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The causes of
the massacre are disputed, particularly in light of the complicated
political tensions in the government at the time. Some historians,
for example, argue that both the demonstration and the military
reaction were planned by the conservative secret police, who were
alarmed by signs that the Tsar had decided upon reform. Whatever its
cause, the effect of Bloody Sunday was clear--popular opposition to
the Tsar was galvanized, and conservative reactionaries gained
strength in the government.
In the wake of
Bloody Sunday the country's politics became increasingly divisive,
and genuine compromise and reform unlikely. Civil unrest broke out
all over the country, and, with the disaster of the Russo-Japanese
War, the government was forced to accede to popular demands for
reform. It soon became clear, however, that Nicholas and his
government had no intention of making good on this agreement.
Popular discontent and radical political movements were harshly
repressed. While these policies were successful for a time, the
government's inept conduct during the First World War created an
enormous surge of dissent. The critical turning point came in
February of 1917, when the underfed, poorly led, and discontented
army refused to act to put down strikes in Moscow and St. Petersburg
and called for an end to the war. By March, Nicholas had no choice
but to abdicate.
A provisional
government assumed control under the leadership of the moderates,
first Prince Lvov, then (in July) Aleksandr Kerensky. From its seat
in the Winter Palace, the Kerensky government tried and failed to gain popular support and
restore civil order. Among the socialist anti-government parties,
the radical Bolshevik wing gradually gained strength among the
increasingly impatient army and workers. Within a few months the
Bolsheviks decided to assume power. On the night of October 26 they
staged an armed coup d'etat, storming across the
Palace Square and seizing the
Provisional Government as it met within the Winter
Palace. Although the storming of the Winter Palace was by no means the massive
popular uprising that it was to become in the Bolshevik
commemorations and in Sergei Eisenstein's film October, it was
certainly the moment of symbolic birth of the Soviet state.
The
Alexander Column
This towering
triumphal column was erected in 1833 as a somewhat belated monument
to the defeat of Napoleon in 1812. Designed by Auguste de
Montferrand, who also designed St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Alexander
Column was hewn from the rock face of a cliff in Karelia over a
period of two years, requiring the labors of thousands of workers.
It was then carefully transported to St. Petersburg, taking an
entire year for to complete the transit. On arrival, the monolith
was erected by two thousand veterans of the war. It is surmounted by
an angel of peace, the visage of which bears considerable similarity
to Alexander himself. In keeping with the geometric formality of the
Imperial structures of the city, the Alexander column is positioned
so as to align perfectly with the entrance to the Winter
Palace and the triumphal arch that serves as the entry to the General Staff
building opposite.
The General
Staff Building
Commissioned
by Alexander I in 1819, the neoclassical General Staff building was
situated so as to formally balance the facing
Winter Palace. Its grand
triumphal arch was the first Russian monument to the war against
Napoleon. Atop the arch stands a bronze sculpture of Victory in her
six-horsed chariot--in a nicely lifelike touch, two Roman soldiers
restrain the outermost horses, as if to prevent the team from
leaping out onto the square. Although the General
Staff Building is not open to
the public, it is in any case of primary interest for its sweeping,
graceful facade.
The
Admiralty
The Admiralty
building was constructed in 1823 as the administrative headquarters
of the Russian Navy. Designed by Andreyan Zakharov, it is best known
for its impressive central tower and crowning gilt spire. Rising to
a height of over seventy meters, the spire is surmounted by a
brilliant windvane in the form of a frigate, which has become the
ubiquitous symbol of the city. The Admiralty's ornate facade is
laden with appropriately nautical sculptures and reliefs, and looks
out over the trees and statues of the pleasant Admiralty
Garden.
Decembrists
Square
The second of
St. Petersburg's great squares is named for the ill-fated
Decembrists' revolt. On December 14, 1825, a small group of
reformist officers entered the square at the head of their troops in
order to prevent the Senate from ratifying the accession of Nicholas
I. Unbeknownst to the officers, the Senators had anticipated such an
action and had already taken their oath to the Tsar in secret.
Although the reformers thus found no Senators in the adjacent Senate
building, they did run into several thousand loyalist troops who had
been called into action by the Tsar. The rebels were attacked,
captured, and soon afterward executed or exiled.
Peter the
Great Statue (The Bronze Horseman) Commissioned by Catherine the
Great and sculpted by the Frenchman Etienne Falconet, this striking,
dynamic statue has long been one of the most symbolic monuments in
St. Petersburg. Catherine intended it to glorify the philosophy of
enlightened absolutism that she shared with her predecessor, and for
good and bad Falconnet seems to have succeeded. From different
angles the rearing equestrian statue seems by turns to be benevolent
and malevolent, inspiring and terrifying. In 1833 Pushkin
immortalized it in his masterful poem The Bronze Horseman, in which
the statue comes to life to pursue the poor clerk Yevgeny through
the flooded streets of the city. For most of its history, the Bronze
Horseman has been regarded as a symbol of tyranny and destruction.
However, as Russia's Tsarist past has become more distant and
somewhat less politically charged, the statue has come to be
appreciated as much for its dramatic beauty as for its imperial
associations.
Peter the
Great's Cottage
This
shockingly modest wooden cottage was Peter's first residence during
his supervision of the construction of St. Petersburg. Built by army
carpenters in a mere three days in the summer of 1703, it contrasts
ironically with the grand imperial city planned by its resident.
Although the cottage has been sealed off in a protective brick
enclosure, it still provides both a sense of the city's earliest
days and an oddly intimate glimpse of Peter's character. Unlike many
of his predecessors and his successors, Peter the Great spent a
considerable amount of time trying to act not like a Tsar. At the
age of fifteen he embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe, during which
time he studied a number of crafts and worked in a Dutch shipyard.
Even after his return, he frequently worked incognito among the
laborers on his own projects, and it is likely that he literally
lent a hand to the creation of his new capital.
The Peter &
Paul Fortress
Peter's first
concern in the creation of St. Petersburg was with the defense of
the approaches of the Neva river delta, and the Peter and Paul Fortress was the first major
building project undertaken. In fact, it is entirely possible that
the idea of building a new capital city on the site occurred to the
young Tsar while he was living in his cottage and supervising the
fortress's construction.
The primary
attraction within the fortress is the Peter and Paul Cathedral,
begun by Peter as soon as the fortress had been constructed, though
not completed until 1733. In keeping with Peter's Eurocentric bias,
its design follows the pattern of Dutch ecclesiatical architecture
rather than Russian. The most noticeable characteristic of this is
the cathedral's tall thin spire, which was designed specifically so
as to best Moscow's Ivan the Gret
Belltower as the tallest structure in Russia. The cathedral is the
resting place of most of the Romanov monarchs (excepting Peter II,
Ivan VI, and Nicholas II), and their sarcophagi can be viewed
inside.
Engineer's
Castle
When Catherine
the Great died late in 1796 she was succeeded by her son Paul, who
had been estranged from her for years. Paul detested his mother,
felt uncomfortable ruling in the shadow of her memory, and may have
been more than a little psychologically unsound. Within a very short
while he had alienated his nobility and advisors by both his
erratic, capricious behavior and, more importantly, his attempts to
lessen the power of both the nobility and the military. Having
noticed that he was not exactly revered, Paul became convinced that
he was a target for assassination.
His solution
was the Engineer's Castle, a fully-loaded fortress residence,
including a broad defensive moat and even a secret escape passageway
from the hallway outside of his bedroom. The castle was not without
some endearing personal touches, however. As a gesture of defiance
at the restrained classical tastes of his deceased mother, Paul had
the castle constructed in a kind of postmodern medley of different
architectural styles. As a gesture of respect to his own taste, he
had his monogram inscribed in the castle thousands of times over.
Having rushed the project along, Paul moved in immediately upon its
completion in 1801. Whether he believed Engineer's Castle to be
impregnable or because he trusted almost no-one, the isolated Tsar
brought with him a personal guard of only two Cossacks. Of course,
reality quickly lived up to its reputation for irony--Paul was
murdered in his bedroom only three days later, having never even
reached the hallway.
St. Isaac's Cathedral
The weighty
mass of St. Isaac's Cathedral dominates the skyline of St.
Petersburg. Its gilded dome, covered with 100 kg of pure gold, soars
over 100 meters into the air, making it visible far out onto the
Gulf of Finland. The Cathedral was commissioned by Alexander I in
1818 and took more than three decades to complete. Its architect,
August Monferrand, pulled out all the stops in his design,
incorporating dozens of kinds of stone and marble into the enormous
structure and lading its vast interior with frescoes, mosaics,
bas-reliefs, and the only stained glass window in the Orthodoxy. By
the time the cathedral was completed in 1858, its cost had spiraled
to more than twenty million rubles--as well as the lives of hundreds
of laborers. Both the exterior and the interior of the cathedral
deserve prolonged observation, and the view from the dome is
stupendous.
Cathedral of Our Lady of
Kazan
This
cathedral is one of the most magnificent, and most peculiar,
landmarks of St. Petersburg. Built in 1811 by Andrey Voronikhin, its
plan is a strange compromise between a number of different
architectural imperatives. Its patron, Paul I, desired a church plan
modelled on that of St. Peter's in
Rome,
with its semicircular colonnade facing north so as to conform to the
formal layout of Nevsky prospekt. This plan was carried out, but the
orientation of the church itself was dictated by a higher authority.
Owing to the Orthodoxy's requirement that the church altar and
entrance follow an east-west alignment, the church itself sits
sideways at the center of the colonnade, its main entrance facing
west (as if this were not confusing enough, the present entrance is
located on the east). On the square in front of the Cathedral are
statues of the two commanders of the Russian army during Napoleon's
march to
Moscow,
Barclay de Tolly and Mikhail Kutuzov.
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