Monuments of Military Glory of St. Petersburg XVIII – Early XX Centuries as an Instrument of Historical Politics

Abstract

The paper deals with the certain monumental sculpture of St. Petersburg. As part of the work, a complex of military monuments installed in St. Petersburg in the 18th – early 20th centuries is considered. The main objective of the study is to analyze their place in the state historical policy, to determine the significance of the capital’s monumental sculpture as a source for constructing mass historical representations. Through the analysis of reference and research literature, monuments dedicated to the memory of great commanders, victories, individual battles, etc. were identified. The participation of the authorities in the construction of a particular monument (direct control by the emperor, the amount of allocated funds, presence at the opening ceremonies, etc.) is analyzed. Lost monuments are singled out as a separate category. The most popular places of memory are identified and a comparison is made of the number of military monuments erected in St. Petersburg in the pre-revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Conclusions about the place of monuments of military glory in the historical policy of the Russian authorities in the imperial period are drawn.

Acknowledgements: The research was carried out with the support of the Russian Academy of Sciences within the framework of the research project «Monumental sculpture of St. Petersburg as a tool for constructing national memory», project No. 22-78-00164, head D.A. Sosnitsky.