How Arbatskaya Square got three monuments to Gogol

There is a monument to Nikolai Gogol hidden in the courtyard, almost invisible from the street, of Gogol House Memorial Museum and Scientific Library on Nikitsky Boulevard. Today art experts call this sculpture by Nikolai Andreyev one of Moscow’s most artistic monuments. But it has not always been like this. The monument’s location was changed twice before ending up in this courtyard, outliving all the critics who did not like its casual look. Mos.ru and the Mosgortur agency unravel the story of the most mysterious literary monuments.

19th century crowdfunding

The bronze Alexander Pushkin statue on Strastnoi Boulevard became Moscow’s first literary monument. It was designed by sculptor Alexander Opekushin and was unveiled with great fanfare. Almost at the same time, in the summer of 1880, an idea emerged to immortalise Gogol as well. According to the apropos expression of Alexei Potekhin, a prominent theatrical activist at the time, Moscow was to become “the pantheon of the Russian literature.”

The Russian Literature Society, to which Gogol was elected when he was still alive, at once began to gather funds all across Russia. It is noteworthy that the society’s treasurer had the same last name as a character from one of the most mysterious of Gogol’s short stories: Andrei Nos (“nose”). It took some time to collect enough money but only ten years later, by the end of 1890, the society had collected 50,000 roubles.

The next step was to establish a committee to erect the monument. Its first meeting took place in the spring of 1896 when the fund already had 70,000 roubles.

In 1900, Emperor Nicholas II approved the spot chosen for the monument: Arbatskaya Square. Other options included Trubnaya, Lubyanskaya and Teatralnaya squares as well as Strastnoi and Rozhdestvensky boulevards.

Long contest

According to the conditions of the contest for the best design, Gogol had to be portrayed sitting, without any allegorical figures and bas-relieves. By the beginning of 1902, 46 projects had been submitted and not a single one seemed the right one to the jury; even one created by Parmen Zabello, who designed the very first monument to Gogol in the Russian Empire, installed in Nezhin in 1881. The projects by Zabello, as well as architect Vladimir Sherwood and sculptors Sergei Volnukhin and Robert Bach, received awards, but a winner was never chosen.

The situation changed in 1906, however, when the newly elected city head, a famous entrepreneur and philanthropist Nikolai Guchkov, took over the chairmanship of the committee. The installation place was transferred a bit closer to the beginning of Prechistensky Boulevard (which was renamed Gogolevsky in 1924), and sculptor Nikolai Andreyev was chosen to work on the monument. He did not take part in the contest but had previously created two impressive busts of Gogol.

Fyodor Schechtel is sometimes referred to as Andreyev’s co-creator, but the famous architect was only an expert who coordinated the project alongside architect Illarion Ivanov-Schitz, painter Valentin Serov, and Maly Theatre’s actor Alexander Lensky. Just two months later Andreyev presented his project to the committee, which approved it unanimously. The sculptor’s reward was 30,000 roubles.

It took four years to create the monument. The sculptor carefully studied Gogol’s portraits drawn when he was alive and also took a trip to Ukraine. There Andreyev looked for material to use for the bas-relieves using characters from Gogol’s books that surround the foundation. The sculptor managed to meet with the writer’s sister, Olga Gogol-Golovnya, whom he portrayed as Korobochka. Muscovites also played their part: the sculptor found a model to portray Gogol at Smolensky fair; the appearance of Taras Bulba was found in a descendant of Zaporozhian Cossacks, a famous historian of Moscow Vladimir Gilyarovsky; famous Moscow actors who played in The Government Inspector and Dead Souls theatre performances served as prototypes for other characters.

Sad, sick, unappreciated

The long-awaited unveiling took place on 26 April 1909 with a large crowd present. When the sculpture was unveiled, the audience gasped. The image of Gogol was too unexpected. Andreyev portrayed the writer during his last days: bent, disappointed, deep into his thoughts and losing faith, just one step away from his horrible end.

It was not the Gogol known and loved by millions.

Critic Sergei Yablonevsky, who saw the monument a month before the unveiling ceremony, wrote in the Russkoye Slovo magazine: “Many will not want this monument with a sick Gogol, will not want the seemingly-afraid, wrapped-up figure trembling from the cold and hiding from people, with a bird-like face and lowered head. Perhaps they are right. Perhaps we need a different monument to Gogol: a monument to his powerful creative force; but we also need this one… A scary, horrible symbol.”

The official city sculpture of that period commonly portrayed characters at their peak of creative energy or in the midst of a heroic deed. Andreyev’s innovative decision was not praised by everyone. The small size of the monument, which dominated the entire square, was also questioned.

The gloomy figure of a sick Gogol split the cultural community in two. One part criticised Andreyev’s design for its absence of enlightening and magnificent details only noting its beautiful bas-relieves, while still others regarded it as a true breakthrough. Ilya Repin was among those who supported the sculptor. “Moving, deep, unbelievably elegant and simple. What a head! How much suffering we can see in this martyr for Russia’s sins! ... The resemblance is uncanny. Viva Nikolai Andreyev! In my heart, I bless the commission that approved this daring idea. There are educated people in Moscow, and it is a great joy for art,” the painter wrote admiringly.

The monument also left no one unmoved in the Soviet era, although in 1924 it was included in the List of Landmarks and Monuments of Historical and Artistic Importance in Moscow and the Moscow Governorate. The sad figure of Gogol annoyed Josef Stalin who passed it on his way from the Kremlin to his Kuntsevo Dacha. In May 1936, it was decided to dismantle the monument and erect another one instead, one that would “reflect the true image of the great Russian satire writer.” A contest was announced, but the war intervened.

Three Gogols

The monument stayed at its original place for 42 years: exactly coinciding with the actual number of years the writer lived. In 1951, the sad Gogol was dismantled and sent into exile, to the Donskoi Monastery, where the Museum of the USSR Architecture Academy was located back then.

A year later, a new statue created by sculptor Nikolai Tomsky and architect Lev Golubovsky was installed on Gogolevsky Boulevard. Now the writer’s figure was made according to all the rules: in full height and on a tall foundation bearing a pompous inscription: “To the great Russian master of the written word Nikolai Gogol from the Soviet Government.” At the same time, the grating and four remarkable streetlamps resembling lions holding spheres created by Andreyev remained where they were. The lions look exactly like their famous counterparts from the grating of the English Club on Tverskaya Street (today’s Museum of the Contemporary History of Russia), where Gogol was a permanent member.

Tomsky, who was soon entrusted with creating a postmortem bust of Stalin near the Kremlin Wall and with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Alexander Garden 20 years later, believed the monument to Gogol to be his worst work. In his speech at the 1957 congress of the Union of Artists, the sculptor complained about being hurried.

At first Muscovites didn’t like the new monument either. Everybody knew the epigram:

“We like Gogol’s humour,

We don’t like his tears.

He was too sad sitting,

Now let him stand to cheer.”

However, over time people got used to the standing Gogol and found something different in his appearance. In 1959, Bella Akhmadulina mentioned it in her poem Nesmeyana with real tenderness:

“How thin poor Gogol is there on the boulevard,

and only near the universal yawning hole.”

And once again Andreyev’s Gogol was moved in 1956 to the courtyard of the historical house on Suvorovsky Boulevard (today’s Nikitsky Boulevard) where the author spent his last years. Today it is difficult to imagine that the monument used to be in a different place, because it looks like it belongs here, near the house where Nikolai Gogol was denied marriage to Anna Viyelgorskaya, burned the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls and finally passed away.

In 2009, the Gogol House located on Nikitsky Boulevard received another historical monument: a shoulder-length statue created by Nikolai Tomsky in 1957 from Gogol’s grave at the graveyard of the Novodevichy Convent. Thus the writer’s last will was fulfilled in the 2000s: “I forbid erecting any monument above me and thinking about such a trifle unworthy of a Christian,” he wrote in 1847. A cross was installed over his grave, and the bust was sent to Nikitsky Boulevard. This is how three monuments, dedicated to the same person, happened to be located several hundred metres from one another in the surrounding areas of Arbatskaya Square.