Zvezdin, Fedor Filippovich

He was born in 1802 (according to other sources in 1805 ) in the family of the fortress of Tagil factories Philip Zvezdin, who was brought to the Urals from the village of Onkulitsa, Olonets district ^[2] and worked for Nikolai Nikitich Demidov .

As one of the most gifted students of the Vyisky factory school, at the age of 15, Fedor was sent to study with the French bronze sculptor Pierre-Philippe Tomir ^[3] . The contract, originally concluded for four years, was extended to seven years. Tomir arranged for Zvezdin to practice at the Berlin art casting plant. ^[2] When N. N. Demidov died in 1828, his sons were inherited by sons Pavel and Anatoly, and Fyodor Zvezdin, by their order, returned from abroad. In June 1830, Zvezdin was released to live in St. Petersburg , where he was allowed to marry the yard Demidov girl - Anna Gordeeva. ^[four]

In the capital, Zvezdin was sent to Byrd Mechanical Plant. After training, in December 1830, together with his wife, he returned to the Nizhny Tagil factories, where he set about organizing a “bronze factory” at the Vyiska smelter. In 1832, the foundry of Fyodor Zvezdin worked in collaboration with the "mechanical institution", which was headed by Efim Alekseevich Cherepanov . Fyodor Filippovich joined the project to create the first Russian steam locomotive - at the Vyisksky smelter he cast cast-iron locomotive wheels and rails for the Cherepanovs for the first railroad connecting the Vyisky plant with the Mednorudyansky mine. ^[four]

During the years 1830-1840, the “bronze factory” of Fyodor Zvezdin mastered the production of busts and everyday goods, including busts of Emperor Nicholas I , Empress and Tsarevich Alexander; writers Schiller and Goethe; candlesticks, cladding for fireplaces, writing instruments, as well as other cabinet accessories made of bronze and cast iron. ^[2]

By 1841, when the All-Russian Exhibition of Manufactured Products was held in St. Petersburg, the main office of the Nizhny Tagil factories ordered the master Fyodor Zvezdin to start casting all kinds of bronze and cast-iron things. For this exhibition, Zvezdin made a small copy of the sculpture “A Boy Removing a Splinter,” a cast-iron bull, a horse, a bronze copy of the alabaster cup, cast-iron and bronze busts of the emperor and the crown prince, candelabra, candlesticks, a cast-iron samovar and buckets. ^[2]

By the mid-1840s, casting began to decline in Nizhny Tagil. In the second half of the same years, especially after the appearance of the chief commissioner of the Demidov Poles A. I. Kozhukhovsky at the factories, many Russian specialists of serf origin began to lose their posts and were replaced by foreigners. This fate also befell Fedor Zvezdin - at first he was transferred to work in a blast furnace, and in March 1848 he was dismissed altogether “for lack of need”. ^[4] As a serf, the foundry lived in the Nizhny Tagil factory village and occasionally was involved in the execution of individual orders - in 1855 he advised casting of cast iron parts to the monument to A. N. Karamzin, installed in Tagil, and in 1860 he took part in the overflow ( instead of defective) bells for the Cathedral of the Entrance of Jerusalem Cathedral, which was produced at the Nizhnesaldinsky factory.

Nothing is known about the further fate of Fedor Zvezdin. His fate, happy and tragic, is typical of many talented Tagil masters of the fortress era. Having natural abilities and having received a European education, they for various reasons failed to fully realize them in the future. Despite this, thanks to the activities of these Russian masters, Nizhny Tagil in the first half of the 19th century became one of the largest provincial cultural sites of the Russian Empire.

The sculptor's works are in the State Russian Museum, Nizhny Tagil Museum-Reserve, Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore .

• ZVEZDIN Fedor Filippovich
• Demidov and Zvezdin