Assault on the Sapun Mountains (diorama)

A picturesque picture with a frontal plan of structures, real and fake objects from the Great Patriotic War is one of the largest works of modern battle painting in Russia. Monument to the feat of Soviet soldiers who liberated Sevastopol from Nazi invaders. A wonderful art monument to the heroic events of World War II. The opening of the diorama took place on November 4, 1959.

Six kilometers east of Sevastopol, on the top of the Sapun Mountain , next to the magnificent Glory Monument stands a strict semicircular building. On the second floor of the building there is the world's largest diorama - "Assault on the Sapun Mountains May 7, 1944." On the ground floor there are exhibition halls, the exhibits of which tell about the defense of the city in 1941-1942. and his release in May 1944. In front of the building are exhibited samples of military equipment and weapons during the Great Patriotic War.

The painting - the main element of the diorama - is located in a semicircle in front of the observation deck. Between the painting canvas and the observation deck, an objective plan is established, which, as it were, forms a single whole with the painting canvas. This creates the illusion of the depth of space, enhances the feeling of reality, the reliability of the events depicted.

For the first time in the visual arts, the figures of people in the foreground of the painting are painted in their natural sizes in the drama “Storming the Sapun Mountains”. And objects of the full-scale plan are the remains of genuine defensive structures, weapons and equipment of the enemy. For the first time, the harmonious composition of one painting covers the operational scale of the joint actions of the advancing Soviet armies, aviation and navy.

The length of the painting is 25.5 m, the height is 5.5 m, the area of ​​the subject (full-scale) plan is 83 m².

The diorama shows the climax of the assault on the Sapun Mountains by the troops of the 51st and Primorye armies, and the mass heroism of the Soviet soldiers-liberators of Sevastopol is displayed. The heroes of the diorama’s pictorial canvas depicted in the foreground are real people, some of them have full portrait resemblance. On the subject plane are weapons and items of military equipment of the enemy, fragments of reinforced concrete defensive structures, collected at the sites of the battles for Sevastopol.

The liberation of Crimea began on April 8, 1944. Soviet troops broke through the front line in its northern part and on the Kerch Peninsula. Despite the enemy’s desperate resistance, the encirclement ring inexorably tightened. On April 16, Soviet troops reached the main defensive line of the enemy in the region of Sevastopol.

On the outskirts of the city, the enemy created a powerful, deeply layered defense, in which Sapun-mountain occupied a key position. On its steep eastern slopes with steep cliffs, the Nazis equipped 3 to 4 lines of trenches, built bunkers and bunkers, reinforced concrete shelters and dugouts, installed wire fences, and turned the valley at the foot of the mountain into a minefield. Hitler's command demanded to keep Sevastopol at all costs.

The Soviet troops had a crucial task: to study the enemy’s defenses, exhaust and bleed the enemy, and then decisively storm the city. An important role was given to artillery and aviation, which were to prevent the transfer of German troops on maritime communications.

On May 7, 1944, at 10.30 a.m., Soviet troops launched an offensive on the Sapun-Gora - Karan site. Bloody battles broke out around the front. They were especially fierce in the area of Sapun Mountain , where the battle lasted for hours for each trench. Thousands of fighters and commanders showed unprecedented heroism on this day. And although the enemy fiercely resisted, in some areas several times passed into a counterattack, nothing could stop the powerful onslaught of the Soviet troops. At 19.30 hours , the soldiers of the 77th and 32nd Guards Rifle Divisions were the first to reach the ridge of the Sapun Mountain .

By the end of May 9, Sevastopol was completely liberated. On May 12, the remains of the fascist German group surrendered in the area of ​​Cape Khersones. The Crimean operation ended in a brilliant victory for the Soviet troops.

In 1956-1957, Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR, later People's Artist of the USSR P.T. Maltsev painted the painting "Assault on the Sapun Mountains", which was highly appreciated at the All-Union Art Exhibition in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Armed Forces. This work later served as the basis for the creation of the current diorama - "Assault on the Sapun Mountains May 7, 1944."

Its authors are the artists of the studio named after M. B. Grekov P. T. Maltsev, G. I. Marchenko and N. S. Prisekin. The military consultant was the Hero of the Soviet Union , retired captain G.V. Ternovsky. For seven months they worked on a painting (5.5 m × 25.5 m) and a subject plan of 83 m². Figures of people were painted on a pictorial canvas and full-scale, and life-sized objects were placed, and this, combined with the great skill of the artists, gave a complete picture of the events depicted. The expressiveness of perception reinforced a successful color scheme. The whole area is flooded with sun, but its rays penetrate through a veil of smoke, dust and burning. The slender, energetic, dynamic composition of the picture conveys the crushing swiftness of the attackers and their unity, covers the scale of the joint actions of the Soviet armies, aircraft and navy.

In August 1959, both parts of the battle work from Moscow were delivered to Sevastopol and placed in a specially constructed semicircular building.

The building of the diorama is located in the western part of the Sapun-Gora memorial complex; built according to the project of the architect V.P. Petropavlovsky in the direction of the main attack of the 4th Ukrainian Front troops liberating Sevastopol, and forms with the monument of Glory to the soldiers-liberators and the Eternal Flame, memorial walls framing the area around the monument on three sides, a single architectural ensemble.

The grand opening of the diorama took place on November 4, 1959. From that moment until the end of the 80s, it was visited by fifteen million people. In 1999, a 24 millionth visitor was registered - Moscow schoolgirl Nadia Skopintseva.

Philately

On November 4, 2009, a special cancellation was held in the Sevastopol Directorate of the Ukrposhta Ukrposhta in honor of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Diorama "Assault on the Sapun Mountain" on May 7, 1944. An artistic marked envelope and a special stamp dedicated to the memorial date were made for this event ^[4] .

Entering the observation deck, the viewer is transferred to May 7, 1944. The viewer opens to the viewer of the area from the height of the Sugarloaf to Balaclava. According to the artists, the viewer is on the slope of the Sapun Mountain .

The afternoon of May 7, 1944. In a single impulse, infantrymen, sappers, tankers, and gunners storm the enemy fortifications. A fighter battle ensued in the air. At sea, in the Balaclava region, Soviet boats, supported by naval aviation, destroy enemy ships.

The assault on Sapun Mountain has been going on for more than seven hours. The top is close, but the most difficult steps to it are the last. The battle goes for each trench, for each ledge of the rock. In the foreground are the assault groups of the 11th Guards and 63rd Rifle Corps, overcoming the last fortifications of the enemy in front of the crest of Sapun Mountain.

Genre Scenes

One after another, the immortal exploits of the liberators of Sevastopol appear before the viewer. On the left, with a pistol in his outstretched arm, is shown the battalion commissar Vitaly Komissarov. Despite the wound, he replaced the company commander killed in the battle and raised the soldiers to storm the fascist battery.

To the right, at the easel machine gun, is the brave warrior Kuzma Moskalenko. On that day, Moskalenko put down the fire of four enemy machine guns and was one of the first to reach the crest of Sapun Mountain. Before him in the crater from the exploding shell took the position of sniper foreman Nikolai Moryatov. Over two dozen Nazis, he was killed during the assault.

In the battles for Sevastopol, brave Soviet women — nurses, signalmen, and nurse — took an active part. The painting in a marine uniform depicts a medical instructor Yevgeny Deryugin — a former student at a shipbuilding technical school. In the period from May 3 to 7, Eugene carried 80 wounded soldiers from the battlefield. She died from the bullet of a fascist sniper.

On the canvas of the diorama is depicted the Uzbek Dadash Babazhanov , who takes an oath to his dying comrade, sailor Semyon Mashkevich, that he will avenge the enemy for his death. And he kept his word: in the battles for Sevastopol Babazhanov personally destroyed 17 Nazis.

In the center of the picture is a group of fighters on a dilapidated enemy bunker. Ahead, raising the machine gun high above his head, Lieutenant Mikhail Golovnya leads the warriors. The path to the summit is cleared by well-known machine-gun fire by the renowned reconnaissance senior sergeant Nikolai Gunko.

To the right, in the foreground of the painting, the immortal feat of sapper Fyodor Skoryatin is depicted, at the cost of his life paving the last passage to the enemy dugout. Fighters led by Lieutenant Sakharov rushed here. He is passionate about the battle and does not see how the enemy machine gun aims at him from behind the shelter. Guard Private Ashot Markaryan closes the commander and dies.

Nearby, a private grenade Ilya Polikakhin throws a grenade into the enemy dugout. He was seriously wounded in the head, but continued to fight and was one of the first to break through to the crest of Sapun Mountain. I. Polikakhin also participated in street battles with a group of scouts, and together with N. Gunko and M. Golovnya he hoisted a red flag on the building of the Sevastopol weather station.

Ahead of the attackers are the standard bearers. The mortally wounded party organizer of the company, Evgeni Smelovich, falls, but Private Ivan Yatsunenko picks up the banner and rises with him to the ridge of the Sapun Mountain. Almost simultaneously, the red scarves were put up at a conquered height by ordinary V. Yevlevsky, V. Drobyazko, sergeants A. Kurbanov, N. Sosnin, A. Timofeev and other soldiers.

In the depths of the picture, to the right, where the Soviet flamethrowers operate, Lieutenant Mikhail Dzigunsky covers the embrasure of the enemy bunker with his body. Last strong point taken. One after another, the units of Captain N. Zhilov, Senior Lieutenant P. Kalinichenko, Guard of Lieutenant A. Zabolotsky, Second Lieutenant V. Gromakov and others go to the top of the mountain.

Senior Lieutenant Vasily Zhukov is depicted with a gun in his hand - he raises the soldiers of his company to meet the counterattacking enemy. The brave commander died in one of the hand-to-hand battles on the outskirts of Sevastopol.

Subject Plan

The overall impression of the battle picture is reinforced by the objective plan, filling the eight-meter distance from the observation deck to the painting. It reproduces the true relief of the area, pitted with shells and bomb craters, full-size enemy dugouts, trenches, real trophy weapons, fragments, sleeves. Two mounted pictorial inserts depict sergeant Sergey Elagin (he takes a German soldier prisoner) and foreman Nikolai Supryagin, who, in hand-to-hand combat, forces the Nazis to lay down their arms.

• Ternovsky G.V. Diorama "Assault on the Sapun-gori" 7 grass 1944 rock . - K .: The sovereign state is the dominance of creative mystery and musical literature of the URSR, 1961.
• Diorama “Assault on the Sapun Mountains May 7, 1944” / Artist V.V. Lisovsky . - Kiev: Mistetsvo, 1978. - 8 p. - 500,000 copies.

• sevmuseum.ru - official site of the State Museum of Heroic Defense and Liberation of Sevastopol
• Diorama “Assault on the Sapun Mountains May 7, 1944” (inaccessible link) (text and illustrations of the booklet about the diorama)
• Canvas of the diorama "Storming the Sapun Mountains May 7, 1944"