Monument Men

Moscow’s Commission for Monu­mental Culture has gone into overdrive.

Each year, new statues appear in the city center, including some that are very obtrusive, very large, and very controversial (sometimes all three at once). More and more spaces are being redesigned to accommodate large numbers of sculptures: statues have become the most important instrument of culture policy, just as in the days of Lenin’s monumental propaganda.

At the same time, the poor artistic quality of most of the monuments and the problematic nature of some of the historical figures depicted often turn these installations into sources of controversy rather than cultural unity, one of the main purposes of monuments. The latest addition to Moscow’s sculptural landscape, a towering corkscrew-shaped, bronze figure of legendary ballerina Maya Plisetskaya (right), is a case in point.

Post-Soviet Moscow has generally had a penchant for flashy and grandiose monuments rather than non-ideological park sculptures. Mayor Yuri Luzhkov (in office 1992-2010) adorned Moscow with a plenitude of statues by Zurab Tsereteli,* the most notable of which is the huge monument to Peter the Great, rising 98 meters above the Moscow River less than a kilometer from the Kremlin. But in recent years, since the 2012 appointment of Vladimir Medinsky as minister of culture, Moscow has been swept by a new wave of monumentalism, which has inspired a witty term: скульптуробесие (perhaps best translated as sculpture mania).

Debate about the artistic merit of new works is often subjective, but it is legitimate to discuss whether the meaning and placement of monuments is appropriate. At this point it could easily be argued that Moscow is witnessing an epidemic of inappropriateness.

First Tsereteli fills up the Alexander Garden – considered to be a military memorial – with cheery little animals, then, just when the animals and adjoining fountains have begun to make the park a popular place to stroll with the family, suddenly there is Salavat Shcherbakov’s dramatic Patriarch Hermogenes looming menacingly overhead.

We have also lost a general understanding of what a monument is. In the debate about statues of Ivan the Terrible and Baron Mannerheim, Rustam Rakhmatullin has quoted Vladimir Dal, saying that a monument is “something built to honor and remember,” while Medinsky prefers to take honor out of the equation and approach memorials as if “memory” is the only thing that matters, without considering whether what is being commemorated is good or bad.

The most odious recent monument, designed with complete disregard for its setting, is the statue of Prince Vladimir, unveiled in November. The gigantic sculpture was originally supposed to be erected on the famous lookout atop Sparrow Hills, at its very edge, with Vladimir facing the city below.

Perhaps mass protests by Muscovites had an effect, or perhaps the monument’s promoters finally understood that the initial plan was problematic. Alas, the die had literally already been cast (as had the statue), and from among a wide variety of possible alternative locations the most surprising one was chosen: Borovitsky Square, directly in front of the façade of the finest example of Muscovite Classicism, Pashkov House.

The statue’s massive pedestal had to be removed, but this was a small sacrifice: the “loss” of territory on Sparrow Hills was more than compensated for by the “conquest” of territory directly adjoining the Kremlin.

Moscow’s monument commission has no intention of slowing down. Quite recently, its chairman unveiled a proposal to “create an avenue lined with busts of all the great Russian princes and tsars” on a patch of land being turned into a public square near the Kremlin, the site of two demolished monasteries (see Russian Life, Nov/Dec 2016) – it is as if Moscow has a phobia of leaving spaces empty. This followed news of one proposal to create an avenue of “artistic representations” of all the Moscow Patriarchs near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and another by the Rostov chapter of the United Russia party to erect a chain of Alexander Nevsky statues along the border of the Russian Federation.

Monumental sculpture, which previously honored only the select few considered equal to the heroes of antiquity immortalized in marble or bronze, has entered a mass production phase. After the unveiling of statues to the Druzhba cheese snack and the bronzing of various characters from films and cartoons, monuments as a genre appear to be descending into a souvenir shop aesthetic.

We are told that many of the contemporary sculptors involved in this proliferation of monuments are not driven by greed – they are just honored to have an opportunity to leave their mark on the history of Russian art.

Yet there are periods in art history that serious artists might want to sit out – preferably in some peaceful little town by the sea.

Alexander Mozhayev is a graduate of the Moscow Architectural Institute, with a specialty in architectural restoration. He is a journalist and author and an active member of Moscow That Is No More, which works to halt destruction of the capital’s architectural heritage.