The Krylov Monument in the Summer Garden of St. Petersburg was erected in 1855, eleven years after the death of the great Russian fabulist. It is installed in front of the Tea House, and it should be noted that this place was not immediately chosen. First, they wanted to put the sculptural composition near the Public Library - the last place of work of the writer, then next to the university building on the Vasilyevsky Island of the Northern Capital. Also considered was the option of placing a monument in the Necropolis of masters of art (the burial place of Krylov). But in the end, it was decided to put a sculptural group in the Summer Garden, where the fabulist loved to walk and, probably, to ponder the plots of his works.
Many Russian celebrities were self-taught
The famous writer, journalist, academician, Ivan Andreevich Krylov, whose monuments can now be found not only in the Northern capital, was born in the family of a retired military man in 1769. His life began in the Urals and in Tver, where the family lived more than poorly. Interestingly, the great Russian writer never received an education. The most enlightened person of his time owed his knowledge of two foreign languages, literature and mathematics to self-education and work from an early age as a sub-clerk.
Monument to the held man
Monuments to Ivan Krylov, whose works during his life were printed abroad (in Paris), depict a person of age. Indeed, it was in adulthood that fame and wealth came to the writer. In his youth, he worked as a petty official, after moving to St. Petersburg. At fourteen, he wrote the libretto for the opera Coffee House, dedicated to the mores of small provincial officials whom the writer knew very well from his own life. Closer to his thirtieth birthday, he has released several comedies, which, however, are unsuccessful, publishes a magazine in which he exposes the vices of public servants (“Spirit Mail”).
Russian rulers were unhappy with him
In 1792, Ivan Andreevich Krylov, whose monuments were erected in Moscow, Tver, Novosibirsk, began to engage in political satire, so successfully that Empress Catherine the Second herself paid attention to him, which led to the journalist moving from St. Petersburg to Riga and Moscow in connection with the discontent of the first persons of the state. In the next 10 years, Krylov departs from journalistic practice and travels a lot, visiting Ukraine, Tambov, Saratov and other cities.
After the death of the empress, I. Krylov becomes the secretary of Prince Golitsyn and the teacher of his children, writes comedies, including anti-government ones ("Subtype, or Triumph"), translates Lafontaine’s fables and writes his own works of this genre. And by 1808 it had already released seventeen fables, which included the eminent "Elephant and Pug."
The writer created and translated about 200 fables
The monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden, made by P. Klodt, has as its base a granite cube on which bas-reliefs with plots of the most famous fables of the writer are made, where the fable was a work in poetry or prose, which contains some moralizing (at the beginning or end). In this genre, Krylov’s talent was especially pronounced. In total, he composed and translated about 200 fables, among which at first the motives of translations from French prevailed, and then unique stories appeared that reflected the realities of Russian life of that time.
The monument to the fables of Krylov and their creator was made by donations from fans of his work. Admirers of his talent helped the writer to publish his works. Starting in 1809, Krylov published nine books containing the aforementioned two hundred fables. And in 1825, Count Orlov printed at his own expense in the French capital two volumes of works by a fabulist in Italian, Russian and French. In the last years of his life, Krylov received the position of state adviser, a good guesthouse in the amount of six thousand rubles, and led a rather unseen life, being known as an eccentric, which allowed him to engage in creativity without interference.
Zoo at home by sculptor Klodt
The monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden provides an opportunity to get acquainted with the plots of thirty-six of his fables. It is known that the sculptor Klodt was a very meticulous man and master. Therefore, so that the characters of literary works would be as realistic as possible, he wrote himself living animals, which were located both in the courtyard and right in the sculptor's house. There were cats, dogs, donkeys, horses, a crane, a frog, and even a wolf, bear and teddy bear. Klodt heroically tolerated such a neighborhood, with the exception of the goat, with whom he did not want to be under one roof, perhaps because of the smell. This "model" was brought to him by a woman who lived nearby. Moreover, according to legend, the goat in every possible way refused to go where the predators were and pose as a model.
Contemporaries about the St. Petersburg monument
Where there is a monument to Krylov in St. Petersburg, many of his contemporaries visited, who left reviews, sometimes peculiar, about the monument. For example, a guidebook of that time indicates that the writer is portrayed “truthfully”. The poet Maikov composed verses about the sculptural composition, in which he indicates that the fabulist embodied in metal looks like a grandfather telling people and children who came to him about the stupidities and oddities of animals. The satirist P. Schumacher taunted that the monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden depicts how the writer “looks from the granite heights” at frolicking children and thinks: “Oh dear guys, what if you grow up, you will be livestock.” Taras Shevchenko did not like the sculptor’s plan at all, and he considered the monument to be intended for children, but not for adults. Nevertheless, this sculptural composition has been standing in the Summer Garden for almost 160 years, invariably delighting visitors.
Where is the monument to grandfather Krylov in Moscow? The most famous monument visited by tourists is, of course, located on the Patriarch's Ponds. However, original monuments to the writer can be found in ordinary Moscow yards. More recently, in 2013, Andrei Aseryants, a sculptor, performed two compositions based on the legendary “Elephant and Pug” and “Foxes and Crows”. In the Kolomenskoye district, in the courtyard of the house on Sudostroitelnaya Street, you can see a fairly large elephant, followed by a small Moska, and a crow sitting on a pillar with cheese not yet lost and a fox waiting below. In addition, here you can find sculptural compositions of a typewriter and a sheet of paper with a pen and inkwell.
Author and heroes of his works on the Patriarchal
The Krylov Monument on the Patriarch Ponds was installed much earlier than the figures on Sudostroitelnaya Street. The architect Chaltykyan and the sculptors Mitlyansky and Drevin worked on its creation. The composition was established in 1976 and is a fabulist sitting impressively in an armchair, at a distance from which are the heroes of his works. Here you can find the elephant leaving for space and Moska rubbed to a shine, the duet of Pava and Crow, on which the newlyweds periodically manage to attach a lock, indicating a marriage. The nose and ears of the wolf from the fable “The Wolf and the Lamb” are popular, while the lamb is almost completely worn. Visitors again love to rub the fox’s nose out of the fable, and at the crow a cheese casts gold polished by the hands of numerous passers-by.
The Krylov Monument on the Patriarchs reflects an aged man dressed casually. It is believed that the sculptors accurately noticed the lifetime habit of the great writer not too interested in the world around him, with the exception of gastronomic pleasures. According to contemporaries, Ivan Andreevich really liked to eat. And in the mirror, perhaps, he looked infrequently, unlike his heroine - Monkey, who is also represented on the Patriarchs with his own reflection.
Part of the composition may be surrounded by sculpture
Perhaps the sculptors of the figures from the fables on the Patriarchs, like the master Klodt, didn’t really like the goats, because in the composition dedicated to the Quartet, the monkey, bear and donkey are highlighted, while the horned character is only “drawn” "On a metal sheet. A separate "stele" is dedicated to the relationship of the famous couple from the fable "Cuckoo and Rooster". Here we can see a rooster in a bow tie and a girlfriend admiring him. But the sparrow, who uttered the words of mutual boast, is not observed in the composition. Maybe he is in flocks of sparrows that fly back and forth through the park by the ponds.
A pig spoiling a tree and a monkey with glasses and locks
Among the many green spaces there is also one metal - this is an oak whose roots are undermined by a well-fed pig from the work “A Pig Under an Oak”. According to the text, this tree is one hundred years old, while among the vegetation around there may be older specimens, since the square on the former estate of Patriarch Herman was destroyed in the early nineteenth century. And there are numerous monkeys in it, including one that had vision problems, but did not know how to handle glasses, on the arches of which on the monument the newlyweds also like to fasten locks.
Tourists did not find mysticism near the monument to Krylov
It is not known whether there are real nightingales in the park, but the long-eared “critic” from the fable “Donkey and Nightingale” comfortably perched in a chair with a staff on one of the parts of the sculptural composition. There are plenty of birds in this green zone, so there are many objects for possible criticism. The monument to Krylov on the Patriarch's Ponds is located in a mystical place. Events from Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” developed here. The alley where Berlioz met Woland and his retinue is not far away. But tourists who have been here note that they don’t notice anything mysterious these days. Just a square where grandmothers and children walk, Russian tourists and, of course, foreigners. Today, the park has a fairly large modern playground and there are no stalls with the inscription “Beer and Water”, as in the Bulgakov work.
