The Pantheon in Moscow is an unfulfilled project of a memorial tomb , "a monument to the eternal glory of the great people of the Soviet country ." It was planned to transfer the sarcophagi of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin , as well as “the remains of the prominent leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet state buried near the Kremlin wall ” [1] .
Pantheon in Moscow | |
 | |
| Pantheon mockup, photo of 1953 | |
| Purpose | Necropolis |
| Status | Canceled in 1953 |
| total area | 500,000 m² (4,18064 sq. Yard ) |
| Cost of the object | 250 million rubles. |
| Data correspond: 1953. | |
| Built to order | Central Committee of the CPSU USSR Council of Ministers |
| Design | Nicholas Colley , Vladimir Gelfreich and Mikhail Minkus , Ivan Zholtovsky Grigory Zakharov and Zinaida Chernysheva, Boris Mezentsev , Konstantin Melnikov and others |
Content
History
Creation Decision
After the death of Joseph Stalin on March 5, 1953, a meeting of the funeral commission was held, at which it was decided to prepare a draft decree on the construction of the Pantheon [2] . The resolution was adopted on March 6 and published in the press the next day [3] .
| In order to perpetuate the memory of the great leaders Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, as well as prominent figures buried in Red Square near the Kremlin wall, build a monumental building in Moscow - the Pantheon - a monument to the eternal glory of the great people of the Soviet country. After the construction of the Pantheon is completed, the sarcophagus with the bodies of V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin, as well as the remains of prominent leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet state buried near the Kremlin wall, and the Pantheon for the broad masses of the working people [1] [4 ] [5] .Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR |
Project Competition
On March 10, architect Nicholas Colley proposed a large-scale project, according to which the total area of the Pantheon was 500 thousand square meters. For sarcophagi with the bodies of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, the main hall of 2000–2500 m² was allotted, and for urns — the hall from 3000 to 4000 m². Also provided for office space for staff [6] .
| In its architectural and artistic composition, the building of the Pantheon should be linked to the silhouette of the future Palace of Soviets , the high-rise building in Zaryadye and the historical architecture of the Kremlin . Monumental sculpture, bas-reliefs, plaques, monumental painting and mosaics reflecting the exploits and deeds of the great leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet state in the Great October Socialist Revolution , in the struggle for the construction of socialism, in the Great Patriotic war , in the construction of communism [6] . |
According to the master plan for the reconstruction of the capital, it was planned to expand Red Square, and Nicholas Colley proposed to install the Pantheon in the place of the State Department Store (GUM) . However, the option was rejected because the government podium on the Pantheon turned out to be opposite the existing mausoleum. The columns of troops during the parades would have to go with the alignment to the right, which did not correspond to the established order. The second option involves the use of the Sofia Embankment . At the same time, the Pantheon would occupy the most central and well-accessible place in the capital and could be visible from many points of the city, and two large bridges across the Moscow River would connect its territory with Red Square and the Square of the Palace of Soviets. The only drawback was the remoteness of the Pantheon "from the historically established memorial center of the capital and the central squares of Moscow" [6] .
March 25 to organize the design of the Pantheon, a commission of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Architecture was established. Nicholas Colley was appointed first deputy chairman, architect Sergey Chernyshov second. As an alternative, members of the commission suggested the following places for the construction of the Pantheon: Historical Museum , Manege Square , Luzhniki and Lenin Hills . The variant of Nicholas Collie with reference to Red Square received the greatest support. Under the construction they took a vast territory in China-town "between the streets of Kuybyshev , October 25 , the GUM building, the Dzerzhinsky square and the Polytechnic Museum ." During the construction of the Pantheon, dozens of historical buildings of the capital were to be liquidated [6] . Later, the Presidium of the Central Committee made a clarification: “To build a pantheon in Moscow, three and a half kilometers south of the new MSU building on the lands of the Vorontsov Vitamin Institute” [7] .
The Commission announced an open competition for the design of the building of the Pantheon with the deadline for submission of work until November 1, 1953. In it participated as professional architects Ivan Bogolepov , Alexander Vlasov , Vladimir Gelfreich , Ivan Zholtovsky , Grigory Zakharov , Nikolai Kolli , Boris Mezentsev , Konstantin Melnikov , Mikhail Minkus , Ashot Mndoyants , Arkady Mordvinians , Leonid Poyalkov , Michael Posokhin , Aleksandr Aleksandr Rochegov , Lev Rudnev , Alexander Khryakov , Dmitry Chechulin , Zoya Brod , Zinaida Chernyshova and others as well as amateurs [8] .
During the competition, dozens of projects were reviewed. Some of them, proposed by non-professionals, were extravagant [9] .
Project Freeze
On June 8, Nikolai Colli handed over to the Chairman of the USSR State Committee for Construction the prepared accounting and design documentation, and on June 11 he provided detailed information on the volumes of the existing mausoleums and pantheons. No further documents about the Pantheon for 2018 were found, it is also unknown who stopped the implementation of the project and why [10] . Presumably, the decision was taken in a hurry, because of what it did not develop, and the project was not discussed in subsequent years [3] . In April 1955, Alexander Tvardovsky wrote in his diary that the Pantheon "seemed to have sunk into oblivion among urgent matters." According to experts, the reasons for stopping work on the project turned out to be Nikita Khrushchev’s struggle with the “architectural excesses of Stalin’s time projects” and his report at the XX Congress of the CPSU condemning the personality cult of Stalin [9] .
On August 30, 1960, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR published Decree No. 1327 “On Further Improving the Protection of Monuments of Culture in the RSFSR ”, in which Lenin’s mausoleum and necropolis near the Kremlin wall were listed as cultural monuments of Russia and placed under state protection. After that, the Decree of March 6, 1953 on the creation of the Pantheon formally lost its force [11] .
Modernity
Since the 1990s, the issue of the creation of the Pantheon with the purpose of reburial of the remains of Vladimir Lenin and people buried in the necropolis has been periodically raised in some mass media. According to public figures, this option would be the most painless to eliminate the "Bolshevik cemetery" in the center of Moscow [9] . In 2012, the all-Russian public movement "People's Council" made a similar proposal [12] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 Evening Moscow, 1953 , p. 2
- ↑ Three Deaths, 2011 .
- ↑ 1 2 Patriarchs and Presidents, 2012 .
- ↑ Nikita Petrov. Goodbye, Lenin . New newspaper (July 12, 2013). The appeal date is March 23, 2018.
- ↑ The Case of 140 Billion, 2017 .
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Leaders and Companions, 1998 .
- ↑ On the construction of the Pantheon , p. 153–156.
- ↑ Architecture of the USSR, 1954 , p. 23–34.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Alexander Dobrovolsky. The truth about the ashes of the Soviet Union . Moskovsky Komsomolets (October 29, 2008). The appeal date is May 12, 2018.
- ↑ Leaders and Companions, 1998 .
- ↑ Protection of cultural monuments, 1960 .
- ↑ Need a pantheon! Arguments and Facts (November 13, 2012). The appeal date is May 10, 2018.
Literature
- Bessonov V. Soviet Socialist Pantheon // Moscow Journal. - 1991. - № 2. - pp. 13-16.
- Bushin V. Patriarchs and Presidents. Lampada oil on the fire . - M .: Algorithm, 2012. - 240 p. - 3000 copies - ISBN 978-5-4438-0103-2 .
- Zenkovich N. A. Leaders and Companions . - M .: Olma-Press, 1998. - 480 p. - 7000 copies - ISBN 5-87322-705-5 .
- Kalinichenko V. Case of 140 billions, or 7060 days in the life of an investigator . - M .: Tsentrpoligraf, 2017. - 384 p. - ISBN 978-5-227-07488-1 .
- On the construction of the Pantheon monument of eternal glory of the great people of the Soviet country // archive name = Archive of the President of the Russian Federation . F. 45. Op. 1. D. 1486. L. 153-156.
- Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of August 30, 1960 No. 1327 “On the Further Improvement of the Protection of Monuments of Culture in the RSFSR // libussr.ru: newspaper. - 1960. - August 30th.
- Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On the construction of the Pantheon - a monument to the eternal glory of the great people of the Soviet country" // Evening Moscow: newspapers. - 1953. - March 7 ( No. 56 (8878) ). - p . 2 .
- Program and conditions of the competition for the best design of the construction in Moscow of the Pantheon - a monument to the eternal glory of the great people of the Soviet country // Architecture of the USSR: magazine. - 1954. - September ( No. 09 ). - pp . 23-34 .
- Radzinsky E.S. Three deaths . - M .: Poligrafizdat, AST, Astrel, Seasons 2, 2011. - 416 p. - 5000 copies - ISBN 978-5-17-069815-8 , 978-5-271-33814-4, 978-5-4215-2068-9.
- Regina Khidekel. Lazar Khidekel and Suprematism. - Prestel Publishing, 2014. - ISBN 978-3-7913-4968-8 .