In Russia it has always been fashionable and prestigious to fight with all sorts of idols. Prince Vladimir, establishing Christianity, drowned a lot of peruns in the Dnieper, and now his Ukrainian descendants are everywhere knocking down the defenseless Vladimir Ilyich.
Ba-Yagas are a worthless fight
In the Russian Federation suddenly worried about the monument to Gogol. In March 2014, it was decided to dismantle the monument to the times of Soviet power on the former Prechistensky (now Gogolevsky) Boulevard, and to return the old one, the work of N. Andreev, which was erected here initially, back in 1909.
There is no unity of opinion in society on this issue. One part of the citizens believes that it is better to leave everything as it is, the other is eager to “restore historical justice”, not wanting to take into account either expediency considerations or the realities of the surrounding life (after all, at the moment there are more important problems in Russia). Someone, perhaps, would not mind, but purely economic motives stop him: experts say that rushing around with such structures back and forth is not a cheap pleasure.
Following Pushkin
The very monument to Gogol in Moscow,which is now going to be returned to its place, the progressive public decided to build back in August 1880. This year, a monument to Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was opened on Tverskoy Boulevard. The audience shed tears of delight and tenderness, and immediately there were enthusiasts who wanted to pay tribute to Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The monument was planned to be opened by the fiftieth anniversary of his death - in 1902, but did not have time. Despite the fact that a fundraising subscription was announced almost immediately, the matter calmed down for a long time.
The accusations of greed and slowness, sounding from the lips of some figures (M. Kuraev, in particular), are hardly deserved: the monument to Alexander Sergeevich was collected faster (the well-known figure of the classic appeared twenty years after the subscription began), but and for Nikolai Vasilyevich, it’s not that stingy.
Did not have time for the anniversary, try for the anniversary
The famous Russian industrialist Demidov promised copper "as much as needed" and gave another five thousand rubles. There were other patrons as well. By 1890, they were ripe for the creation of a special committee for the erection of a monument, but he was in no particular hurry, until in 1893 the emperor himself ordered him to "accelerate".
It did not work right away, but the members of the venerable assembly finally held a series of meetings and determined the person to whom it was necessary to "contact regarding the construction of the monument." Interestingly, his name was A. N. Nos. Just some kind of hoax.
Somehow, with a creak, they held a competition for the best work, but none ofThe submitted sketches did not impress the commission. It became clear that it was necessary to move: the year 1909 was inexorably approaching - Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was celebrating a hundred years since his birth. A monument not in time for the anniversary of death would be very useful.
Questionable sculptor, dubious project
It is still unknown what behind-the-scenes negotiations preceded the approval of N. Andreev's project, but they voted for it unanimously (under the conditions announced by the committee, a single vote against vetoed the adoption of the sketch). Perhaps the decision was indeed forced: there was almost no time left. So, with grief in half, construction work began, which was widely covered by the press and caused a lively discussion among Muscovites.
For starters, the identity of the author raised questions. Opekushin and Repin, prominent representatives of the art of those times, highly appreciated the talent of the young sculptor. However, the public had doubts: little experience in building monuments.
Shortly before the opening, the well-known critic Sergei Yablonovsky called the monument a symbol of "terrible and nightmarish" and expressed the opinion that "many will not want it." Like looking into the water!
Promising monument unveiling
The opening of the monument to Gogol in Moscow was planned with great pomp, although even here it was not without the usual (I have to admit) bungling: specially erected stands turned out to be flimsy, out of harm's way, they were forbidden to use them. Therefore, in the photographs from the opening you can seean impressive crush at the foot of the newly opened monument, and next to it - empty "spectacles". The beginning did not bode well…
Emotions caused by the monument were immediately sharply divided. Many decided (Repin, for example) that before them was a significant work of art, but a fairly large audience considered the monument to be a real spit on eternity.
Bent Gogol
The sculpture depicted a man completely wrapped in a cloak, with his head bowed low. Bent over, absurdly toppled to one side, Gogol sat in an armchair and was the embodiment of world sorrow, and his famous long nose almost touched his knees. The tetrahedral pedestal was framed by a copper strip - the bas-relief on it depicted the heroes of the famous works of the writer. They didn't draw criticism. But the figure itself is a classic!
Sample epigrams rained down: “Andreev made Gogol out of The Nose and The Overcoat”; “Gogol sits hunched over, Pushkin stands like a gogol.”
The wife of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Sofia Andreevna, who visited the opening, found the monument “disgusting” (so she wrote in her personal diary). It is rather interesting that her great husband, the great classic of world literature, liked the monument.
The whole world of violence we will destroy…
This is the range and stayed numerous reviews. Nevertheless, no one was going to change the sitting monument to Gogol, and it would have stood at the beginning of Gogolevsky Boulevard, quite possibly to this day, if in the seventeenth year of the last century the “tribeyoung, unfamiliar” and did not begin to decide the fate of the country (and monuments) in a new way.
The monument to Gogol on Gogolevsky Boulevard lasted thirty-five years after the revolution and all this time was subjected to attacks that became more vicious day by day. The reason was: according to some sources, the bent figure of the literary classic got on the nerves of Iosif Vissarionovich himself, who was forced to regularly sympathize with the lopsided Gogol: the monument was right on the way to the dacha in Kuntsevo, where the all-powerful Soviet general secretary settled.
Copper Writer War
Thousands of sycophants, wishing to please their beloved leader, did not skimp on "kicks" to N. Andreev's creation. The famous Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina (the author of the famous "Worker and Collective Farm Girl") accused the monument of inconsistency with the surrounding reality. Say, once Gogol had a reason to be sad - from the horrors of tsarism and other arbitrariness, but now why be sad when life in the country has become "both better and more fun"?
At first, they did not plan to dismantle the sitting monument to Gogol in Moscow - it was supposed to simply build another one, at the other end of the square. Who hit the table with his fist is unknown, but in 1952, on the 100th anniversary of the writer's death, a new monument was opened in Moscow, strikingly different from the previous one.
After all, for the anniversary
The story with the approval of the project was again kind of dark: the winner of the competition was the one treated kindly by the authorities(winner of five Stalin Prizes!) sculptor Tomsky, who later himself admitted that the monument to Gogol on Gogolevsky Boulevard of his authorship is frankly bad. He justified himself in a hurry: they say, he did not have time to do it better, because he had to meet the deadlines - by the hundredth anniversary of the writer's death.
After the presentation of the results of a year's work, something like a scandal erupted again. Seeing the newly appeared monument to N. V. Gogol, the public was amazed (and shocked). Now the author of the magnificent monument with the monstrous self-satisfied inscription "From the Soviet Government" (which has not been tired of making fun of for more than half a century) has gone to the other extreme: the sick, dejected classic has been replaced by a kind of cheerful "dance teacher" - smiling, in a short frivolous cape. Some considered the "masterpiece" a caricature, and folk poetry again shot up with sharp epigrams.
A statue can be unhappy too
Andreev's monument was dismantled back in 1951 in order to build a new, standing monument to Gogol (which would embody the victory of art over dark reality) on the vacant site.
At first, they even wanted to execute Nikolai Vasilyevich, “not the topic of the sad” copper one (send it to be melted down), but the employees of the Moscow Architectural Museum miraculously saved the work of art. In the end, it ended up being a short link. Until 1959, the dismantled monument was kept in the branch of the museum, located in the former Donskoy Monastery: many sculptures objectionable to the Soviet system found shelter here: marble figures from the facadesdestroyed Moscow churches, for example.
In 1959, the "sad" writer was returned to Moscow and installed near the house where he lived the last years of his life (the mansion belonged to Count A. Tolstoy). Citizens say that from certain points on Nikitsky Boulevard, you can see the sitting and standing monument to Gogol at the same time. Now, when they are used to Tomsky's work, they also see advantages in the construction of 1952, recognizing, for example, that it fits better into the modern look of the square.
Despite the fact that many do not like the idea of destroying the monuments of the Soviet era, now a threat hangs over the "jolly" Nikolai Vasilyevich. At the same time, experts say that an attempt to return the historical monument to its original place is fraught with unforeseen complications: the building is quite old, it can be damaged during transportation - it’s better to leave everything as it is. Still, it is impossible to argue with the fact that two monuments to Gogol are better than none.
