ISSN: 2158-7051 ==================== INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN STUDIES ==================== ISSUE NO. 2 ( 2013/2 ) |
MOSCOW: MORE THAN A CAPITAL – THE CENTRAL PLACE OF MOSCOW IN RUSSIAN CULTURAL HISTORY
ANIL ÇİÇEK*
Summary
This paper argues that Moscow has played a unique and defining role in Russian cultural history and became the source of inspiration for the creation of the greatest examples of works in various fields of Russian art. Temporarily becoming the capital of Russia and the centre of the court, St Petersburg no doubt played an important role in the process of the introduction of Western arts in Russia. During that period there was a decline in Moscow’s place in Russian cultural life; however, the Westernisation process eventually resulted in the creation of a new sort of synthesis in the arts, which comprised the interpretation of Western arts with Russian traditional patterns and motives. This trend finally led to the consolidation of Moscow’s central place in Russian cultural life as Moscow, being the symbol of the Russian soul, became the main inspiration in the works of Russian artists. The paper tries to give the reader a brief picture of how Moscow attained its central place in Russian cultural life. Thus, in an attempt to explore the role that Moscow has played in the development of Russian cultural heritage, the paper takes a brief look into history to identify specific contributions of the city in various fields of art. Finally, based on concrete examples from Russian cultural history, the paper tries to confirm the central place of Moscow in Russian cultural life by attempting to correct the frequently made mistake of referring to St Petersburg as the “cultural capital” of Russia.
Key Words: Moscow, Russian cultural heritage, St Petersburg, Russian classical music, Russian theatrical art, Petrine Revolution, Westernisation, Russian traditional art patterns.
Introduction
Moscow
has passed through glorious and turbulent times since its foundation. It has
acquired many different descriptive titles over the centuries: Holy Moscow, or the
Third Rome, for its status as a major centre of the Orthodox Church; Moscow of
the Taverns, where people gathered to drink and eat together; and later Calico
Moscow, for the dominance of the textile trade. In the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries it was often described as a “big village” as peasant
migrants moved into the city, and during the Soviet period, the name of Moscow became
synonymous with communist ideology as the centre of the Third International.[1]
St
Petersburg is often referred to as the cultural capital of Russia. This
definition might, to some extent, be considered just for a certain period.
Petersburg was intentionally planned and built by Peter the Great (1672-1725)
as the window of Russia to the West. The
city became a centre of “European Culture,” which was enforced for the Russian
nobility and not shared or imitated by ordinary Russians. Moscow, however,
retained its unique place as the “heart of Russia,” the focus of the Russian
spirit and the symbol of Russian statehood. It was simply the centre of
“Russian culture.”
Russia’s
greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin, underlined
the central place of Moscow in Russian culture by pointing out the bond between Moscow and “Russian hearts” in his
unforgettable novel in verse Евге́ний Оне́гин – Eugene Onegin
(1823-1831):
Как часто в горестной разлуке, How often in my exile grieving
В моей блуждающей судьбе, In my wandering fate,
Москва, я думал о тебе! O Moscow, have I thought of you!
Москва…как много в этом звуке Moscow. How much there is in this sound
Для сердца русского слилось! That Russian hearts are heaving
Как много в нем отозвалось![2] How much echoes in it!
In the nineteenth century the great Russian historian Nikolai Karamzin
wrote: “To visit Moscow means to know Russia.”[3] In
his twelve-volume История государства Российского - History of the Russian
State, Karamzin drew attention to the central place of Moscow in Russian
statehood.[4]
Pushkin wrote that Karamzin’s History
was an absolute revelation: “You would have said that Karamzin discovered
ancient Russia as Columbus discovered America.”[5]
The city of Moscow is often spoken of as if it were a woman,
specifically a mother, and as a centre of family life. Tolstoy famously
described this phenomenon in War and Peace:[6]
Every Russian looking at Moscow feels her to be a mother; every
foreigner who sees her, even if ignorant of her significance as the mother
city, must feel her feminine character…[7]
Before the Battle of Borodino Napoleon Bonaparte is
believed to say: “If I take Kiev, I will take Russia's legs, if I take Saint
Petersburg, I'll take its head. But if I take Moscow, I'll take its heart.”
Robert W.
Thurston argued that an early cultural rivalry existed between the two capitals
of Russia, reaching back to the foundation of St Petersburg in the early
eighteenth century. In the eyes of the Muscovites, their city was the heart of
Russia; Petersburg was Western, almost an alien growth on the native soil.
Moscow had risen to defeat the Mongols, and Moscow had suffered destruction at
Napoleon’s hands while St Petersburg remained untouched. All this pride deepened
the Muscovites’ sense of being true Russians. P. P. Riabushinskii’s newspaper Utro
Rossii summed up these feelings in early 1912 while discussing an English
delegation’s visit. The editorial title was “Welcome to Russia!” It began:
On the way to Russia stands Petersburg. Our guests from England have
been detained for several days in that entryway and only today come to us in
Moscow, entering Russia. Welcome to Moscow-to Russia![8]
Despite achieving his literary fame
in St Petersburg, Nikolai Gogol also shared the view that Moscow symbolised everything
about being a Russian. Making a comparison between St Petersburg and Moscow, he
wrote:
Petersburg is an
accurate, punctual kind of person, a perfect German, and he looks at everything
in a calculated way. Before he gives a party, he will look into his accounts.
Moscow is a Russian nobleman, and if he is going to have a good time, he’ll go
all the way until he drops, and he won’t worry about how much he’s got in his
pockets. Moscow does not like halfway measures... Petersburg likes to tease
Moscow for his awkwardness and lack of taste. Moscow reproaches Petersburg
because he doesn’t know how to speak Russian... Russia needs Moscow, Petersburg
needs Russia.[9]
“Moscow may be wild and dissolute,”
wrote Filipp Filippovich Vigel, “but there is no point in trying to change it.
For there is a part of Moscow in us all, and no Russian can expunge Moscow.”[10]
The first reference to “the village
of Moscow” was made in a Russian manuscript of 1147. In 1156, Prince Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky[11] erected timber
walls on the present-day site of the Kremlin.
He is regarded as the founder of the city of Moscow.[12]
His monument, which is located near Tverskaja Street today, is among the most
visited touristic attractions. At the time of the foundation of Moscow, Kiev
was the capital of Christian Rus’. The Mongol occupation of the next two
centuries crushed the Kievan states, leaving Moscow’s princes to consolidate
their wealth and power by collaborating with the khans. Moscow’s rise was
symbolised by the building of Kremlin, which took shape in the fourteenth
century. Eventually, as the khanates weakened, Moscow led the nation’s
liberation, starting with the battle of Kulikovo Field against the Golden Horde
in 1380 and ending the defeat of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan in the
1550s, when it emerged as the capital of Russia’s cultural life.[13]
Moscow’s large-scale growth of
manufacturing during the seventeenth century, which necessitated an outlet to
the sea, was instrumental in the decision of Peter the Great to build St
Petersburg on the Baltic. The capital was transferred to St Petersburg in 1712.
Deprived of its status as capital, Moscow, however, did not lose its spiritual,
economic and cultural significance.[14]
For centuries it served as a “treasure house” able to preserve national
cultural tradition. All the Russian tsars and emperors were crowned there in
Russia’s main cathedral, the ancient Dormition Cathedral, and both Peter the
Great and Catherine the Great came to Moscow to celebrate their military
victories. In 1812 the city was a sacrifice on the altar of war, yet
participated in the inglorious demise of Napoleon’s great army.[15]
The process of rapid industrialisation
and the formation of the labour class in the second half of the nineteenth
century helped the communistic ideas of Karl Marx to spread among the working
classes and intelligentsia in Moscow. The Krasnaya Presnya rebellion of 1905
and July strikes of 1914 were the important milestones in the revolutionary
process, which was finalised by the “Great October Revolution” of 1917. In 1918
the Soviet government, headed by Vladimir Lenin, transferred the capital back
to Moscow and fostered spectacular economic growth in the city.
Following its reinstatement as the capital of
the Soviet Union, there was a sharp transformation in the cultural life of
Moscow. As Orlando Figes pointed out, after 1917 Moscow superseded Petersburg.
It became the Soviet capital, the cultural centre of the state, a city of
modernity and a model of the new industrial society the Bolsheviks wanted to
build. Stalin’s Moscow was recast as an imperial city – a Soviet Petersburg.[16]
Moscow’s
central place in politics, economy and cultural life was strengthened by the
Soviet leadership during the years of communism. Moscow today may appear as the
test case of merciless capitalism with its casinos, slot machines, billboards,
expensive restaurants, strip clubs and unbearable traffic jams. But one thing
has never been changed: its unique place at the centre of the hearts of
Russians. This paper will try to identify the factors that strengthened
Moscow’s place as the centre of Russian cultural life.
The Kremlin: Heart of Moscow - Heart of Russia
The word
“кремль – Kremlin” simply means a fortress in the Russian language. Yet rather
like the word “Совет – Soviet,” with its innocuous meaning of a council, the
Moscow Kremlin has outgrown its dictionary definition. Every ancient Russian
city had its own kremlin, but none has acquired the symbolic significance that
Moscow’s Kremlin commands. The Moscow Kremlin has acted over the centuries as a
fortress, a religious centre and the focus of Russian political power, and hence
the very name has come, over time, to stand for much more than a purely
geographical landmark.[17]
The early
period of the history of Moscow is inseparable from that of the Kremlin since both
of them are considered to have been founded in 1147, the year when Moscow was
first mentioned in the chronicles. However, the Russian historian and archaeologist
Ivan Zabelin[18]
(1820-1908) believed that there were settlements in the Kremlin much earlier
than that date. His hypothesis has, in fact, been endorsed by archaeological evidence
discovered in that area dating from the third to mid-second millennium B.C.
Erected
initially as a military fortress, the Kremlin became a religious centre in the
years to come. The Russians had adopted Orthodoxy in 988 during the rule of
Grand Prince Vladimir of Kiev. Under Ivan III[19]
(1462-1505) Muscovy started to dominate the surrounding Russian lands. Ivan
chose to marry the niece of the Byzantine Emperor, Sophia or Zoe Paleologue, in
1472, a connection that would provide the foundation of Moscow’s claim to be
the “Third Rome” after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. Ivan
the Great made it his business to identify Moscow as the heir to Byzantium and
the centre of the Orthodox Christian world, and it is most probably at this
time that the Byzantine double-headed eagle was adopted as an emblem by the
rulers of the city.[20]
It was from this point on that the idea developed of Moscow as having a sacred
mission to lead the Christian world: “for two Romes have fallen, the third
stands and there will be no fourth.”[21]
After consolidating his power at
home and abroad, Ivan III initiated an ambitious plan to expand the Kremlin. In
thirty-four years, from 1474 to 1508, Ivan, by the help of a team of Italian
architects – Antonio Fryazin, Alevisio Novi, Marco Ruffo, Pietro Solario and
Aristotle Fiorovanti – renewed the whole Kremlin, enlarging its territories by
two-thirds. Since that time, the Kremlin, more or less, has remained the same.
Nineteen towers were added to the walls of the Kremlin in the 1490s, all
of which are different in design. “Спасская башня - Saviour Tower” has become
one of the best-known symbols of the Kremlin. Built in 1491 by Pietro Solari, it celebrated its
500th anniversary in the year 1991. In the 1650s, a double-headed
eagle was mounted on the top of this main tower of the Kremlin. Its famous
clock was installed by the Scottish clock-maker Christopher Galloway in 1625.[22]
Saviour Tower was the main entrance to the Kremlin and is still the most favoured
one for official ceremonies.
Of the three cathedrals grouped
together in Cathedral Square inside the Kremlin, the most important is
“Успенский Собор - the Cathedral of the
Dormition,” where, until 1917, the highest state ceremonies took place,
including coronations of the tsars.[23] Coronations continued to
be held there even after the capital of Russia was moved from Moscow to St
Petersburg. Its Italian architect, Aristotle Fioravanti, travelled around the
ancient cities of Novgorod, Suzdal and Vladimir in 1476-1477 to study
traditional Russian church design.[24] Fioravanti took the Cathedral
of the Assumption in Vladimir as a model but his “Italian touch” created a
marvellously integrated majestic building with a sense of light and space that
was unusual for Russian churches of the period.
“Благовещенский собор - the Cathedral of the Annunciation” stands in the
southern part of Cathedral Square on the edge of Borovistky Hill. It was built in
1484-1489 by master builders from Pskov and was re-built in 1547 in the reign
of Ivan the Terrible. “Архангельский собор - the Cathedral of the Archangel
Michael” is the third of the Kremlin cathedrals standing in the south-east part
of the square. Built from 1505 to 1508 by Italian architect Alevisio Novi, the Cathedral
of the Archangel Michael was used as the burial place of almost all Muscovite
monarchs from the time of Ivan Kalita until the capital was moved to St
Petersburg. The graves of Dmitry Donskoi, Ivan the Great, Ivan the Terrible and
his sons, Michail Romanov and many others can be seen here.
“Церковь Ризоположения - the Church of Deposition of the Robe” and “Грановитая Палата - the Palace of the Facets” are among other
buildings of the Kremlin which reflect Russian cultural heritage accumulated
through centuries-old traditions and customs.
Red Square
No place
better represents Russia than Red Square (Krasnaya Ploshchad). Its name comes
from the word “krasnyi,” which once meant “beautiful” and has only come to mean
“red” in contemporary Russian language. The name became official in the middle
of the seventeenth century – previously it had been Trinity Square.[25]
There is also another myth that it was named “red” because of the bloody
executions which were publicly held in this square. The first False Dmitry was
executed here. In 1606 the rebel Cossack leader Stenka Razin was beheaded and
quartered on Red Square. In 1698, Peter the Great ordered the execution of the
rebellious “Streltsy” (Стрельцы́ - shooters).[26]
Vasily Surikov’s painting On the Morning of
the Execution of the Streltsy (1881) immortalised this bloody scene. Today
it is possible to see the painting in Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
“Воскресенские ворота - Resurrection Gate” (also known as “Иверские ворота - Iberian Gate”) is the only existing
gate in the Kitai-gorod
wall. It connects the north-western end of Red Square
with Manege Square and gives its name to nearby Voskresenskaya Square[27]
(Resurrection Square). Everyone took their hats off as they passed through the
gates. It was customary for Tsars to pray at the shrine of the chapel in front
of the gate before they entered the Kremlin. In War and Peace, Pierre Bezukhov, driving through Moscow on his
return to St Petersburg, noticed “the Iberian shrine with innumerable tapers
burning before the golden settings of the icons,” and the twentieth-century
poet Marina Tsvetaeva wrote of the Iverskaya’s “small door where people pour
into crowds,” leading into “the chapels of stars, the refuge from evil where
the floor is polished by kisses.” A 1916 painting by Aristakh Lentulov
depicting crowds of people approaching the chapel hangs in Tretyakov Gallery.[28]
Entering Red Square through the Resurrection Gate, you can
see the Kazan Cathedral[29] on your left.
The amazing State
History Museum is located in the north end of the square. The
enormous, elaborate facade occupying the east side of the square is the State
Department Store, better known as GUM.[30]
The mighty towers of the Kremlin
dominate the west side of the square. Lenin’s Mausoleum, which is located near the centre
of the Square, is
still open to visitors.
At the far
end of Red Square, the colourful confusion of onion domes and tent peaks is the
Cathedral of
St Basil the Blessed, the 16th-century church that is probably
Moscow’s most recognisable sight. The original name of the church is the
Intercession of the Virgin Cathedral, named for the feast day on which the army
of Ivan IV the Terrible captured the city of Kazan in 1552. One chapel was
built over the grave of Vasily (Basil) the Blessed, whose name has stuck to the
whole church. According to legend, the two architects who built the cathedral, Barma
and Postnik, were blinded by Ivan so that they could not re-create the
masterpiece elsewhere.
Dmitry Shvidkovsky argues that St Basil’s “is like no
other Russian building. Nothing similar can be found in the entire millennium of
Byzantine
tradition from the fifth to fifteenth century... a strangeness
that astonishes by its unexpectedness, complexity and dazzling interleaving of
the manifold details of its design.”[31] According
to Shvidkovsky, the cathedral predicted the climax of Russian national
architecture in the seventeenth century.
St Basil’s
came under threat on a number of occasions, the first being in 1812 when
Napoleon ordered its destruction. Fortunately, his orders were not carried out.
It was also damaged in the days following the October Revolution. It was closed
to worshippers in 1929 and was removed from the list of protected buildings in
1933. Despite the arguments for its demolition as a part of Stalin’s
reconstruction plans of Moscow, it survived to this day.
The statute
standing in front of St Basil’s is of Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, the
butcher from Nizhny Novgorod and the Muscovite Prince who played the leading
role in ending the twenty-three months of Polish-Lithuanian military occupation
of Moscow and driving the Poles out of Russia in 1612. The statute was
commissioned in advance to mark the 200th anniversary of the event;
little did the commissioners know, however, that the anniversary year would
itself be marked by a second patriotic war and a further occupation of the
city, this time by the French. It was finally erected in 1818; the inscription
on the base reads: “To citizen Minin and Price Pozharsky from a Grateful RUSSIA
1818.”[32]
“Александровский сад – the Alexander Gardens” is one of the most popular sites in Moscow as a
part of Red Square. It was one of the first urban public parks in Moscow, built in the 1820s in
the reign of Alexander I. Here is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the
eternal flame where newly married couples lay flowers on their wedding day as a
tribute to their grandparents who sacrificed their lives in the defence of
their motherland in the Second World War.
As explained above, Red Square has a deeper meaning
than just a “square” for the Russians. One can witness thousands of years of history
walking the brick road of this plaza, where the glorious past of a great empire and the symbols of Russian
culture and art are immortalised for the coming generations. For the Russians,
it is considered as a symbol of “Russianness,” a source of pride and
self-respect.
Moscow – The City of Literature
It is usually St Petersburg that is considered as the centre of
literature in Russia. There was no doubt a decline in the status of Moscow
after the capital and the court were moved to St Petersburg. Western influence
on literature in St Petersburg was obvious, whereas the Slavophiles idealised Moscow,
whose way of life was more provincial and was closer to the cultural values of the
Russian people. For them, the customs, traditions and cultural heritage of the
old Rus’ were embodied in Moscow, reflecting the real Russian character.
The liberation of the nobles from obligatory state service in 1762 opened
the door to Europe for the curious Russian gentry. Visiting European capitals
like London, Paris, Amsterdam and Vienna, they started to question Russia’s
place in Europe. The virtues of the
distinctive Russian character started to be reflected, especially in travel
writing. Dostoevsky used the terms “corrupt, materialist and egoistical” to
describe Europe.[33]
This lexicon started to be frequently seen in the works of Russian writers, the
Slavophiles being the foremost among them. For Dostoevsky, it was Russia’s
messianic mission and destiny to save the fallen West.
In the eyes of these writers, St
Petersburg, as the symbol of European Russia, was a centre of corruption,
foreign artifice, alien conventions and pretension. They idealised Moscow as
the symbol of real Russian character and soul, uncorrupted by civilisation or
artificial European influences. Especially in the national narrative of the nineteenth
century, the old romantic ideal of native soil placed Moscow at the centre of
the image of “pure Russia with real Russian virtues.” In sum, Moscow, in a
sense, became the antithesis of St Petersburg in the Russian literature.
Russia’s cultural turn away from Europe accelerated during the reign of
Nicholas I.[34]
The Tsar and his ideologists felt sympathy for the Slavophile doctrine, which
associated Russia with the eastern traditions of Byzantium. This departure of
Russia from the European tradition led to the re-emergence of Moscow as the
“genuine capital” of Russia. The conscious rejection of Europeanisation and
return to the ancient native traditions was soon mythologised as a national
renaissance in Russian cultural life, repercussions of which were soon seen in
Russian literature.
Moscow’s central place in Russian cultural history was strengthened
after the Bolshevik Revolution with its status returned as the capital of
Russia. According to Katerina Clark, culture was important to the new Soviet
political hierarchy because it played a central role in articulating the new
belief system. The Soviet state claimed to have dispensed with religion, and hence
culture replaced many of religion’s former functions. In fulfilling culture’s
sacral function, literature played the central role. Literature was elevated to
enjoy a special status because it represented the most eloquent and elaborated
version of the written word. As literature emerged as primus inter pares in
every sphere of arts, there was a campaign for so-called literaturisation.[35]
Moscow
– Cradle of Legendary Writers
There are only a few cities in the
world where so many writers are memorialised in statute form as in Moscow.
Being the home of many legendary writers, Moscow has paid its tribute to them
by immortalising them in statuary. Walking around Moscow, you are amazed by the
number of statutes, busts and plaques dedicated to these famous names. It gives
one a unique pleasure to walk the streets and pavements where these legendary
people have left their footprints. This paper will try to reflect some of the
stories of these most famous Muscovite writers as well as some of those others who
had significant connections with the city.
Alexander
Pushkin
Pushkin is
considered by many as the greatest poet of Russia and the founder of Russian
literature. He occupies a special place in the hearts of many Russians. Pushkin
spent much of his life in St Petersburg. However, Moscow also occupied an
important place in Pushkin’s life. He was born in Moscow, passed his childhood there
and got married in that city. Today, it is possible to see his imprint
scattered around Moscow.
His statute[36]
on Pushkin Square is not only a popular site for the tourists, but also a
rendezvous spot in the summer months, especially for young Muscovites. Another
statute of Pushkin and his wife, Natalya Goncharova, stands on the famous Arbat
Street. The house where Pushkin was born in 1799 (Бауманская Улица 40) no
longer exists but it is possible to see his bust at the site. In 1811 Pushkin’s
family moved to St Petersburg, where he completed his education. After his
marriage, Pushkin and his wife started to live in Moscow, in a two-storey building
on Arbat Street, which houses a Pushkin museum now. The medicine chest that was
used by the doctor who treated his fatal injuries, his own charming line
drawings, his death mask and the pen with which he wrote his last poem are
perhaps the most interesting items to see in the museum.
Nikolai
Gogol
Gogol is
often perceived as a writer of St Petersburg. That is to some extent true since
he achieved his fame there with St Petersburg stories full of criticism of the
city and its inhabitants. Gogol
was born in the Ukrainian Cossack village of Sorochyntsi,
in the Poltava
Governorate of the Russian Empire,
present-day Ukraine. He
spent most of his adult life in St Petersburg. Yet he spent his last winter in
Moscow, where he died on 21 February 1852, and was buried there in the cemetery
of the Danilovsky Monastery. In 1931 his remains were moved to the Novodevichy
cemetery and a bust of the writer stands there.
The writer’s statute was erected in 1909 on Prechistensky Boulevard, which
is now called Gogolevsky Boulevard. The opening ceremony was held on 26 April
1909, in the year of the writer’s centennial. Sculptor Nikolai Andreev’s
masterpiece perfectly reflected the mood of the writer in his last years –
sick, lonely and mournful, but still dignified. The monument stood safely until
1951 when it was carried over to the territory of the Donskoi Monastery. In 1959
it was displaced to Nikitsky Boulevard (Никитский бульвар), in the yard close to house No. 7. Gogol moved into that two-storey Moscow
mansion in the winter of 1848. He spent four years of his life there until his
death. It was in this house that he wrote the
second volume of his novel Dead Souls. Now the house is used by the
Gogol Municipal Library, and his two-roomed flat has been made into a memorial
museum.
There are two statutes of Gogol in Moscow, with
completely different characters. The second statute of Gogol, made by sculptor
Nikolai Tomsky, was erected in 1952 on Gogolevsky Boulevard. There is a story that Stalin ordered the erection of a
new statue because he disliked the mournful look of the original statue. Thus,
the “new Gogol” stands with a slight smile.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dostoevsky is often associated with St Petersburg.
However, his dislike of that city is obviously visible in Crime and Punishment. Belonging to the Slavophile camp, Dostoevsky idealised
Moscow as the city with true Russian spirit. Dostoevsky was actually born in
Moscow (1821) and lived there with his family until 1838, when he went to St
Petersburg to study at the Engineering College. Despite living in St
Petersburg, Dostoevsky’s visits to his native city were very frequent. The
family’s Moscow flat on the grounds of Mariinsky Hospital has been re-created
according to descriptions written by Fyodor’s brother. Visitors can see the
family’s library, toys and many other personal items, including Fyodor’s quill
pen and an original autograph.
A statute of the great writer stands in front of the
Mariinsky Hospital, created in 1919 by sculptor Sergey Merkurov. The statute
was initially erected on Tsvetnoy Boulevard (Цветной бульвар) and was later moved back to its original place, where it
can be seen today. In 1997, the city of Moscow honoured the writer with a new
and bigger statute in a very prominent and central position in front of the
building of the Russian State Library. The statute was created by sculptor Alexander
Rukavishnikov. The library itself was also renamed the Dostoevsky Library in
his honour at the same time.
The writer’s name has been given to a Moscow metro
station that was opened in June 2010. The murals in the metro station, despite being
criticised by some Muscovites for being depressive, depict scenes from some of
Dostoevsky's best-known novels.
Lev Tolstoy
Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana,
the family estate in the Tula region of
Russia. He spent a few years living in Moscow during his childhood. In 1851, he
went to the Caucasus and joined the army.
It was about this time that he started writing. Leaving the army in 1856,
Tolstoy again spent some time living in Moscow and it was there, in September
1862, that he married Sofiya (Sonya) Behrs.[37]
Their marriage took place in the Church of Nativity of the Virgin in the
Kremlin, situated within the Terem Palace. Tolstoy gave up his former
aristocratic lifestyle and adopted a simple farming life, staying at his estate
in Yasnaya Polyana for the following two decades. Nevertheless, his regular
visits to Moscow continued, intensifying during his work on the manuscript of War and Peace.
Tolstoy
bought an estate in Khamovniki (Хамо́вники)[38]
in 1882 and the family spent most of their winters there for the next twenty
years. In 1901, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana permanently. Today, there
are touristic tours from Moscow to this house, where it is possible to see
Tolstoy’s famous desk at which he wrote some of his masterpieces. This desk is
also depicted in the famous painting of Tolstoy by the painter Nikolai Ge that
is being exhibited in Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
A statute of the writer can be found
at the eastern end of the wooden park of Maiden’s Field, the triangular piece
of open space that borders Boslhaya Pirogovskaya ulitsa at the top of ulitsa
Lva Tolstogo. It was here that Pierre Bezukhov was held by his French captors
in War and Peace and that he was
forced to watch his fellow prisoners being shot.[39]
Tolstoy died in the small town of Astapovo in 1901 and was buried at Yasnaya
Polyana without an Orthodox funeral.
Mikhail
Lermontov
Mikhail Yur’yevich Lermontov, “the poet of the
Caucasus,” is considered as one of the greatest figures of Russian Romanticism.
Lermontov had his roots in
Moscow, even though he spent most of his life outside the city. He was born there, in October 1814, studied at the university and returned
between periods of exile.
Lermontov came into the public eye in 1837 when, on
the occasion of Alexander Pushkin’s death in a duel, he wrote a poem called On the Death of the Poet. As a tragic coincidence, Lermontov’s
fate was similar to Pushkin’s. He was killed in a duel in 1841 just like his
hero, Pushkin, four years earlier.
The city of Moscow paid its tribute to the great poet
with a statute that was erected on 4 June 1965 in a park on Lermontovskaya
Square (Лермонтовская площадь) outside the Krasniye Vorota metro
station. The monument was built near the site of the house
where Lermontov was born 150 years earlier. The lines from his famous Sashka are
inscribed behind the statue of the poet:
Москва, Москва!.. люблю тебя
как сын,
Как русский, — сильно, пламенно и нежно.[40]
Moscow, Moscow, I love you
like a son,
Like a Russian – strongly,
fierily, tenderly.
The pink house at No. 2 on ulitsa Malaya Molchanovka
is the house where Lermontov lived with his grandmother during his Moscow
years. Today it is the Lermontov House Museum, which contains some of his early
writings, sketches and original furniture.
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Mayakovsky was born in a small village in Georgia in
1893 and moved to Moscow as a child. He worked for the Bolsheviks during the
civil war, designing propaganda posters and reading his work at the Poets’ Café
on Tverskaya ulitsa. He was proclaimed to be “the best, most talented poet of
the Soviet epoch” by Stalin and he became a cultural icon of the Soviet regime.
His works were reprinted and taught in Soviet schools.
Mayakovsky shot himself in 1930, leaving a poetic
suicide note behind. Moscow paid its tribute to the futurist poet with a range
of memorials dedicated to him. His statute stands in Triumfalnaya ploshchad
(formerly Mayakovskaya ploshchad), erected in 1958. The metro station on the
square still bears the name of the poet.
Mayakovsky moved frequently within Moscow, living at
different times in the Presnya district around Chistye Prudy near Taganka, in
Sokolniki and most famously at 3 Lubyansky proezd, just around the corner from the
Lubyanka, which is now the Mayakovsky Museum.[41] Mayakovsky’s
grave is in the Novodevichy cemetery. There are regular celebrations held here
on the poet’s birthday, 19 July, by officials from the Mayakovsky Museum.
Maxim Gorky
Gorky was born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1868 and became
an orphan at the age of eleven. He was brought up by his grandmother. His real
name was Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, but he began using the pseudonym Gorky
(literally “bitter”) in 1892. The name reflected his determination to speak the
bitter truth. By 1899, he was openly associating with the emerging Marxist
social-democratic movement. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime and was
arrested many times. Gorky became Lenin’s friend after they met in 1902. He was
in Moscow during the uprising of December 1905.
In 1906, the Bolsheviks sent him on a fund-raising
trip to the United States, where he wrote his famous novel of revolutionary
conversion and struggle, Мать - The
Mother. From 1906 to 1913, Gorky lived on the island of Capri. An amnesty
granted for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty allowed
Gorky to return to Russia in 1913, where he witnessed both the February and
October Revolutions. In 1921, Gorky returned to Italy on health grounds: he had
tuberculosis.
Gorky’s definitive return from Fascist Italy in 1932 was
a major propaganda victory for the Soviets. He was decorated with the Order of
Lenin and given a mansion on Malaya Nikitskaya (the Ryabushinsky Mansion) in
Moscow and a dacha in the suburbs. The mansion today houses the Gorky Museum. One
of the central Moscow streets, Tverskaya, was renamed in his honour, as was the
city of his birth. The largest fixed-wing aircraft in the world in the
mid-1930s, the Tupolev ANT-20, was named “Maxim Gorky” in his honour.
With the increase of Stalinist repression, Gorky was
placed under unannounced house arrest in his house near Moscow. The sudden
death of Gorky’s son, Maxim Peshkov, in May 1934 was followed by the death of
Maxim Gorky himself in June 1936. The question of whether he was poisoned by
the authorities is one that has never been fully resolved.[42]
He was buried in the Kremlin Wall near Soviet leaders. In the final Moscow show
trial in 1938, two of the defendants were accused of his murder. Stalin and Molotov
were among those who carried Gorky’s coffin during the funeral.
Boris Pasternak
Pasternak was born in 1890 in a Moscow house situated
on Oruzheiny pereulok near the intersection with Karetnyi Ryad. He spent his
childhood in another apartment in an attractive district on Myasnitskaya ulitsa
near the Chistye Prudy metro station. Tolstoy and Scriabin were close friends
of the wealthy Pasternak family. Inspired by Scriabin, Pasternak aspired first
to be a musician and became a student at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1910 he
abruptly left for the German University of Marburg.
Pasternak welcomed the February Revolution but soon
became doubtful about the Bolshevik takeover due to the following Red Terror.
He moved to Berlin in 1922 but soon returned to Moscow in 1923. In 1932 he was
given a small flat in the Herzen House on Tverskoi Boulevard and in 1937 he
acquired two rooms in a house built by the Union of Soviet Writers at 17
Lavrushinsky pereulok.[43]
Stalin was an admirer of Pasternak’s work but never agreed to the personal
meeting that Pasternak requested.
Pasternak submitted his masterpiece Doctor Zhivago to the literary journal Novyi
Mir, which refused to publish the novel. The manuscript was smuggled into
Italy, where it was published in 1957. Doctor Zhivago became an instant
sensation throughout the non-Communist world upon its release. On 23 October
1958, Boris Pasternak was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize. The
tribute created a major reaction in the Soviet Union. On 31 October 1958, Pasternak
was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers. He reluctantly declined the Nobel
Prize due to the increasing pressure.
He died not long after this event in 1960, and he was
buried at Peredelkino. Doctor Zhivago
circulated in underground editions among dissident intellectuals during the
late Soviet period but was not published in Russia until the glastnost era of the late 1980s.[44] Pasternak’s
son Yevgeny eventually accepted the Nobel Prize was on his behalf some thirty
years later.
Mikhail
Bulgakov
Bulgakov was born in Kiev in 1891. After graduating
from the medical faculty of Kiev University, Bulgakov started serving as a
surgeon. In 1921 Bulgakov moved to Moscow and settled near Patriarch’s Ponds,
close to the Mayakovskaya metro station on Bolshaya Sadovaya ulitsa, No. 10. The
1920s witnessed the publication of several of his works, including The White Guard, set in Kiev during the
Civil War, The Heart of a Dog, set in
an old district inhabited by gentry and intelligentsia around the Kropotkinskaya
metro, and a number of plays.[45]
Bulgakov is probably best known for his extraordinary
novel The Master and Margarita, about the devil’s visit to Moscow,
which was published twenty-six years after his death. The story opens with two
figures sitting on a bench at Patriarch’s Ponds, an attractive open space
inside the Garden Ring on Malaya Bronnaya ulitsa. It is here that the poet Ivan
Bezdomnyi and the literary agent Mikhail Berlioz meet the mysterious Professor
Woland, who predicts Berlioz’s imminent demise under the wheels of a tram. From
there, a short walk up the Garden Ring towards Triumfalnaya ploshchad takes you
to the five-storey grey apartment building where Bulgakov lived during the
early 1920s. Flat 50 at Bolshaya Sadovaya was to become the model for Berlioz’s
flat, which Woland and his associates take over in the novel, and where Margarita
acts as hostess for Satan’s ball. The building became a communal house after
the Revolution, where Bulgakov and his first wife Tasya managed to acquire a
room.[46]
Bulgakov’s old flat, and the attic of the apartment
building in which parts of The Master and
Margarita are set, have since the 1980s become a gathering spot for
Bulgakov’s fans. Since 2007 the flat has been operated as the Bulgakov Museum.
It contains personal belongings, photos, and exhibitions related to Bulgakov’s
life and his different works. Various poetic and literary events are often held
in the flat.
Marina Tsvetaeva
Marina Tsvetaeva was born in 1892 in Moscow in an
intellectual and relatively wealthy family. Her father was a professor of fine art
at the University of Moscow and later founded the Alexander III Museum, which
is now known as the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Tsvetaeva’s mother was a
concert pianist. The tragedies in Tsvetaeva’s life started in 1906 when she lost
her mother. After spending some time in Switzerland and Germany, she returned
to Russia in 1911, where she married Sergei Efron.
The couple moved to an apartment on Borisglebovsky
pereulok, which is preserved as a museum. After the 1917 Revolution, Efron
joined the White Army, and Marina returned to Moscow, where she was trapped
during the terrible famine years. In 1919, she placed both of her daughters in
a state orphanage, with the hope that they would be better fed there. Her
younger daughter Irina died there of starvation in 1920. The child’s death
caused Tsvetaeva great grief and regret. Efron, who fought against the
Bolsheviks in the Civil War, had to leave for Prague after the defeat of the
White Army. Tsvetaeva and Alya joined him there and they stayed away from their
homeland for 17 long years. Abandoning his former opposition to the Soviet
government, Efron agreed to work for the secret police. In 1937 both Efron and
Alya returned to Moscow. Tsvetaeva joined them in 1939, together with her son
Georgy.
Alya and Efron were soon accused of espionage and
arrested. Alya was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour and Efron was shot in
the Lubyanka. Tsvetaeva could not endure the grief and pain and hanged herself
in 1941; she was buried in an unmarked grave. Her son also lost his life in
combat in 1944.
The writers mentioned in this paper are the most
influential and important Moscow names, whose fame has reached every corner of
the world. However, there are other important writers, such as Anton Chekhov, Andrei
Belyi, Alexander Blok, Sergei Yesenin or Osip Mandelson, who have also made
great contributions to Moscow’s cultural life with their plentiful literary
work consolidating its central role in Russian cultural history.
Moscow – The
City of Theatres
Moscow has always been the centre of theatrical art in
Russia. Today, there are over 500 theatres in the country, and 150 of them are
in Moscow. The city offers the best stages and the best performances of the
country. The first theatres appeared in Russia as pagan shows. Church theatre performing Biblical stories appeared as an
alternative to the pagan theatre in the sixteenth century. Tsar Alexei
Mikhailovich is considered to be founder of the first Russian theatre; in 1672,
he opened a theatre at the court in Moscow. In 1702 Peter the First ordered the building
of a public theatre on Red Square. In the nineteenth century, the place of
Moscow as the centre of theatrical life was strengthened with the foundation of
the Maly (Small) Theatre in 1824 and the Bolshoi (Big) Theatre in 1825.
The Bolshoi Theatre was built on the site of Petrovsky
Theatre, which was built in 1780 by an English entrepreneur named Michael
Maddox. The current theatre was built on
Theatre Square between 1821 and 1824 by architect Andrei Mikhailov (who had
also built the nearby Maly Theatre in 1824) and it opened on 18 January 1825 as
the Bolshoi Petrovsky Theatre. The building is one of the best examples of
Russian architecture and the largest theatre structure in Europe. The Bolshoi
Theatre rapidly gained an international reputation for opera and ballet.
Tchaikovsky’s ballets and operas were performed there and Rachmaninov worked as
a conductor. Such names as Fyodor Chaliapin, Antonina Nezhdanova, Yekaterina
Geltser, Sergei Lemeshev, Ivan Kozlovksy, Leonid Sobinov and the ballet dancers
Galina Ulanova, Marina Semeneva and Olga Lepeshinskaya all performed here.[47]
The Maly Theatre is agreed to have been established in
1824, when the Imperial Theatre Company moved to the yellow building standing
in Teatralnaya ploshchad. The centennial of the Maly was celebrated in 1924,
and the 175th anniversary in 1999. However, the official
bicentennial was moved to 2006, based on the establishment of the Imperial
Moscow Theatre in 1806. Alexander Ostrovsky’s name became closely associated
with the Maly Theatre, and he is considered to be the leading playwright of
nineteenth century Russia. Alexander Griboedov was another leading figure whose
works were often performed at the theatre. Griboedov’s statute can be seen on
Chistnoprudy Boulevard. Famous actors of the Maly Theatre included Mikhail
Shchepkin, Pavel Mochalov, Maria Yermolova and Konstantin Stanislavsky.
The decision to lift the imperial monopoly on theatres
in 1812 made a big impact in theatre world of Moscow and private theatres
started to flourish rapidly. The first example was the Korsh Theatre, which was
established on Petrovsky pereulok. The Korsh Theatre moved into a new building on
Kamergensky pereulok in 1885, which later became the home of the Moscow Art
Theatre.[48] Another
private theatre was the Fantastic Theatre, set up by Mikhail Lentovsky during
the 1880s. That theatre eventually went bankrupt.
The Private Opera was a company established in 1885 by
famous Russian industrialist Savva Mamontov. The Private Opera made a great
contribution to the cultural life of Moscow. Sergei Rachmaninov joined the opera
as a conductor in 1897. It was also Mamontov who presented Fyodor Chaliapin to
Moscow’s audiences in 1896. Chaliapin was perhaps the most talented bass singer
of his time. His major break onto the Moscow stage was with the role of Ivan
the Terrible in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Maid of
Pskov.
The Moscow Art Theatre (Московский художественный
академический театр, МХАТ) was founded in 1898 by Constantin Stanislavski,
together with the playwright and director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. The
Art Theatre achieved its fame by staging Anton Chekhov’s four major works,
beginning with its production of The
Seagull in 1898. This production was so successful that the theatre adopted
the seagull as its emblem. The theatre continued to stage plays after the
October Revolution of 1917 and was one of the foremost state-supported theatres
of the Soviet Union. The theatre was officially renamed the Gorky Moscow Art
Theatre in 1932. In 1987, the theatre split into two entirely different organisations:
the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, which remained in the old theatre on
Kamergersky pereulok, and the Gorky Moscow Art Theatre. The Chekhov Moscow Art
Theatre is now located on Tverskoi Boulevard.
The
Taganka Theatre was founded in 1964 by Yuri Lyubimov in the Brezhnev era. Being
located on Taganka Square, the theatre became popular among Moscow audiences,
with Vladimir Vysotsky and Alla Demidova as the leading actors. The theatre
staged a very successful interpretation of Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. The repertoire
chosen by Lyubimov created tensions with Soviet authorities, who banned many of
Lyubimov’s productions. The director was finally stripped of his Soviet
citizenship and exiled to the West in 1984. The theatre struggled with growing
instability and difficulties in the post-communist period; however, it retained
its important place in the theatrical life of Moscow.
The turn of the 20th century marked the burst of
theatrical activities and searching for new styles. Today, the Russian theatre
enjoys freedom of creativity and there is a range of so-called easy genre
theatres in Moscow: puppet theatre, music theatre, operetta, etc. New
experimental theatrical studios looking for new art fringes appear now and
again.
Moscow – The
City of Music
Russia is perhaps one of the leading countries of the world
with the richest traditions in the art of music. Russian composers have made
great contributions to the musical heritage of the world with numerous pieces of
art. A vital milestone in the Russian history of music is the development of “Rus,”
a distinctive musical culture of the medieval period that dates back to the eleventh
century. During the period of Muscovy, a distinct line was formed between the
sacred music of the Orthodox Church and that of secular music used for
entertainment.
In the eighteenth century, Peter the Great introduced
western music fashions to Russia. During the subsequent reign of Empresses
Elisabeth and Catherine, the Russian imperial court attracted many prominent
musicians, many from Italy. This was the period in which the superiority of
Petersburg over Moscow was felt as a result of the active involvement of the
court in the field of classical music.
The nineteenth century saw the emergence of many
outstanding romantic and classical composers and the development of a wide
variety of music styles. The first great Russian composer to exploit native
Russian music traditions in the realm of secular music was Mikhail Glinka
(1804–1857), who composed the early Russian-language operas Ivan Susanin and Ruslan and Lyudmila. These operas gained fame for relying on
distinctively Russian tunes and themes and for being in the vernacular.
Russian folk music became the primary source for the
younger generation of composers. A group that called itself “The Mighty Five,”
headed by Balakirev (1837-1910) and including Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908),
Mussorgsky (1839-81), Borodin (1833-87) and César Cui (1835-1918), proclaimed
its purpose to compose and popularise Russian national traditions in classical
music. This period also saw the foundation of the Russian Musical Society (RMS)
in 1859, led by composer-pianists Anton (1829-94) and Nikolay (1835-81) Rubinstein.
The Mighty Five was often presented as the RMS’s rival, with the Five embracing
their Russian national identity and the RMS being musically more conservative.
However, the RMS founded Russia’s first conservatories in St Petersburg and in
Moscow: the former trained the great Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky,
best known for ballets like Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The
Nutcracker.
The Moscow Conservatory is perhaps
one of the most favourite places to visit for the lovers of Russian classical
music. A statute of Pyotr Tchaikovsky stands in front of the main entrance of
the yellow building on Bolshaya Nikitskaya ulitsa. It was co-founded in 1866 as
the Moscow Imperial Conservatory
by Nikolai
Rubinstein (brother of the famous Russian pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein,
who founded the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1862) and Prince Nikolai
Petrovitch Troubetzkoy.
Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) arrived in
Moscow in 1866 to teach theory and harmony at the Moscow Conservatory, a post
he held until approximately 1878. In 1940, the conservatory was re-named as the
Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and it still bares this name. Tchaikovsky
introduced his most famous works, the opera Eugene
Onegin and Swan Lake, when he was
working at the Moscow Conservatory. Another building which carries the name of
the composer is the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, located on Triumfalnaya Square
near the Mayakovskaya metro station. The former Novisnky Boulevard was also
named as ulitsa Chaikovskogo in his honour. The International Tchaikovsky
Competition, which is held every four years in Moscow, has perhaps one of the
most prestigious musical awards in the field of classical music.
If Tchaikovsky is the best-known Russian composer
outside of Russia, the most famous successor in his style is Sergei
Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), who studied at the Moscow Conservatory. Rachmaninoff
moved to Moscow in 1885 at the age of twelve and entered the Moscow
Conservatory in 1888. Rachmaninoff gave some of the greatest examples of his
work during his Moscow years. The Russian Orthodox Church and Moscow inspired
him greatly in his coral symphony The
Bells. He said: “If I have been at all successful in making bells vibrate
with human emotion in my works, it is largely due to the fact that most of my
life was lived amid vibrations of the bells of Moscow.” His Vespers, written in 1915 for an unaccompanied
choir, used traditional Russian plainchant as its inspiration.[49]
Following the October Revolution, Rachmaninoff left Russia in November 1917,
spending the rest of his life abroad. Rachmaninoff never returned to Russia,
but Moscow honoured him with a statute that stands on Strasnoi Boulevard at the
top of ulitsa Petrovka. A concert hall was also named the Rachmaninoff Hall,
which is located near the Moscow Conservatory.
Another well-known Russian composer, Alexander
Scriabin, was born in Moscow in 1871 and studied at the Moscow Conservatory.
Having small hands for a pianist, he damaged his right hand while practicing.
His doctor said he would never recover, and he wrote his first large-scale
masterpiece, his Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, as a “cry against God, against
fate.” Scriabin was one of the most innovative and most controversial of early
modern composers who had a major impact on the music world over time, and he
influenced composers like Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky. Moscow paid its
tribute to the composer with a memorial plaque erected outside the house where
Scriabin spent the last three years of his life before his untimely death in
1915. The two-storey mansion situated at 11 Bolshoi Nikolopeskovsky pereulok today
houses the A.N. Scriabin Memorial Museum. It was here that he wrote musical
masterpieces: the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Sonatas; Two Dances, “Garlands” and “the
Dark Flame”, Composition 73; and Five Preludes, Composition 74. Each year the museum
hosts a competition to award scholarships to young musicians.
Sergei Prokofiev, who was born in Ukraine in 1891, is
regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. Prokofiev was not a
Muscovite by birth, but he lived in Moscow for a significant period. After
studying at the St Petersburg Conservatory, he left Russia shortly after the Revolution.
In 1936 he returned to Moscow and was given a luxury apartment on Zemlyanoi
Val. Prokofiev composed his best-known works in his Moscow years: the ballet Romeo and Juliet and Peter and the Wolf. Collaborating with
the famous film director Sergei Einstein, Prokofiev wrote the music for the
films Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1943). Prokofiev
died on 5 March 1953, exactly the same day as Stalin, and was buried in the Novodevichy
cemetery. Moscow honoured the great composer with a museum that was unveiled on
1 June 1966 on Tokmakov pereulok near the Baumanskaya metro station. The municipal
Children’s Musical School No: 1 was also given the composer’s name. In May
1991, in commemoration of Prokofiev’s centenary, a monument to the composer was
placed in front of the school building. In 2011, a high-profile festival was held
in Moscow devoted to the 120th birth anniversary of the composer. In
May 2011 the Sergei Prokofiev Museum in Moscow opened the “Sergei Prokofiev:
Life’s Pages” exhibition, in which Prokofiev’s memorial piano could be seen.
Another great name in Russian classical music, Dmitry
Shostakovich, was born in St Petersburg in 1906. Growing up in that city,
Shostakovich is rightly considered as a Leningrader, but he composed some of
his most famous works during his years in Moscow. Shostakovich and his family were
evacuated from Leningrad in 1941, when the Nazis encircled the city.
Shostakovich settled in the city of Kuibyshev, where he wrote his Seventh
Symphony, the Leningrad Symphony.
He came to Moscow in 1943 following the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad
and started to teach at the Moscow Conservatory. His family lived in an
apartment on Myasnitskaya ulitsa until 1943 and then moved to a larger
apartment on Kutuzovsky prospect. The 8th, 9th, 10th
and 11th Symphonies as well as Eighth String Quartet came during his
Moscow years. In 1954, Shostakovich wrote the Festive Overture, Opus 96, which was
used as the theme music for the 1980 Summer Olympics. Shostakovich became the subject
of the criticism and restrictions of the Soviet regime. In 1962 the composer
moved to an apartment on Briusov pereulok, where he composed his 13th
and 14th Symphonies. Shostakovich died in 1975 in Moscow and was
buried in the Novodevichy cemetery.
Conclusion –
Moscow: The Centre of Russian Cultural Heritage
Russia is perhaps one of the leading countries in the
world that have made great contributions to the world’s cultural heritage with
numerous works of art ranging from literature to classical music and from
poetry to ballet. Today, many people visit Russia not only for the purposes of
tourism or sight-seeing but also for witnessing its great cultural heritage.
Moscow, offering great choices with its countless theatres, beautiful concert
halls, ballets, operas and classical music concerts, has always been at the
very centre of the attention of art lovers. It is not a surprise that the
majority of the spectators at the Bolshoi Theatre are foreigners who feel
themselves lucky for getting the opportunity to watch a ballet or opera in a
hall where once Tsars took their seats and where some of the greatest Russian
soloists or ballerinas have performed.
Today Russia is a major destination for Turkish
tourists with the decision of the Russian authorities to abolish the visa
requirement. With the increase in the number of tourists, the variety of the
campaigns offered by the tour agencies are expanding, Moscow and St Petersburg
being the most popular among them. In the brochures printed by the tour
agencies and in audio-visual advertisements we frequently witness that St
Petersburg is referred to as being the “cultural capital” of Russia. This
reference might have been partially true for a certain period, but taking a
closer look into Russian cultural history, one can easily acknowledge the fact
that this definition is far from being accurate.
The foundation of St Petersburg and the enforced
process of Westernisation caused by the Petrine Revolution in Russian culture temporarily
suspended Moscow’s central place. During the reign of Peter, the upper classes
of St Petersburg were forced to imitate the European way of life, while Moscow
remained the symbol of real Russian character and soul. Ironically, the
enforced Westernisation process in Russian culture eventually resulted in the
strengthening of Russian traditional patterns in all sorts of art from painting
to classical music, from ballet to theatrical art, as Russian artists started
creating works based on a new interpretation of Western classical arts with the
colours of Russian folk traditions.
This “Russianisation process” in all fields of art
enabled Moscow to consolidate its central place in Russian cultural life. The
interpretation of Western arts with Russian traditional patterns led to the
creation of the most unique and precious masterpieces gifted by Russian artists
to the cultural heritage of the world. The place of Moscow as the centre of
Russian cultural life was further strengthened and confirmed after the October
Revolution as the city became the capital of the USSR. During this period,
Soviet artists made major contributions to Russian cultural life with great
works in all fields of the arts.
As Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Karamzin, Lev Tolstoy,
Fyodor Dostoevsky and Nikolai Gogol all rightly mentioned in their works,
Moscow is not only the political capital of Russia, but the capital of art and
the capital of Russian culture. It is simply the heart of Russia.
[1]Caroline
Brooke, Moscow: A Cultural History, Oxford University Press, New York, 2006,
Introduction, p.xvii
[2]Александр
Сергеевич Пушкин, А.С.Пушкин, Евгений Онегин, Роман В Стихах - Собрание
сочинений в 10 томах, Том четвертый . Поэмы, Сказки, Электронная публикация — РВБ, Версия
2.2 от 30 января 2002 г, No:836 http://www.rvb.ru/pushkin/01text/04onegin/01onegin/0836.htm
[3]Татяна
Вишневская, Альбум Москва, Издательство Яркий город, Санк-Петербург, 2006, p.3
[4]See details in Н. М. Карамзин, История государства Российского,
Репринтное воспроизведение издания пятого, выпущенного в трех книгах с
приложением «Ключа» П. М. Строева Москва, 1988,
http://www.rvb.ru/18vek/karamzin/4igr/toc.htm
[5]Andrzej
Walicki, A History of Russian Thought: From the Enlightenment to Marxism,
Stanford University Press, California, 1979, p.57
[6]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.xxi
[7]Лев Николаевич
Толстой, Война и мир, 1867,
http://az.lib.ru/t/tolstoj_lew_nikolaewich/text_0040.shtml
[8]Robert W.
Thurston, Liberal City, Conservative State: Moscow and Russia’s Urban Crisis,
1906-1914, Oxford University Press, New York, 1987, p.74
[9]Orlando Figes,
Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, New York, 2002, p.157
[10]Figes,
Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, p.162
[11]The name
“Dolgoruky – long-armed” derived from his reputation as a ruthless person. His
statute was commissioned by another ruthless dictator, Josef Stalin, to mark
the 800th anniversary of the foundation of Moscow. Finally the
statute was unveiled on Tverskaya Square in 1954 after the dictator’s death. Today,
it is still one of the most popular touristic sites in Moscow.
[12]Иван Забелин,
Основание Города и Бояарние Кучке 1153 год., в Марина Федотова, Кирил Королев,
Москва- История Города От Участников и Очевидцев, Автобиография, Москва 2010,
p.24
[13]Figes,
Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, p.151
[14]вишневская,
Альбум Москва, p.3
[15]T. Geidor and
I. Kharitonova, Moscow, Amarant Publishers, Moscow, 2005, p.4
[16]Figes,
Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, p.215
[17]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.1
[18]Ivan Yegorovich
Zabelin (29 September 1820, Tver – 13 January 1908, Moscow) was a Russian historian and archaeologist with a Slavophile bent who helped establish the National
History Museum on Red Square and presided over this institution until 1906. He was the foremost authority on the history of the city
of Moscow and a key figure in the nineteenth-century Russian Romantic
Nationalism.
[19]Known as “Ivan the Great” or “The Grand Prince
of all Rus” (Великий князь всея Руси). He is also sometimes referred to as the
“gatherer of the Russian lands” as he tripled the territory of his state.
[20]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.7
[21]The theory of Moscow as the Third Rome was formulated apparently sometime in the 1530s by the monk Filofei (Philotheus). Filofei articulated his theory in one terse sentence: “Dva Rima padosha, a tretii stoit, a chetvertom ne byti”: “Two Romes have fallen, their third stands, and a fourth will not be.” Implicit in it was the belief that Russia was destined to rule the world and that the Russian tsar was the ruler of all humanity. The responsibility of preserving the world’s cultural heritage was now on the shoulders of Muscovy. Even in the nineteenth century, this religious mission remained one of the main springs of Pan-Slavist thinking.
[22]See details in
Nonna Vladimirskaya and Rimma Kostikova, Art and History of The Kremlin of
Moscow, Moscow, 2000, p.10-12
[23]Kathleen Berton
Murrel, Moscow: An Illustrated History, New York, 2003, p.31
[24]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.9
[25]Г.В.Носовский, А.Т.Фоменко, Москва в Свете Новой Хронологии, Москва, 2010, p.138
[26]Streltsy (Стрельцы́ – shooters)
were the units of Russian
guardsmen from the sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, armed with firearms. The
first Streltsy units were created by Ivan the Terrible
sometime between 1545 and 1550. The Streltsy of Moscow guarded the Kremlin,
performed general guard duty and participated in military operations. They also carried out general police
and fire-brigade functions in Moscow. The Streltsy became something of a
“praetorian element” in Muscovite politics in the late seventeenth century. In 1682 they attempted to prevent Peter the Great from
coming to the throne in favor of his half-brother, Ivan. After the fall of Sophia Alekseyevna in 1689, the government of Peter the Great
engaged in a process of gradual limitation of Streltsy military and political
influence. The Streltsy revolted while Peter was in Europe. Peter, following
his return, crushed the Streltsy with savage reprisals, including public
executions and torture.
[27]In 1918, the square was named Revolution Square (Площадь Революции - Ploshchad Revolyutsii) after the October
Revolution
[28]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.36
[29]The Kazan
Cathedral was built to commemorate the victory over the Poles in 1612.
Demolished in 1936, the Cathedral was reconstructed in the post-communist era
by Oleg Zhurin in 1993.
[30]The present-day
GUM shopping centre was completed in 1893 by Alexander Pomerantsev.
[31]Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Russian
Architecture and the West, Yale University Press, 2007, p.126
[32]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.40
[33]Федор Михайлович Достоевский, Зимние заметки о летних впечатлениях, 1863, http://az.lib.ru/d/dostoewskij_f_m/text_0040.shtml
[34]Н.К. Шильдер, Александр - Его жизн и царствование Иллюстированая
История Москва,
2010.
[35]Katerina Clark,
Moscow, the Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of the
Soviet Culture, Harvard University Press, London, 2011, p.82-83
[36]The statute of
Pushkin was unveiled in 1880 on Tverskoi Boulevard and was moved in 1950 to its
present position.
[37]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.121
[38]Khamovniki is a district of the Central Administrative Okrug of the city of Moscow. The
district extends from Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge into the Luzhniki bend
of the Moskva River; the northern boundary with the Arbat District
follows Znamenka Street, Gogolevsky Boulevard, Sivtsev Vrazhek and Borodinsky Bridge.
The district contains the Pushkin Museum,
the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Devichye Pole
medical campus, Novodevichy Convent and memorial cemetery, and Luzhniki Stadium.
The stretch of Khamovniki between the Boulevard Ring
and the Garden Ring, known as the Golden Mile, is downtown Moscow’s most expensive
housing area. The central part of Khamovniki is dominated by the Cathedral of
Christ the Saviour, a 2000 replica of a nineteenth-century cathedral by Konstantin Thon,
which was destroyed in 1931.
[39]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.122
[40]Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, САШКА : Нравственная поэма, ГЛАВА
I, 7 http://feb-web.ru/feb/lermont/texts/lerm06/vol04/le4-041-.htm
[41]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.125
[42]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.132
[43]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.134
[44]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.136
[45]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.137
[46]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.136
[47]Geidor and Kharitonova, Moscow, p.53
[48]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.152
[49]Brooke, Moscow:
A Cultural History, p.169
Brooke, Caroline. Moscow: A Cultural History, Oxford University Press, New York, 2006
Вишневская, Татяна. Альбум Москва, Издательство Яркий город,
Санк-Петербург, 2006
Clark, Katerina. Moscow, The Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism,
and the Evolution of the Soviet Culture,
Harvard University Press, London, 2011, p.82-83
Geidor, T. and Kharitonova,
I. Moscow, Amarant Publishers, Moscow, 2005.
Забелин, Иван. Основание Города и Бояарние Кучке 1153 год., в
Марина Федотова, Кирил Королев, Москва-
История Города От Участников и Очевидцев, Автобиография, Москва 2010. Figes, Orlando. Natasha’s
Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, New York, 2002, p.7-8 Карамзин,
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поэма, ГЛАВА I, 7
http://feb-web.ru/feb/lermont/texts/lerm06/vol04/le4-041-.htm Murrel, Kathleen Berton. Moscow:
An Illustrated History, New York, 2003, p.31 Носовский Г.В., i Фоменко
А.Т. Москва в Свете Новой Хронологии, Москва, 2010. Pipes, Richard. Russian Conservatism and Its Critics: A
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Стихах – Собрание сочинений в 10 томах, Том четвертый
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2.2 от 30 января 2002 г, No:836 Shvidkovsky, Dmitry. Russian
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Московских Холмов 1500-е годы в Марина Федотова, Кирил Королев, Москва- История Города От Участников и Очевидцев, Автобиография, Москва 2010,
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*Anıl Çiçek - Dr., Head of Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, completed his post-doctoral research studies at the University of Latvia as a part of the Jean Monnet Scholarship Program, achieved Russian language certificate TRKI–III (advanced level) of the University of St Petersburg
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