The monument to Minin and Pozharsky opened in Moscow

On February 20 (March 4), 1818 in Moscow took place the grand opening of the monument to Kuz’ma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky (sculptor Ivan Petrovitch Martos, foundry worker Vasily Petrovitch Yekimov).

The monument was erected in honor to the events of 1612 when the united people’s volunteer corps led by the senior man of Nizhniy Novgorod Kuz’ma Minin and the voivode prince Dmitry Pozharsky liberated Moscow from Polish invaders.

In the beginning of 1803 the enlightening organization ‘Free society of devotees to literature, science and arts’ called upon ‘the society for making a design to construct the monument to Pozharsky, Minin and Germogen’ for Moscow at the expense of the citizens’ voluntary donations.

In 1808 ‘The project of the monument to Minin and Pozharsky’ by I. P. Martos won the highest approval.

In all the Russian provinces from January of 1809 began the collection ‘for the construction of the monument to Minin and prince Pozharsky in Nizhny Novgorod in accordance with the program of a junior scientific assistant of the Academy of arts, a Councillor of State Martos. The gravures representing the approved design were sent all over Russia ‘so that it will be known to all the Russian people’.

By 1811 the collections reached 136.000 rubles. It was decided to place the monument on the Red square in Moscow and an obelisk in Nizhny Novgorod. Initially it was intended to erect the monument for the 200^th anniversary of the heroic events but the Patriotic war of 1812 affected all the spheres of life and slowed significantly the process. The large model of the monument was completed only in 1815 and Martos showed it to the public. Another significant event was the transportation of the monument through the waterway from St.-Petersburg (where it was cast by the artist V. P. Yekimov) to Moscow via Nizhny Novgorod which lasted from May 21^st to September 6^th 1817.

The grand opening of the monument to Minin and Pozharsky took place on February 20 (March 4), 1818. The monument was erected in the middle of the Red square in front of the rows of stalls. ‘At the solemn ceremony there was a great concourse of people; all the benches, roofs of the shopping arcades, the benches placed specially for nobles near the Kremlin wall and the Kremlin towers too were strewn with people craving for this new unusual sight’.

The monument to Minin and Pozharsky was the first monument in Moscow erected in honor of the national heroes and not of the tsar. The sculptor depicted the heroes at the moment when Kuz’ma Minin pointing with this hand toward Moscow gives an ancient sword to the prince Pozharsky and urges him to head the Russian army. Leaning against the shield, the wounded voivode is raising himself from his couch, the symbol of the people’s consciousness waking up at a hard moment for the Fatherland. On the front of the pedestal is gilded: ‘To the citizen Minin and prince Pozharsky from the grateful Russia. The year of 1818’.

In 1930s due to the Red square reconstruction the monument to Minin and Pozharsky was moved from its place nearer to the Cathedral of Basil the Blessed where it is situated up till now.

Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:

The historical description of the monument erected to citizen Minin and Prince Pozharsky in the Moscow city of Moscow: With the addition of a nominal list of individuals who donated money in all parts of Russia to build this monument / Issued by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. - S.Peterburg: In the printing house of the Imperial Educational House, 1818;

Moscow. Red Square and the monument to Minin [Izomaterial] = Moscou. La Place rouge et le monument Minin: [photo]. - [Moscow: Photoglob Zurich AG, 1890-1900].