Monument to Peter the Great in the Peter and Paul Fortress: an unconventional image of the autocrat

The monument to Peter the Great in the Peter and Paul Fortress of St. Petersburg is one of the main sights of the city. This monument is not similar to others already by the fact that to this day it provokes contradictory assessments of St. Petersburg, tourists, art critics.

What is the peculiarity of this creation?

The author of the monument, the famous sculptor Mikhail Shemyakin, embodied in the work the exclusivity of Peter's personality, the ambiguity of his character and beginnings.

The composition itself is unaccustomed. Monument to Peter 1 is a picture of a person sitting on a high bronze chair.

Strange proportions of sculpture are striking. A small head, quite unlike the head of the king, whom we are accustomed to seeing in feature films, sits on a huge, strong body that is impressive with its massiveness. The disproportion is so noticeable that the image makes tourists stop for a long time at the sculpture and examine it with intense attention.

Why is the monument to Peter 1 so unconventional?

The fact is that M. Shemyakin used the famous posthumous wax mask, removed from the deceased tsar by the priest, the famous architect Rastrelli. This mask best conveys features of the autocrat. Based on the wax image, a wax figure of Peter was made, which is now kept in the Winter Palace.

Shemyakin, creating a monument to Peter the Great, copied both the king's pose, and the features of his face, and the shape of his head. This sculptural portrait of the head today is more accurate than the rest conveys the true features of the autocrat's face .

However, when depicting the body, the sculptor deliberately increased the proportions by one and a half times. It turned out a grotesque, almost caricature figure, emphasizing the uniqueness and contradictoriness of the personality of the ruler of Russia. This is how M. Shemyakin makes the audience think about how controversial, often contradictory, and sometimes even grotesque is the history of Russia.

Shemyakinsky monument to Peter 1 - the first unofficial image of the autocrat. The author emphasized the metaphysical character of the image, the psychological nakedness of the personality, the vitality of the figure.

Peter's fingers, clinging to the arm of the chair, are terribly strained. They resemble long claws. So the sculptor stressed the psychology of Peter, his willingness to cling to the enemy, to win with his bare hands. These same tensed fingers testify to a fine nervous nature, a furious temperament, a strong character of the tsar.

Monument to Peter 1 in the fortress was installed recently: in 1991. On the side of the pedestal Shemyakin inscribed an inscription indicating the reverence of the sculptor to the founder of St. Petersburg. Behind the monument are the ruins of Naryshkin's bastion as another evidence of history.

The monument was highly appreciated by many cultural figures, politicians. Foreigners like to treat him, and the newlyweds come to the fortress and lay flowers at the feet of the great Russian tsar.

However, there are opponents of this monument. Some Petrograders have repeatedly raised the issue of transferring the monument beyond the city limits or to the Winter Palace. But while Peter remains in his place in the Peter and Paul Fortress, attentively looking at tourists and reminding them of the ambiguity of Russian history.