Monument to Lermontov in Pyatigorsk. Lermontov Museum-Reserve in Pyatigorsk

The very first monument to Mikhail Lermontov was installed in Pyatigorsk, not far from the place where he died. The body of the poet was reburied from Pyatigorsk for a long time, but the city where he spent the last months of his life, where his last poems were born, was not in vain awarded the first monument in Russia to Lermontov.

"I was happy with you, the gorge of the mountains"

Lermontov loved the mountains unselfishly, he loved the Caucasus. Ever since the time when Grandmother Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsen'eva brought him very small to the Hot Waters, as Pyatigorsk was once called. Many lines of his works are dedicated to the Caucasus, the beauties of his nature. Probably, that's why that love is perceived by us so tragic. Here Lermontov by fate decided to fall after his first exile to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment for the rebellious poem "To the Death of the Poet," then he came here all summer to rest. And whence he did not return.

That Lermontov's house in Pyatigorsk, which he removed from the major-major Vasiliy Ivanovich Chilayev, still stands. Now it is a museum of the poet. A monument that became the first to perpetuate Lermontov in stone, was installed in a city park, which was smashed specially before the opening. Behind him is the foot of Mount Mashuk, where on July 27, 1841, the life of the poet ended in a duel. His eyes are fixed on the top of Elbrus, the majestic peak of the Caucasus mountains so beloved by the poet. The monument to Lermontov in Pyatigorsk, a photo of which every tourist who has visited the city takes with him, is a symbol of selfless love to the poet of enlightened minds of that time.

Toward the thirtieth anniversary of the death of the poet

The history of the duel of Lermontov and the name of his murderer is known in modern Russia by almost everyone. This was told at the school during the lessons of native speech, this is written in textbooks. And the names of those who initiated the installation of the first monument, who created it, are mainly known to professional literati.

Not many people have initiated the installation process, so that their names are hard to remember. In 1870, the poet Petr Kuzmich Martyanov published in the magazine "World Labor" such lines: "Petersburg and Kronstadt put monuments to Kruzenstern and Bellingshausen, Kiev - Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Count Bobrinsky, Smolensk-Glinka, why would Pyatigorsk, with its thousands of visitors to the waters, not Take initiatives in the construction of the monument to M. Yu. Lermontov? "The main tenant of the Caucasian Mineral Waters, Andrei Matveyevich Baikov, warmly supported the idea of Martyanov. In the group of initiators there was one more name - Alexander Andreevich Vitman, a doctor and a court counselor of Pyatigorsk. Baikov and Wittmann applied for assistance to Baron AP Nikolai, who was then the head of the Main Directorate of the Caucasus governor - Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov. So a year later, through a multitude of hands, about the initiative to establish a monument to Lermontov in Pyatigorsk learned the king Alexander II. His highest permission for this event was received on July 23, 1871, almost on the day of the thirtieth anniversary of the poet's death.

Thousands, rubles, pennies

In response to the tsar, it was also prescribed and what means the monument would be erected. He notified about "... the opening of the ubiquitous in the Empire subscription to collect donations for this monument." Immediately, a committee was established to raise money, and the Ministry of Finance began registering donations.

The first contribution came from two unknown peasants from the Tauride province. He made two rubles. But soon donations began to arrive from everywhere. Some amounts have gone down in history. So, a check for a thousand rubles - a lot of money in those years - sent Prince Alexander Illarionovich Vasilchikov, who was Lermontov's second in that fatal duel. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky contributed an amount of one penny from an official Mishchenko was so outraged that even described this case in edification of the descendants. And the fact that the ordinary peasant Ivan Andreichev supplemented this contribution before the ruble, they also described.

In just 18 years, during which money was received for the monument to Lermontov in Pyatigorsk, 53 thousand 398 rubles and 46 kopecks were collected.

Competition for the best project

By 1881, the collected money was enough to start the project of the future monument. The committee for its installation succeeded in recapturing the city of Pyatigorsk as a permanent residence for the monument, although some members of the committee suggested setting it up in one of the two capitals, arguing that Lermontov belongs to the whole of Russia and, in exchange, offering to open the Lermontov museum in Pyatigorsk.

In total, three rounds were held to select the best project of the monument. Neither the first, nor the second tour, and they were sent to more than 120 proposals, did not reveal that special sketch, which would be approved by the entire commission. The results of the third round were summed up on October 30, 1883. 15 applicants sent their projects to him, among them number 14 and a sketch of the future monument. He acted from the famous at the time the sculptor Alexander Mikhailovich Opekushin, who created three years earlier a monument to Alexander Pushkin, who was installed on Tverskoi Boulevard in Moscow. The monument to Lermontov in Pyatigorsk, which proposed to install Opekushin, was distinguished by the simplicity of the composition, included only a few minor details, but According to the author's intention was to display the short but bright life of the poet. And this idea was accepted by the members of the commission.

One portrait and one drawing

Strange as it may seem, it was not so easy to achieve the portrait resemblance of a bronze poet with his face during his lifetime. For some reason the death mask was not removed from Lermontov. Under the model of his appearance, Opekushinin was given only a self-portrait of the poet painted by him in watercolor four years before his death, and a pencil drawing by Lermontov, baron D.Palen, painted in 1840, on which the poet was depicted in profile.

Alexander Mikhailovich Opekushin did a great job . The monument to Lermontov in Pyatigorsk was later recognized as the most accurate in terms of portrait resemblance to the poet. And it was not surprising, because the sculptor created a lot of drawings Lermontov, before they provide them for comparison to the poet's familiar acquaintances, among whom was his second Vasilchikov. The facial features were selected for the sketch chosen by the experts directly under the leadership of Alexander Illarionovich, before the final version of the monument was approved. The author wanted not only to give the statue a portrait resemblance, but also to create a highly artistic work worthy of the poet.

From Crimea and Petersburg - Pyatigorsk

As a result, the author of the monument to Lermontov in Pyatigorsk not only created the very statue of the poet, but also proposed a drawing of the pedestal for it. Light granite slabs were to be laid out in the form of a monumental rock, on which, besides the lyre, the laurel wreath and feather, there were no more ornaments. Everything is laconic, but each of the details had to bear a deep symbolic meaning.

In St. Petersburg, the bronze casting factory "A Moran" itself cast a bronze statue (2 meters 35 centimeters high) and details of the pedestal decor. Then the sculpture, while in Pyatigorsk urgently arranged a public garden and installed a pedestal, exhibited in the capital for public viewing.

For the pedestal, lumps of light granite were brought from the Crimea specially - only eight units. The place for the monument was chosen by the sculptor himself long before his installation. Thanks to this, it was possible to organically link the statue of the poet and the surrounding area. According to his drawing, local masters were engaged in erecting the pedestal. The installation of the bronze sculpture of the poet, which was first delivered to Pyatigorsk by rail, then by carts, was led by Opekushin himself, and the master brought him from the capital. The total height of the monument after the installation was 5 meters 65 centimeters.

Wreaths and speeches at the foot of Mashuk

Originally, the opening of the monument was planned for October 1889. But Alexander Mikhailovich Opekushin could not come to Pyatigorsk in October, and many visitors to the Waters would like to be present at this momentous event, and therefore the date of the monument's opening was postponed on Sunday, August 16.

In addition to Opekushin, personally to see how the monument to Lermontov in Pyatigorsk will be opened, almost all members of the installation committee, local nobles, heads of the Water Department, city officials, residents of the surroundings and visitors to the resort attended the ceremony. A report on the collection and expenditure of money was read out, after which a veil was removed from the monument and a snow-white, as the top of Elbrus.

Wreaths of real flowers, silver, metal, lay at the feet of the poet. There were solemn speeches about the importance of the poet's creative legacy for the Russian people, the March of Lermontov, compiled by V. I. Saul, the poem "Before the monument of M. Yu. Lermontov", read by the author Kosta Khetagurov. A small play "At the monument to Lermontov" was written by G. Schmidt.

Andrei Baikov alone was not among those present. At this time, he, seriously ill, was at a resort in Merano, Austria, where he died a month after the opening of the monument.

The very first and for today the best

That bronze Lermontov, to which money was collected by the whole world, became not only the first monument established by the poet, but also the best one for all today. This opinion was criticized by art historians, historians, writers for a long time. How many new monuments were built after that, but it remains unchanged: the best monument to Lermontov is in Pyatigorsk. His photo, along with images of what is installed on Pushkin on Tverskoy - in virtually all encyclopedias. At the feet of the poet on the front side of the pedestal there are two inscriptions; In the upper part: "M. Yu. Lermontov ", a little lower -" August 16, 1889 ".

The face of the bronze Lermontov seems to convey poetic lines that are about to pour out onto paper, so his expression seems so inspired. But the pen is inviolable, the book fell out of the hands of the poet, and his gaze is turned towards the snow-covered Elbrus. Behind him is Mashuk. Even these details carry a high meaning: behind them is the past, ahead is eternity. Thus captured the great Russian poet Lermontov in Pyatigorsk. The photo of the monument against the background of the notorious mountain for many tourists is more valuable than the pictures of the beautiful peaks of the Caucasian ridge.

A house under a reed roof

In May 1841, wishing to spend a few months in his beloved Pyatigorsk, Lermontov came to the Caucasus. Accidentally stumbled upon a simple, but rather well-kept house, covered with reeds, on Nagornaya Street, on the outskirts of the city. With the owner of the house, retired major-major V. I. Chilayev, managed to come to an agreement for 100 rubles in silver - the amount is quite considerable, but she allowed to rent a house for the whole summer. In such mansions he once "settled" his Pechorin, the same house became the last earthly abode of the poet.

After the fateful duel, long before the building turned into the Lermontov House-Museum, little care was taken in this house in Pyatigorsk. Often the owners changed, none of them followed its arrangement, gradually the building began to decline. The first thing that local residents did when the threat of collapse became quite obvious was that they built and erected a memorial marble slab, which hangs to this day. There are only a few words on it: "The house in which the poet M. Lermontov lived." Only in 1922 the department of public education of Pyatigorsk registered the right of possession of the house. For a year it managed to be brought to the appropriate for the museum kind.

Today it is practically the only monument preserved in its original form, connected with Lermontov. Here, not only this house, but all the houses in the quarter are the same as they were in 1841 - a unique case.

From the Pyatigorsk cemetery to the family crypt in Tarkhany

Here, in the cottage under the reed roof, and brought on a rainy Tuesday July 27 lifeless body of the poet after the duel, from here he was held at the last, as then believed, path to the Pyatigorsk cemetery.

Raised by Mikhail Lermontov's grandmother, Elizaveta Arsenyeva, eight months after the death of her grandson, procured the right to reburial and transported the poet's body to the family estate of Tarkhany of the Penza province, where his mother and grandfather were already in the family crypt. But the museum of Lermontov in Pyatigorsk was replenished with personal things of the poet, which was donated by Mikhail Yurevich's second niece Yevgenia Akimovna Shan-Girey.

The burial took place on May 5, 1842. And on the first tomb of Lermontov in the Pyatigorsk cemetery was a memorial plaque, where, as well as to the monument, and the house under the reed roof, numerous admirers of his work come.

Lermontov's favorite places in Pyatigorsk

Not only the city square, the museum complex and the cemetery are visited in Pyatigorsk by numerous tourists. There are several beautiful places in the mountains where the poet once loved to visit, where now tourist routes lead. Among the main attractions - the grotto of Lermontov in Pyatigorsk on the spur of Mashuk. There is a picture painted by the poet in 1837 - "View of Pyatigorsk", which depicts this spur. He, at the will of Lermontov, became the place of secret meetings between Pechorin and Vera.

Until 1831 it was an ordinary mountain cave, from which a spectacular view of Pyatigorsk was opened. Then the brothers Bernardazzi (Johann and Joseph, local builders) converted it into a grotto, installed benches in it, and an iron grate to it appeared only in the seventies of the XIX century. The cast-iron memorial plaque "The Grotto of Lermontov" was installed in 1961. Far from the city and people Lermontov here rested from the noise and fuss.

"As a sweet song of my homeland ..."

Numerous tourists guides will be invited to visit the Lermontov Museum-Reserve in Pyatigorsk, and a monument, and a stele in the cemetery, and a place of duel at the foot of Mount Mashuk. Many are willing to go to the favorite places of the poet in the vicinity of the city, where he often walked. So in due time did Leo Tolstoy, Sergei Esenin, Vasily Shukshin, who honored the last refuge of the great writer, poet and artist with his personal visit.

Particularly crowded here on the Day of the memory of the poet - July 27. Literary readings are taking place, Lermontov's poems are heard. And quite often - these lines: "As a sweet song of my homeland, I love the Caucasus!"