his young years. In 2010, in the science city of Novosibirsk, which the fabulist never visited, his bust of a rather youthful appearance was installed. It is also located on the street of the same name so that people remember the one who, according to N. Gogol, embodied the wisdom of the people themselves.
