The Field of Mars. Field of Mars, Paris. The Field of Mars is history

In several large cities in the world there is an area under the strange name of the Field of Mars. What does it mean?

All these places are named in honor of the Campus Martius of ancient Rome, and therefore, to understand the meaning of the numerous mars fields, we can not do without an in-depth digression into history. Let's figure out where this phenomenon came from, what kind of view it took now.

The Field of Mars: History

In ancient times, no one but the guard could enter the city with weapons. But what about the army? For her, in fact, built barracks outside the walls. In fact, these were real military towns: besides the barracks there was a hospital, weapons workshops, arsenal, a field for training and training fights. All this together was called a campus (campus in Latin). Since the camp was occupied by the military, it was under the auspices of the god of war, Mars. In Rome, this place was located on the left bank of the Tiber, occupying the lowland between the hills of Capitolius, Pincius and Quirinal. In the center of the campus stood a small altar to the militant god.

After the Tarquinive era, especially during the late Republic, the Field of Mars changed its status and appearance. It began to organize public meetings, sometimes held military reviews, sports competitions (centurial comissions), even executions were carried out. Every year, there was a celebration of the Equirium with jumps and cavalcade of chariots. Since the field was huge, at the same time, several events took place on it, and many spectators could find entertainment to their liking.

The further fate of the Field of Mars

When Rome was ruled by Julius Caesar, the military town moved to the hill of Celio. The ordinary peaceful citizens of the city began to settle on the Champs de Mars. But the name is preserved in toponymy. Later, this huge crescent-shaped space began to be actively built up. It was built many interesting architectural structures, for example, the Pantheon. Since the territory of the original military town included a cemetery where the remains of the fallen soldiers were stored, later the citizens continued to honor their heroes in this place, for which the Pantheon was built, which adorns the Field of Mars. Rome lost a large unoccupied space, but it cherishes the memory of this glorious place.

Other fields dedicated to the fallen heroes

By analogy with the "Campus Martius" in Rome, similar places began to be created in other large cities. It is noteworthy that originally their purpose was the same as in the Eternal City. They performed a military function for soldiers' drill and solemn reviews. And only then, centuries later, they began to be perceived as memorials of glory to the heroes who fell for the Motherland.

In some cities an eternal flame is lit on such squares . Naturally, in such places, the altars of Mars were no longer erected, but the name remained. Perhaps, because there was a fashion for antiquity. Thus, the fields dedicated to the god of war appeared in the very far from Rome lands. In which cities is the Field of Mars? Paris, Athens, Nuremberg and even St. Petersburg. The most interesting, both historically and architecturally, is the Champ de Mars in the French capital. And the most instructive is in the German city of Nuremberg.

The Parisian parade ground for military maneuvers

In 1751, the King of France, Louis XV ordered the building of a military school on the left bank of the Seine. To learn there were supposed to be boys from impoverished aristocratic families (it is known that one of the cadets in this institution was the young Napoleon Bonaparte). The school was adjoined by an extensive level meadow, designed for military exercises. Here the king also took parades. This space near the Louvre was called the Field of Mars.

Paris appreciated this vast platform, suitable for the collection of a large number of people. They swore allegiance to the first constitution. Some events of the French Revolution of 1791 also occurred on this field. A large unoccupied space almost in the center of the city was used by Parisians for different needs. Here, not only the festivities were held, but also the first experiments on the mastery of air space were made. In 1784, from the Field of Mars, Blanchard, a pioneer in this field, ascended into the sky on a guided ball.

A successful addition. A majestic monument

The Field of Mars, stretching more than twenty acres along the Branly Embankment, unlike its Roman counterpart, remained unfinished. It played the role of the city hippodrome in 1833-1860, then there began to hold exhibitions of world scientific achievements. Therefore, when Gustave Eiffel presented Paris with a draft of his tower, it was decided to erect it precisely at the Field of Mars. The iron tracery design surprisingly blended into the green frame of the lawns. In order to view and photograph the Eiffel Tower with Champ de Mars, millions of tourists are now flocking to the city. A natural edging of the field is the golden dome of the Invalides and the Military School. Therefore, the Parisians themselves like to arrange picnics on lawn grass, coming to the field even in the evening with candles.

The Champ de Mars in Athens

This memorial in the modern Greek language is called Πεδίον του Άρεως (Pedion tu Areos). It was built in 1934 to honor the heroes of the national liberation revolution of 1821. By analogy with the Parisian Field of Mars, the monument was dedicated to the god of war - Areosu. It is noteworthy that you will not see his statue anywhere, and the sculpture of Athena Pallada crowns the memorial of fame. Unlike the green meadow of the French capital, this monument is a shady park. The microclimate of the green zone in the heart of the city (from here only a kilometer to Omonia Square) is such that in summer the temperature here is two degrees lower than everywhere else in Athens. In front of the main entrance there is a statue of the Greek King Constantine I on horseback. In the park, besides the busts of the twenty-one revolution hero, there is also the grave of British, New Zealand and Australian soldiers who died in the battles for Greece during World War II.

History of the Mars Field in St. Petersburg

A century after St. Petersburg was founded, the Field of Mars was created in this city. However, initially it was called Poteshny, because festivities took place on the undeveloped territory for Maslenitsa. It was located just west of the Summer Garden. In the XVIII century this place began to be called the Great Lug.

The name, and the functions of the place changed, when Empress Elizabeth Petrovna ascended to the throne . The field began to be respectfully called Tsaritsyn Meadow. On it passed military reviews and parades. And since in Russia there has always been a fashion for Paris, at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries it was decided to call Tsaritsyn Lug the Mars field. Paul I ordered to enclose part of the rapidly developing space with a wrought-iron grid, to break a park with lawns and alleys. In 1801, by order of the same emperor, monuments were erected to the generals Suvorov and Rumyantsev.

Transformation from meadow to square

As the years went by, Petersburg developed, and with it the changes touched the Mars Field. Two sculptures adorned him moved to other parts of the city. Thus, the monument to the commander P. A. Rumyantsev by the work of the architect V. F. Brenna was transferred in 1818 to the Vasilievsky Island. And during the reign of Emperor Alexander I, the sculpture of the great field-marshal was also moved. Now it stands opposite the Trinity Bridge, next to the Marble Palace and the count's house of Saltykov. In fact, this is also part of the Tsaritsyn meadow, only isolated in a separate area, named after the Field Marshal.

The monument to Suvorov on the Champ de Mars, on the Moika, should be mentioned separately. In the Russian Empire, this was the first monument to an uncrowned person. Sculptor M.I. Kozlovsky, who worked on the monument under the decree of Paul I in 1799-1800, did not particularly care about the portrait resemblance between the statue and the original. This is, rather, a collective, epic image of the victorious leader. The bronze figure on the pedestal is clothed in an antique toga. In her right hand she holds a sword, in the left - a shield. Suvorov appears before us in the guise of Mars, the god of war.

Conversion to the Memorial of Glory

After the Field of Mars lost the monuments of the two generals, nothing more indicated the attitude of this place to the war and the battles. However, the name remains. Therefore, when the question arose of where to bury the people who died during the February Revolution of 1917, there was no other proposal: the mass grave should be located on the Champ de Mars. Later there began to appear new burials of workers killed in the Yaroslavl uprising in the summer of 1918, participants of the city's defense from the troops of Yudenich, as well as the deaths of the leaders of the revolution M. Uritsky, V. Volodarsky, Latvian riflemen and others. The memory of the heroes was decided to be perpetuated by the opening of the memorial. It was built of gray and pink granite. The opening was timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the October Revolution. But the field itself was renamed the Victims of the Revolution Square.

The arena of victory, which became a place of shame

In March 1935, fascist Germany decided to acquire its own Mars field. This was to be not just a place for maneuvers and drill training for Wehrmacht troops. It was planned to hold congresses of the party, as well as a parade in honor of the liberation of the world from the "plague of communism and Semitic domination". So it was supposed to be the construction of the century - the largest in Europe, the Field of Mars. Pictures of those years show that the space allocated for the parade was equal to the size of eighty football fields! In the same spirit of gigantomania were the stands, designed for 250,000 spectators. The arena was to be surrounded by twenty-four towers (eleven of which were built by 1945), and the Führer tribune was crowned by the sculptural group of the goddess of Victory Victory with the soldiers. And what came of this? We will only say that the grandiose parade ground was conceived in Nuremberg, where, as is known, hearings were held on the process of the fascists accused of crimes against humanity. A truly instructive story!