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The first half of the 19th century produced
many capable architects, both Russians and foreigners who continued to journey
to Russia, of whom Andrei Nikiforovich Voronikhin, 1759-1814, is one. Though
already a grown man at the start of the century, he is classified with the next
generation because of his style and one of his major works, the Cathedral of Kazan in Saint
Petersburg, which he built in 1801-1811. Voronikhin was born as a serf of Count
Strogonov. Even as a boy he attracted the attention of the count with his
excellent drawings, who decided to send him to Moscow for schooling and then to
Saint Petersburg. Bazhenov and Kazakov were among his teachers. After he
graduated from the Academy, he was sent abroad by Stroganov to study the
painting and architecture of the west. Voronikhin visited several countries and
was among the first Russians to cross the Channel and stay for some time in
England. Upon his return he designed a summer home for Stroganov in Saint
Petersburg which no longer exists and can be seen only in the painting the
architect left after completion.
Voronikin is principally known for the Cathedral of the Virgin of Kazan, named
after the famous icon of the Virgin which dates from the time when Ivan the
Terrible captured Kazan, the Tatar capital. The icon, considered miraculous by
the Church and believers, was brought to Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
It was carried by the militia, lead by Prince Dimitrii Pozharskii, which
liberated Moscow from the Poles in 1612. The following year Mikhail Romanov was
elected Tsar and the icon became the patroness of the Romanovs. His son Aleksei
decreed a holiday to commemorate the appearance of the miraculous icon. It is
not surprising that after three centuries of veneration and royal gifts, the
icon was decorated with several pounds of gold, over 1,500 diamonds, more than
600 rubies and 150 emeralds, not to mention less valuable jewelry.
The Cathedral is considered to represent a revolutionary design for Russia,
more because of its unorthodox forms and its relation to the surrounding area,
in which it became a center of an architectural ensemble with a square and
streets, in the heart of the city, than because of its classical style, which
clearly belongs to the Russia of the previous century. The semicircle of
Corinthian colonnades and the dome remind us of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome,
but, of course, are not as impressive by far and much smaller. Voronikhin's
Cathedral is in the form of a cross, almost 240 feet long and 186 feet high,
with a single bronze dome about sixty feet in diameter. Yellow-grey lime-stone
found near the village of Bolshaya Pudost was used to build the Cathedral.
Curiously enough, it also resembles the stone used for building the Basilica of
Saint Peters in Rome. The head of the special Commission appointed by the
Emperor to supervise the construction was none other but Voronikhin's former
master, the count Stroganov. The sculptor Martos cast in silver figures of the
four evangelists, one in each of the four niches in the exterior walls, but
Prince Golitsin found them "Too naked," and they had to be melted.
They were replaced by bronze statues: Saint
John the Baptist by Martos,
Saint Vladimir and Alexander Nevskii by Pimenov,
and Saint Andrew by
Demut-Malinovskii. The interior of the Cathedral is decorated with 56 granite
Corinthian columns, with capitals and bases in bronze. The iconostasis is made
of silver that the Cossacks recovered from the French soldiers after they fled
from Russia, and is divided by four beautiful columns made of jasper. The icons
for the iconostasis were painted by the best contemporary artists, among whom
were Bdrovikovskii, Kiprenskii, Bessonov, and Ugriumov.
The famous conqueror of Napoleon, Prince Kutuzov, was buried in the Cathedral
in 1813 with many trophies, including over a hundred standards and colors
captured from the French army, used to decorate its interior. In front of the
Cathedral are two statues on a granite pedestal: one of Kutuzov and the other
of Prince (Mikhail Bogdanovich) Barclay-de-Tolly, supreme commander of the
Russian army at the front who preceded Kutuzov in that post in the war against
the french; they are the work of the sculptor Boris Ivanovich Orlovskii, also a
former serf. After the revolution the Cathedral continued to be open for
worship, but faced almost daily the anti-religious propaganda of the Bolshevik
government. An attempt by the Church to build a chapel in the basement of the
Cathedral to commemorate Patriarch Ghermoghen, who resisted the Polish
invasion, died in prison in 1612, and attached miraculous qualities to the icon
of the Virgin of Kazan, prompted the Soviet government to expropriate the
Cathedral in 1932 and turn it into a Museum of the History of Religion and
Atheism. As for the icon, the Soviets stripped it of its gold and jewelry and
now, according to some it is in a working church. There are several copies of
the icon; the controversy over which one is the original started practically in
the beginning of the 17th century and would be hard to settle with certainty.
Another important building erected by Voronikhin in Saint Petersburg is the
Institute of Mones. Straight lines and bare outside walls are the main
characteristics of this very simple, two-story building, designed in a rather
massive style and built in 1806. Its only decoration is the portion, with
twelve Doric columns, looking like the entrance to an ancient Greek temple. Ont
he sides of the portico are two specially suitable sculptures by S. S. Pimenov
and V. I. Demut-Malinovskii, one representing Hercules strangling Antaeus, son
of Poseidon, considered invincible as long as he was in contact with his
mother, Earth; the other shows Oaid (?), god of the underworld, abducting
Proserpine, daughter of the Goddess of fertility.
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