Towards the problem of preserving temporary revolutionary monuments of Petrograd: the case of the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg

Abstract

The temporary monuments of Petrograd, installed as part of implementing Lenin’s plan, were conceived as one of the methods of propaganda of the population by means of art. However, hastily created from gypsum and inaugurated, the objects soon began to crumble. Purpose of the article: to study the activity of the city authorities in 1923 to preserve the monuments, namely, the busts of A. Blanqui, G. Garibaldi, H. Heine, A. Herzen, N. Dobrolyubov, T. Shevchenko, installed in Petrograd. The article is based on the analysis of the file of the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg, which demonstrates the process of repair work on the temporary monuments mentioned in the article. The analysis of these archival documents gives an idea of the existence of the problem of preservation of temporary monuments, its scale and possible ways of its elimination. The article publishes photographs from the funds of the Central State Archive of Cinema, Photographic, and Phonographic Documents of St. Petersburg. The methodology of the work is based on the principle of historicism and objectivity, the methods of comparative analysis were used. The research has shown that in 1923 the Petrograd authorities made attempts to save the mentioned commemorative signs. The result of the activity was the prolongation for a certain period of time of the deliberately short life of the studied monuments — busts. The main reason for the fragility of the objects was the material of construction, which was unsuitable for a long stay in the landscape of the city. The problem was aggravated by the climatic conditions of the northern capital. In the future, the monuments of the Soviet era were made of “permanent material”.