The Bronze Horseman

The Bronze Horseman is an equestrian monument to Peter the Great, founder of Saint Petersburg, erected on Senate Square and one of the city's principal symbols. The monument was conceived by Catherine II as a monument glorifying her predecessor while simultaneously affirming her own succession to power. The work was entrusted in 1766 to the French sculptor Étienne Maurice Falconet, invited to Russia on the recommendation of the philosopher Denis Diderot. Falconet deliberately rejected the allegorical figures and the image of a triumphant military commander traditional for monuments of that era, seeking instead to portray Peter first and foremost as a creator and lawgiver; the statue's head was modelled, from the sculptor's sketches, by his pupil Marie-Anne Collot. For the stability of the composition, in addition to the horse's two points of support, a third was added — the figure of a trampled serpent, the work of the sculptor Fyodor Gordeyev, which also acquired symbolic meaning as a triumph over the forces of evil.

The monument's pedestal is a single, gigantic block of stone known as the "Thunder Stone" — according to legend, it was once struck by lightning. The boulder was found near the village of Lakhta and transported to the installation site by a method unique for the 18th century: first overland on special sledges fitted with bronze balls, and then by water on a barge built specifically for the purpose. Transporting the stone took almost a year and became one of the greatest feats of engineering of its time. The monument was cast in bronze between 1775 and 1777; the casting did not succeed on the first attempt — during the initial pour a pipe burst and part of the metal was lost.

The monument was unveiled on 7 August 1782, more than fifteen years after work on the project began. The name "Bronze Horseman" was given to the monument after Alexander Pushkin's poem of the same name, even though it is in fact cast from bronze rather than copper — the poet used the image for the sake of the verse's rhythm. Since then, the sculpture depicting a rearing horse atop a cliff has become one of the principal literary and visual symbols of Saint Petersburg.