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Foundation anniversary of the monument to Tsar Mikhail Romanov and peasant Ivan Susanin
14 (26) March 1851 in the center of Kostroma town was inaugurated monument to Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov and peasant Ivan Susanin - a monument erected in honor of legendary heroism of the Kostroma peasant. The author of the monument was sculptor Vasily Demuth-Malinovsky.
Ivan Osipovich Susanin, a farmer from Kostroma district, became famous for the fact that in winter 1613, in effort to save the Tsar Mikhail Romanov, decoyed Polish invaders to impenetrable forest swamps, for which they killed him.
Patriotic enthusiasm, which occurred in Russian society after the Patriotic War of 1812, caused an increased interest in remote subjects of Russian history, among which was a feat of Ivan Susanin.
In June 1835, Nicholas I visited Kostroma, and gave his royal permission to erect a monument to Mikhail Fedorovich and Ivan Susanin. It was decided to establish the monument to the tsar and the legendary hero on the central square of the town, which in this context was renamed from Yekaterinoslavskaya to Susaninskaya.
Among the projects of monument, submitted to the contest, two were architectural ones - they stipulated the construction of memorial chapels, and three – sculpture ones. Preference was given to the project of Demuth-Malinovsky, the famous Russian sculptor of the early 19th century, who shortly presented the final draft of the monument to be built in Kostroma, approved in April 1838.
By early 1842 the sculptor has completed work on a model, and by the fall of 1845 St. Petersburg master Johann Hamburger made all the sculpture parts of the monument in bronze.
Ceremonial laying of the monument took place on Susaninskaya square 2 (14) August 1843. In September the same year from St. Petersburg to Kostroma were delivered granite slabs for the pedestal and a column, on which the bust of Mikhail Romanov was supposed to be placed. In 1845, the base and the column were set on a pedestal, and in August 1847 to Kostroma were delivered all the bronze parts of the monument. However, a large fire that occurred in the town of Kostroma in early September 1847 and killed more than half of the city impeded the opening of the monument. Only by the summer of 1850, when restoration of the central area of Kostroma was completed, the monument on Susaninskaya square was completely ready.
Early in the morning 14 (26) March 1851, on the feast day of Theotokos Fyodorovskaya, the main sanctuary of the Kostroma region, which, from 1613 had been considered the patroness of the Romanov dynasty, the crowds filled the Susaninskaya square in the center of which stood the veiled monument to the tsar and the legendary hero, surrounded from three sides by rows of soldiers. The celebration began with a Divine Liturgy in the Episcopal Cathedral of the Epiphany, served the Bishop of Kostroma and Galich Leonid (Zaretsky) attendance of the governor I. V. Kamensky, the marshal of the nobility F. F. Chagin, Yaroslavl provincial marshal A. A. Volkov, county leaders, military and civilian officials, deputations from Korobov and Domnin and others.
The monument was a granite column on a square pedestal, crowned with a bust of the young Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich in Monomakh’s Cap and the bartender, with a gilded cross on his chest. At the top of the column (under the tsar's bust) was the national emblem - the two-headed eagle; in its middle part has been set the coat of arms of Kostroma Province. At the bottom of the column was a kneeling figure of praying Susanin left of whom lay in the form of scrolls two charters to his offspring.
The entire composition was turned towards the Volga and shopping malls. On the front side of the pedestal faced with granitel was placed a bas-relief depicting the scene of Susanin’s murder by Poles. On the back side of the pedestal was written with gold letters: "To Ivan Susanin who gave his life for the Tsar - the savior of the faith and the kingdom, from the grateful posterity. "The monument was surrounded by beautiful lattice decorated with fittings from armor and with Nikolas’ eagles. In the corners it had four cast-iron lampposts.
In the first years of Soviet power in accordance with the decree of the CPC of 1918 "On the removal of monuments erected in honor of tsars and their servants and the drafting of the monuments to the Russian Socialist Revolution", the monument to Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich and peasant Ivan Susanin was destroyed.
In 1967 in Kostroma, near Molochnaya Mountain, above the descent to the Volga River, on the ruins of the chapel of Alexander Nevsky, ruined in 1924, which was built in the early 1880's in memory of Alexander II, was erected a new monument to the hero by sculptor N. A. Lavinsky.
Lit.: Дмитревский М. И. Иван Сусанин, или Смерть за царя: Исторический роман. М., 1886; Зонтиков Н. А. Иван Сусанин: легенды и действительность. Кострома, 1997; То же [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://susanin.kostromka.ru/1.php; Ремезов И. С. Костромской крестьянин Иван Сусанин. СПб., 1904.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Петропавловский И. Д. О почитании царя. М., 1896;
Платонов С. Ф. Очерки по истории Смуты в Московском государстве XVI-XVII вв. СПб., 1910;