One of the most remarkable pages in the history of our Motherland was the battle of Kulikovo Field, which ended with the victory of Russian troops over the Mongol - Tatar invaders. Here, on a field that now lies in the Kurkinsky district, Tula region, near the confluence of the Nepryadva River with the Don, in 1380 there was a "terrible sich", after which the Don flowed for three days and three nights, "dark with blood". Russian regiments pursued and destroyed the enemy for 50 versts from the battlefield, and a monument to Russian soldiers was later erected on the site of Khan Mamai's tent, which stood on the Red Hill of Kulikovo Field. But the appearance of the latter was preceded by a long history...

Centuries passed, and only the mounds near Nepryadva and the church of the village of Monastyrschina (on the site of the one that was once erected by the soldiers of Dmitry Donskoy) reminded of the past 1 . The unprecedented feat of the masses of the people, who defeated Napoleon's army in 1812, aroused interest in events that were close to the "glorious memory of the twelfth year" (A. S. Pushkin). In 1818, a monument to K. Minin and D. Pozharsky was unveiled in Moscow. Under the impression of this, the Tula governor V. F. Vasiliev in 1820 raised the issue of creating a monument on Kulikovo Field as a place "where Russia was liberated and glorified". Provincial residents, expressing their readiness to honor the memory of the "sons of the fatherland", offered to "appeal to all classes" to raise the necessary funds. The Governor-General of the Tula, Orel, and Ryazan provinces, A.D. Balashov, supported the local initiative and soon received consent in the capital to erect Monument 2 .

In August 1820, Balashov wrote a letter to I. P. Martos, the author of the monument to Minin and Pozharsky in Moscow, with a proposal to develop a project for a monument to the heroes of the Battle of Kulikovo. In a reply letter dated August 22, 1820, 3 the sculptor Martos shared his idea. He intended to erect a monument to Dmitry Donskoy, and "make up the main thing in it" was supposed to be a sculpture of the commander. At the end of October, the project of the monument was ready and presented to Balashov 4 . Martos interpreted the image of Dmitry Donskoy "as a hero fighting" and, contrary to tradition, depicted the prince in the clothes of a simple warrior. This, according to the author, was "not repugnant even to the very probability: for in his time ordinary soldiers often fought only in shishaks, light armor and shirts - on the day of the Battle of Kulikovo, he fought as a simple warrior." Thus, according to Martos, the figure of the prince became a generalized image of the Russian warrior, the personification of the heroic feat of the people. The pedestal, so that "the total mass of the monument had more play and lightness", was made with a span, and the monument became a triumphal arch with a monumental sculptural group completing it.

However, the idea of the sculptor did not meet with support from the Committee of Ministers, which decided to erect an obelisk on Kulikovo Field, "just as in many places where there were wonderful battles, there are". On August 27, 1824, it was allowed to "open a subscription everywhere in the state" to raise funds for the monument and a disabled home for veterans of the war of 1812, who were charged with protecting the monument and "proclaiming the ancient glory of the fatherland". According to this, the committee for the construction of a monument complex headed by Balashov planned the creation of a memorial ensemble on Kulikovo Field, consisting of an obelisk (made of granite or cast iron) on Red Hill, a church in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh, and a disabled house near the confluence of Nepryadva and Don 5 . The new design of the monument was carried out by the architect A. M. Melnikov, without showing, however, any special originality. According to his plan, a granite obelisk with a white marble bas-relief was supposed to rise on the pedestal, which depicted how comrades-in-arms inform the wounded Prince Dmitry "about the complete defeat of the Tatars." The scale of the monument did not correspond much to the conditions of the area, and the plot of the bas-relief did not express

1 See M. N. Makarov. Rozhdestveno-Monastyrschina village and Kulikovo field, Moscow, 1826; I. Afremov. Kulikovo pole, Moscow, 1849; E. A. Lutsky. Kulikovo field. Istoricheskiy Zhurnal, 1940, No. 9.

2 M. T. Yablochkov. Monument on Kulikovo field. "Tula antiquity", 1902, N 9, pp. 3-7.

3 State Archive of the Tula region (GATO), f. 90, op. 1, 621, ll. 6-7.

4 "Old and new". Historical collection of zealots of the Russian historical Enlightenment. Book 9. St. Petersburg, 1905, pp. 1-6 (the publication contains a drawing of the monument).

5 A. P. Berger. Monument to Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy on Kulikovo field. Russkaya Starina, 1880, No. 10, pp. 437-440.

page 217

that pathos of struggle and victory, which was in the project of Martos. Nevertheless, the Committee of Ministers approved the project (with the inscription replacing the bas-relief) and set the amount for its execution at 49,160 rubles .6
Meanwhile, the collection of donations for the construction of a monument to the heroes of the Battle of Kulikovo continued. If the nobles and merchants gave "from excess", then ordinary people carried the hard-earned pennies. The creation of the monument became a national affair, 380 thousand rubles were collected. In September 1827, Balashov applied for permission to start construction, but Tsar Nicholas I left the matter "until the time comes"... Only in 1835, rejecting the previous projects, he finally ordered the Academy of Fine Arts to prepare new ones. A. P. Bryullov's project was approved out of all the submitted projects. The buildings he designed corresponded to the officially accepted style: the four-pillar temple, covered with arches, ended with a massive drum with an onion head; the galleries adjacent to the temple, forming an inner courtyard, connected it with residential premises and services. An obelisk was erected in front of the main facade. They were still in no hurry to implement this project, considering that there was not enough capital available, and they were waiting for "when it will multiply".

In February 1845, Nicholas I ordered the construction of the monument on Kulikovo Field to be limited to "the construction of an obelisk alone" and allocated 50-60 thousand rubles for this, while the rest of the funds were ordered to be used "for the education of the noble youth"7 . In the final version of Bryullov's project, the monument was a cast-iron pillar, slightly narrowed up (28 m high) on a three-stage base. It consisted of a multi-faceted base divided into niches by pilasters decorated with shields with the Moscow coat of arms and helmets. In one of the niches was an inscription: "To the winner of the Tatars, Grand Duke Dmitry Ioannovich Donskoy, a grateful offspring. The Summer of Our Lord 1848". Along the upper part of the base was the text of a psalm, according to legend, read by the prince before the battle. On the base, powerful bundles of Corinthian columns were placed in three tiers, ending with a wide frieze of oak leaves and a gilded head with a cross. On April 8 , 20, 1847, the tsar approved the project. To cast, deliver and install the monument on the spot for 52,778 rubles. Silver was taken by the St. Petersburg Machine-building Plant of K. Berd, known for its artistic casting .9 The original design of the monument was developed by the former manager of the Alexander Iron Foundry A. A. Fulon. Pointing out the difficulties of casting and assembling "very large parts", he suggested that the monument should be made up of nine components ("joints"), divided into thirds. The basis for assembling these parts together was a supporting internal hollow cast iron pillar. Details of the monument were attached to it with crosspieces with bolts. The monument was one of the most monumental artistic castings of the first half of the XIX century10 . Its weight reached about 428 tons.

On the sledge route, the details of the monument were delivered from St. Petersburg to the city of Epifan, and from there to the Red Hill, where installation work began in the spring of 1848. In December of the following year, the commission accepted the monument, recognizing that it was made "with special clarity and in everything according to the drawing"11 . It was scheduled to open on the anniversary of the Battle of Kulikovo with the participation of distinguished guests. Two veteran soldiers of 1812 were assigned to protect it. However, the celebration of September 8, 1850 was disrupted by an unexpected incident. A lot of peasants gathered in the field, and when the tent where the ceremonial breakfast was held shouted " Hurrah!", the peasants decided that" the will has been declared " and rushed there. The gendarmes were powerless. The tent collapsed under the pressure of the crowd. "Calm" was hardly restored 12 .

Half a century has passed. Tula churchmen have long wanted to build a church in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh near the "dead voiceless monument". The nobility supported the "spiritual pastors". In 1902, the tsar's adjutant-General, Count Olsufiev, engaged the talented architect A.V. Shchusev, who later became an outstanding Soviet architect, who became famous as the creator of the Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin 13 .

6 M. T. Yablochkov. Op. ed., pp. 6-7.

7 TSGVIA USSR, f. 405, op. 99, d. 1674, part I, ll. 161-162.

8 Ibid., d. 1670, l. 98.

9 Ibid., d. 1674, part I, l. 296.

10 Ibid., pp. 272-275.

11 Ibid., p. 407.

12 D. D. Obolensky. Sketches from the past. "Historical Bulletin", 1893, book 12, pp. 661-662.

13 See N. B. Sokolov, A.V. Shchusev, Moscow, 1952; E. V. Druzhina-Georgievskaya,

page 218

he intended to build a church with a refectory in the style of ancient church buildings. The western facade would have a belfry over the main entrance, and at the corners - towers with hipped ceilings. However, this project did not satisfy the author, and he continued to work. In the final version (1911), each of the towers received a special interpretation. "I changed the top of the second tower-instead of the dome helmet,.. To leave both towers the same is false-classic, timid... " 14, - wrote A.V. Shchusev. There was nothing of official ecclesiasticism in the building. Its whole appearance, close to the ancient "grads" and Kremlins, reminded of the struggle, of the feat of our ancestors here, on the Kulikovo field. The originality of the composition, its logic, simplicity and cheerfulness were clearly manifested in the church created by Shchusev, making it a genuine work of art.

The groundbreaking of the church was scheduled for September 8, 1910, but due to an epidemic that occurred in the Epiphany district, it was postponed "until a more favorable time."15 It was held in June 1913. In the following year, the church was "built in rough". The outbreak of the First World War slowed down the work. It was also important that Yu. V. Olsufiev, the chairman of the construction committee, did not take into account the architect's plans and tried to impose his decisions on him. This caused conflicts. On February 15, 1915, Olsuf'ev wrote to Shchusev: "The general idea of the building is too dear to me to belittle it, frankly, by an unfortunate detail. You'll forgive me, but I can't and won't wear a helmet." In a reply letter, an indignant Shchusev said that he stops issuing drawings and monitoring the construction site until the issue is clarified. If this is not followed, he will give up the authorship, and "the construction committee can safely complete the deliberate vandalism" 16 .

In stating this, Shchusev apparently knew that" in order to strengthen the moral principles of the people, " Olsufiev intended to quickly build a monastery near the church. A stately memorial church that perfectly fit into the expanses of Kulikovo Field would have been surrounded by random, faceless buildings and would have lost its artistic expressiveness. However, the architect still had to compromise: he refused the helmet-shaped ceiling of the south tower, replacing it with a tent, and conceded in some other details. The building was about to be finished. Five-tiered iconostasis (not preserved) It was commissioned by D. S. Stelletsky, known for his stylizations of 17th-century iconography, and V. A. Komarovsky. Impatient churchmen were already planning the day of the consecration of the temple on 17 . But tsarist Russia was living out its last days.

With the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the expanses of Kulikovo Field, as well as all the landowners ' lands adjacent to it, became the property of the people. The historical monuments of Kulikovo Field were taken under protection by the Soviet state, and they now began to serve the cause of enlightenment and patriotic education of the masses. But only with the end of the civil war in the USSR and the transition to peaceful construction, the first tourists appeared on the Kulikov field. In the history department of the Tula Regional Museum of Local Lore (founded in 1927), an exhibition of the Battle of Kulikovo was opened. In 1939-1940. the museum conducted an expedition to survey the state of monuments and historical sites. In the fall of 1940, an exhibition dedicated to the 560th anniversary of the battle was opened in the church building. Further development of research and mass cultural work was planned.

The war imposed on the Soviet Union by the Nazis in the summer of 1941 temporarily interrupted this activity. A terrible danger arose, in particular, for the monuments of Kulikovo Field, when in the autumn of 1941, enemy troops, trying to break through to Moscow, made a detour around Tula. Among the points temporarily occupied by the enemy was Epifan. Near Kulikovo field, stubborn battles unfolded. Soviet soldiers successfully repelled the enemy's attacks. And on December 5-6, our counteroffensive near Moscow began. The 10th army of General F. I. Golikov, breaking through the German defense line on the Upper Don, forced the Nazis to flee...

Along with other historical places of our Homeland Kulikovo field with its monuments has now acquired a wide popularity-

J. A. Kronfeld. Zodchiy Shchusev, Moscow, 1955.

14 E. V. Druzhina-Georgievskaya, Ya. A. Kromfeld. Op. ed., p. 24.

15 GATO, f. 90, op. 3, d. 325 for 1910-1913, ll. 1, 3, 4; "Niva", 1913, N 27, p. 540.

16 Central State Scientific and Restoration Workshops, code 197, inv. 39. Explanatory note to the project of restoration of the memorial church on Kulikovo Field, ll. 14-16.

17 The church was not entirely finished; only its north tower was equipped.

page 219

productivity. Only in 1969, 10 thousand people visited here. Among them - tourists from Moscow, Leningrad, Riga, Kiev, Minsk, Ryazan, Bryansk, many other cities of the Soviet Union, from the countries of the socialist system. Guests from heroic Vietnam viewed these places with a special feeling... Interest in the monuments of Kulikovo field is growing every year. To a certain extent, this helps them to find a new life, to enter organically into our era. Now, according to the project of the Central State Scientific and Restoration Workshops of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR, the Tula Workshop is carrying out extensive work on the restoration of the church according to the drawings of A.V. Shchusev, in the walls of which the Kulikovo Battle Memorial Museum will be created. The Red Hill monument is also being restored.

The Soviet people zealously honor the heroic past of the peoples of our country, which will forever remain a terrible warning to modern aggressors who seek to plunge the world into new destructive wars. The great feat performed by the Russian people about 600 years ago on the wide expanses of Kulikovo field will forever remain in the memory of posterity.

page 220

Permanent link to this publication: