Petersburg is an unusual monument great Russian fabulist Ivan Andreevich Krylov. The writer is depicted in a long frock coat, sitting in a relaxed pose, with an open book in his hands. His gaze is thoughtful, his face looks very concentrated. He seemed to be deep in his own thoughts. On the front side of the pedestal is a laconic inscription:

The appearance of the sculptural composition

Monument to Krylov cast bronze, the height of its base is 3.5 meters, the height of the statue itself is 3 meters.

The granite pedestal is covered with bronze reliefs in the form of animal figures. These are the heroes of the 36 most famous works of I. A. Krylov

Though monument has some weight and different from the rest of the sculptures in the Summer Garden, completed white marble, it fits quite organically into the overall composition of the place.

High relief

What can be seen upon closer examination of the composition?

For example, a donkey, a goat, a bear and a little monkey took musical instruments in their paws. Clusters of grapes hang over them, at which the fox looks, lifting its cunning muzzle.

Spreading oak branches, whose roots are undermined by a pig with its snout, occupied most of one of the sides of the high relief. These are just a few heroes of the familiar plots of the fables "Quartet", "The Fox and the Grapes", "The Pig under the Oak".

It also depicts the characters of the following works:

• "Lion on the hunt"
• "Frog and Ox"
• "Squirrel"
• "A Crow and a fox"
• "Lion and Bars"
• "Wolf and Crane"
• "Demyanov's ear"
• "Elephant in the Voivodeship"
• "The Rooster and the Pearl Seed"
• "Raven"
• "Monkey and Glasses"
• "Cuckoo and Rooster"
• "Fortune and the Beggar"

It should be noted that All characters are very realistic. and completely devoid of satire inherent in them in fables.

Location of the monument

controversy About, where the composition will be installed in memory of the great writer, have been going on for a long time and occupied the entire literary and artistic world of St. Petersburg. Offered a variety of places: embankment of the Neva River, a square near the State Public - now - the Russian National - Library, in which Ivan Andreevich worked for many years, Vasilyevsky Island, and also where the grave of the writer is located.

However, Baron Klodt insisted that the monument be erected in the Summer Garden, and it was his opinion that became decisive.

Why Summer Garden?

The summer garden was founded in 1704 not far from the summer residence of Peter I, who spared no money for its construction. Trees, flowers and marble statues were brought there from all over Russia and even from Europe. Tsar Peter in every possible way tried to attach their guests to European culture. To this end the labyrinth of Aesop's fables was created, where among lush greenery and fountains towering statue of an ancient fabulist surrounded by the heroes of his works.

Unfortunately, most of the beautiful sculptures in the Summer Garden were subsequently destroyed by the floods of 1777 and 1824.

In order to renew the tradition of enlightening future generations, it was quite logical to erect a monument to the author of modern fables there.

In addition, the legend says that the writer was very fond of spending his free time in this place.

Built by the whole world

Monument Krylov I. A. in St. Petersburg was cast and installed in 1855. For construction monument was collected according to various sources from 13 to 30 thousand rubles from individuals. The collection of money was announced by the newspaper "Petersburgskie Vedomosti" after the death of the writer.

Talented sculptor

In the competition for participation the best masters of that time competed in the construction of the monument, but won talented animal sculptor Baron Peter Karlovich Klodt, also known for his composition "Horse with a waterman" on the Anichkov Bridge. By that time, he was famous not only in Russia, but also abroad, and hardly anyone could surpass him in the art of depicting horses.

P. K. Klodt presented to the commission of the Academy of Arts a sketch of the monument, made by his friend, realist artist Alexander Alekseevich Agin.

animal sitters

sculptural composition dedicated to the great poet, created for quite some time- more than 5 years, because it was a very laborious work. All P. K. Klodt sculpted animals from nature.

To create the high relief of the pedestal, real animals were used, many of which lived in the sculptor's workshop.

The sculptor constantly kept: a tame wolf and a fox, a bear from the Novgorod province, a crane, a donkey, who previously lived in a dacha in Pavlovsk, a macaque donated by the marine painter A.P. Bogolyubov and others. The children of Baron Klodt took part in the care of the animals and his main assistant - molder Arseniy.

but not all animals and birds necessary for the monument, lived in a sculptor's studio. Some to him brought on time e.g. goat, eagle, pig, frogs. Sitter-elephant was found in the royal elephant house where the sculptor was allowed to work.

To illustrate the fable "The Lion and the Leopard", specimens of these two predators were needed. They were found on the Moika, where they were brought for demonstration by a visiting German, Zam. When the work was completed, the animals from the sculptor's workshop were moved to his menagerie.

Monument to the famous Russian poet and fabulist I. A. Krylov in St. Petersburg. The monument was erected in the Summer Garden in 1855. The author of the sculpture is P. K. Klodt with the participation of the artist A. A. Agin.

The great Russian poet-fabulist I. A. Krylov was incredibly popular during his lifetime, therefore, when he died in 1844, thousands of people all over Russia mourned him. And at the initiative of the newspaper "Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti" a collection of donations was organized for the monument to Krylov - almost 13 thousand rubles were collected throughout the country. In 1848, the Academy of Arts announced a competition for the best design of the monument, many famous sculptors took part in it, and Baron von Klodt won. In 1853, the monument was cast in bronze, and two years later it was solemnly installed in the Summer Garden. The monument to Krylov became one of the first monuments to Russian writers and the first of them installed in St. Petersburg.

The bronze monument depicts a fabulist sitting on a stone and holding a pen and notebook in his hands. The poet is dressed in ordinary everyday clothes, and features of thoughtfulness are given to his face. The granite pedestal with the inscription "Krylov 1855" is decorated with the characters of Krylov's fables - bronze images of people and animals from 36 different works ("Fox and Grapes", "Frog and Ox", "Lion on the Catching", "Crow and Fox", "Elephant in the Voivodship”, “Rooster and Pearly Grain”, “Raven”, “Quartet”, “Lion and Leopard”, “Monkey and Glasses”, “Wolf and Crane”, “Squirrel”, “Cuckoo and Rooster”, “Demyanova's Ear ”,“ Fortune and the Beggar ”and others). Interestingly, when creating animal figures, the sculptor was forced to turn his workshop into a small zoo, because for greater accuracy he sculpted animals from life.

Various places were offered for the installation of the monument: on the Neva embankment between the Academy of Sciences and the University, at the Public Library, where the poet worked for a long time, at his grave in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. But in the end, Klodt decided that it would be the Summer Garden, where Krylov himself loved to walk so much.

More than twenty years after the opening of the monument, in order to avoid damage to the bronze bas-reliefs with animals, it was surrounded by a metal fence.

The height of the monument is 3 meters, the height of the base is 3.5 meters.

The monument to I. A. Krylov is included in the Unified State Register of Cultural Heritage Objects (monuments of history and culture) of Russia.

Note to tourists:

A visit to the monument to I. A. Krylov will be of interest to all tourists interested in the monumental architecture of the mid-19th century, and can also become one of the points of the excursion program while exploring neighboring attractions -,

With a kind smile, with a friendly look,

He, as if with an senile slowness of speech,

Tells us from his high chairs

About strange customs and the stupidity of animals,

And everyone laughs around him, and he himself is quietly cheerful.

Ivan Alekseevich Maykov

Not far from the entrance to the Summer Garden from the Neva embankment, to the left of the main alley, among dense greenery, there is a playground, in the center of which there is a monument, fenced with a metal grate. A brief inscription on it reads: “To Krylov. 1855".

Ivan Andreevich sits on a rounded stone in a calm, relaxed pose, holding an open book. He leafs through it as if mechanically, but his gaze is fixed on top of the book, and thick eyebrows slightly shifted, lips closed and a fold at the mouth give a concentrated expression to his broad face. Immersed in deep thought, he does not notice anything around. Everything is true and natural, like life itself: the old man went for a walk, got a little tired, sat down to rest on the first stone he came across and thought ... Or maybe at this moment a new fable is born?

The pedestal is small in comparison with the three-meter statue, and on four sides it is completely covered with bronze figures of various animals - the heroes of Krylov's fables.
On the front side of the pedestal, to the right of the inscription and date, are depicted "the naughty Monkey, Donkey, Goat and clubfoot Bear" with musical instruments, vividly and figuratively resurrecting Krylov's fable "Quartet". A little higher, the sharp-faced fox from the fable "The Fox and the Grapes" looks greedily at the elastic bunches of grapes.

It is amusing, walking around the monument and carefully examining the bronze menagerie, to recall fables familiar from childhood. Here are the well-known "Crow and Fox", "Elephant in the Voivodeship", "Cat and Pike", "Donkey and Nightingale", "Pig under the Oak" ...
The figurines of animals help to remember the names of the fables, but they do not tell who is hidden behind their image.

“My animals speak for me,” Krylov once remarked. To this we can add that all the animals in his fables are endowed with character, each has its own destiny. They not only speak and act like human beings, but also castigate human vices and social evils.
The animals on the monument in the Summer Garden are depicted very believably, vividly and expressively, but they cannot be considered as illustrations for Krylov's fables, because "in the best Krylov's fables there are neither bears nor foxes, although these animals seem to act in them, - wrote V.G. Belinsky, “but there are people, and moreover, Russian people.” There is no allegory in Klodt's animals, without which a fable is unthinkable. There is no likeness in them to certain human characters or social groups, that is, to which a true fable owes its effect.

Krylov wrote about two hundred fables, of which thirty-six are shown by the sculptor on the pedestal of the monument. Bronze figures of animals, depicted in high relief, completely fill the entire pedestal.

From the history of the creation of the monument

After the death of Ivan Andreevich Krylov, in 1845, an article appeared in the newspaper St. Petersburg Vedomosti about raising funds for the erection of a monument to him.
The townspeople and the leadership of St. Petersburg approved this idea and a special Committee was soon created. Over the three years of his life, he collected a fairly large sum by those standards - 13,000 rubles.
In 1848, the Academy of Arts announced a competition for the design of the best monument to the fabulist, in which sculptors N.S. Pimenov, A.I. Terebenev, I.P. Vitali, P.K. Klodt, P.A. Stavasser. The Council of the Academy approved the project of Pyotr Karlovich Klodt.
The project of the monument to the great Russian fabulist in drawing was approved by the Council of the Academy of Arts on November 26, 1849.
A sketch of the monument and drawings of reliefs on the plots of Krylov's fables were made by Klodt's friend artist A.A. Agin. The sculptor worked on the creation of the monument for more than five years. On the pedestal, Klodt depicted characters from Krylov's most famous fables.

Petr Karlovich Klodt

Klodt had to do a long and laborious work on modeling from life all those animals whose images we see on the pedestal of the monument. For four long years, the extensive workshop of the Foundry House turned into a real menagerie, where various animals sat in cages and on a leash, while others, tame and peaceful, roamed freely in the room and even often went into living rooms (Klodt's apartment was connected to the workshop by a passage).
The royal rangers transferred a tamed wolf to Klodt's "menagerie", the sculptor's brother sent a bear with two cubs from the Novgorod province, the artist A.P. Bogolyubov gave a macaque monkey from the island of Madeira, Klodt himself bought a sheep with a lamb, a donkey, a crane, a fox. There were also other animals and birds.

Subsequently, the son of the sculptor M.P. Klodt recalled: “These animals lived with us as family members. And something that just was not in the vast workshops of his father! They were filled with a continuous roar, howling, bleating, squeaking ... All this motley society lived side by side, not only in cages, many freely walked around the workshop and rooms, and were friendly with each other, except for the wolf, which could not resist to don't chase cats.
Klodt often visited the German Zam on the Moika, who kept a large menagerie, where he made sketches of a lion and other predators. And in order to watch a live elephant, one had to go to Tsarskoye Selo. When all the necessary work was completed, Klodt transferred his animals to the Zama menagerie.

In the spring of 1852, the sculptor presented a large model to the Council of the Academy of Arts, and after its approval, he began molding. In May of the following year, he himself cast the monument in bronze at the academic foundry, which he had directed for many years. The statue of the fabulist was cast as a whole, and not in parts, which testifies to the skill of Klodt as a bronze caster.
The question arose about the choice of the site for the installation of the monument: some believed that the best place would be the section of the Neva embankment between the Academy of Sciences and the university. Others pointed to the square near the Public Library, where the fabulist worked for about thirty years. Still others proposed to erect a monument on the grave of Krylov in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Klodt chose the Summer Garden. The sculptor understood that the monument to Krylov would always be surrounded by children, and the Summer Garden was especially loved by them.
There was another reason for the installation of a monument in this garden - tradition.
In the distant past, many outlandish structures were arranged in the Summer Garden for the amusement and pleasure of those walking around. Back in the time of Peter the Great, in a garden on a vast rectangular lawn designed by architect M.G. Zemnov was broken green labyrinth. At the entrance to the labyrinth stood a statue of the great ancient fabulist Aesop, cast in lead and gilded. The most diverse animals - the characters of Aesop's fables, executed in life-size from lead, sparkling with gilding, in living, natural poses, were located in pools decorated with moss, wild stone and large shells. Nearby were tablets with a summary of the fables and explanations of their allegory.
Aesop and his golden menagerie have long disappeared: the fountains were destroyed by the flood of 1777, and their memory is preserved only in the name of the Fontanka River.
After more than half a century, a monument appeared again in the Summer Garden, this time to the great Russian fabulist; on the pedestal of the monument is a bronze menagerie.

The monument to Krylov was opened in May 1855, on the tenth anniversary of the death of the fabulist. More than twenty years after the opening, in order to avoid damage to the bronze bas-reliefs, it was surrounded by a metal fence, made in the style of eclecticism, which came into fashion in the middle of the 19th century.

In 1966 the monument was restored.
Today it is impossible to imagine the Summer Garden without this monument. It is always crowded here. On weekends you can often hear live music. Young xylophone musicians perform favorite melodies of past centuries.

Since 1774, the writer's father served as chairman of the criminal chamber of the provincial magistrate in Tver; after his death, young Ivan began to serve in the Tver provincial magistrate as a subclerk, for an extremely low salary.

A.K. Zhiznevsky, head of the Tver State Chamber, wrote: “As the son of poor parents, Krylov got acquainted early with real life, early began to encounter people. Since childhood, he loved to wander around the city. All the nooks and crannies of Tver were known to him, and everywhere he had comrades. He attended public gatherings, marketplaces, swings and fistfights, where he pushed himself between a motley crowd. In Tver of that time, one could see a lot of things that later embodied in the famous fables of Ivan Andreevich. His observations of this period became the basis for true stories in which the images of people are conveyed by the example of animals.

Composition of the monument

The center of the composition is a full-length figure of the poet, standing on a high pedestal with the inscription "Ivan Andreevich Krylov". The sculpture conveys the portrait resemblance and character of the fabulist, which was described by his contemporaries. V.M. Knyazhevich wrote in his notes of 1820: “Gnedich told me how our fabulist I.A. Krylov accomplished a great feat by learning Greek. He is over 50 years old; its characteristic features are known: gastronomy, drowsiness, absent-mindedness, and, moreover, its thickness. All this does not require perseverance and patience. The poet is presented to the audience as a thoughtful, slightly overweight, calm and good-natured person. Another contemporary of I.A. Krylova recalled: “Recently, there lived among us a man of high dignity, of a portly appearance, whose white hair, although it reminded him of the many years he had lived, but whose strength, strength and stature seemed to portend him exceptional longevity.”

Ivan Andreevich died at the age of 75, in 1844, and the first monument to the fabulist was erected in St. Petersburg in 1855.

The Tver monument was the second one erected in honor of I.A. Krylov. In it, as well as on the pedestal of the St. Petersburg monument, easily recognizable heroes of fables are shown. There are granite benches around the monument on a semicircular platform, to which wide steps lead.

Heroes of fables

Sculptural illustrations of famous fables are located at the corners of a small square, on which the figure of the poet rises. In total, there are four steles with eight relief images of scenes from the fables "The Crow and the Fox", "The Wolf and the Crane", "The Quartet", "The Lion and the Wolf", "The Pig under the Oak", "The Lion Aged", "The Cuckoo and the Rooster", "The Wolf and the Lamb". They are arranged like pages of open books made in bronze.

The monument to the great fabulist fit into the space of the city without disturbing it.

In the Summer Garden, on the site in front of the “Tea House”, there is a monument to the great Russian fabulist I. A. Krylov, created by the sculptor P. Klodt with private donations. This monument is the last major work of the outstanding sculptor.

The monument to Krylov was opened in a solemn atmosphere on May 12, 1855. For a long time, the question of the location of the monument was decided: at first they wanted to place it near the Public Library, where Krylov served, then on Vasilyevsky Island near the University building, of which the fabulist was an honorary member since 1829. Many considered it expedient to erect a monument on the Necropolis of the Masters of Arts, where the famous fabulist was buried in 1844. After a long debate, the Summer Garden, Krylov's favorite walking place, where he wandered for a long time, pondering the plots of his fables, was recognized as the most successful place for the monument. In addition, for some time Krylov lived next door to the Summer Garden, in Betsky's house.

The pedestal of the monument is a granite cube, completely covered with bas-reliefs on the plots of 36 Krylov's fables. If you look closely at the pedestal, you can see the heroes of the fables “The Quartet”, “The Fox and the Grapes”, “The Monkey and Glasses” and many others on it. The monument is surrounded by a fence designed to prevent damage to the bas-reliefs. The fence, made in the eclectic style fashionable for the middle of the 19th century, was installed 20 years after the opening of the monument.

How to get there

The monument to the Russian fabulist I. A. Krylov is located in the Summer Garden. To get to it, you can get to the Gostiny Dvor metro station, go to the opposite side of Nevsky Prospekt and walk along the avenue in the direction of increasing the numbering of houses to the intersection with the Fontanka River embankment. Next, you need to turn onto the embankment of the Fontanka River and walk to its intersection with the Kutuzov embankment. On the Kutuzov Embankment is one of the two entrances to the Summer Garden. The second is located near the intersection of the Fontanka embankment and Pestel street.

History reference

1768-1844 - years of life of the fabulist I. A. Krylov.
1853 - work on the creation of the monument was completed.
1855 - in the workshop of the Academy of Arts, according to the model of the sculptor P. Klodt, a monument to I. A. Krylov was cast.

Legends and myths

As you know, the sculptor Klodt was a very responsible person. Having set out to decorate the monument to Krylov with characters from fables, Klodt carefully read all the works of the fabulist and compiled a list of animals whose images must be present in the sculptural composition of the monument. Klodt preferred to sculpt animals from nature. They say that while working on the monument to Krylov, a whole menagerie was housed in the sculptor's house: a donkey, a cat, dogs, a wolf, monkeys, a sheep with lambs, a fox, a crane, a frog and many others. By order of Klodt, a bear with a bear cub was even delivered to him. The sculptor courageously endured the neighborhood with animals, some of which lived in the yard, and some - right in the workshop. Only Klodt felt antipathy towards one animal: he did not want to be under the same roof with a goat. However, according to the sculptor's plan, the goat must have figured in the composition of the monument. Klodt managed to arrange for the goat to be taken to him every day by an old woman who lived nearby. The main problem was to get him to pose: the animal did not want to go to the workshop, it resisted, sensing the presence of a wolf and a bear. But the hostess so wanted to see her pet, immortalized in bronze, that she still forced the goat to go to the workshop. The efforts of the sculptor paid off: the animals decorating the pedestal of the Krylov monument look very natural and believable.