Monument to Barclay de Tolly

The monument to Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly stands on Kazanskaya Square, off Nevsky Prospect, facing the side portal of the Kazan Cathedral. Together with the paired monument to Mikhail Kutuzov, it forms a single memorial ensemble dedicated to the two commanders-in-chief of the Russian army in the Patriotic War of 1812, and it appeared on this spot in 1837.

After Kutuzov's death in 1813 and Barclay de Tolly's in 1818, Alexander I ordered that both commanders be commemorated with monuments in front of the Kazan Cathedral. Sculptors of the Academy of Arts long avoided the competition: the organizers demanded that the commanders be shown in contemporary army uniform rather than the antique togas customary for sculpture of the period, and this condition deterred many masters. Models commissioned from the German sculptor Eduard Lauchert were rejected, as a recognizable likeness could not be achieved. Only in 1829 did Nicholas I announce a new competition, won by Boris Orlovsky, who had just returned from Rome; he began work in January 1830.

A dispute also arose over the pedestals: Montferrand proposed red granite with bronze bas-reliefs, Orlovsky himself favoured a more modest northern stone, and in the end the project by the architect Vasily Stasov was adopted. The polished granite pedestals were made by the stonemason Samson Sukhanov by the spring of 1837, with the lettering of the inscriptions carved directly into the stone — a more reliable method than applied bronze letters. The casting of the statues was carried out by the founder Vasily Yekimov: he cast the figure of Kutuzov in 1832, but Barclay de Tolly only in 1836, on the second attempt, as the first had failed.

The figures were installed under the direction of the architect Konstantin Ton: Kutuzov on 30 May, Barclay de Tolly on 15 June 1837. The solemn unveiling took place on 25 December of the same year, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the victory, in the presence of the imperial family; Orlovsky himself did not live to see the ceremony, dying eight days before it. Kutuzov is shown in vigorous motion, holding a sword and a baton, trampling the furled banner of a defeated enemy; Barclay de Tolly, who commanded the army's retreat from the border, is shown more restrained — gazing into the distance with his baton lowered, while beneath his feet lies a French banner still unfurled. The statue is 4 metres high, the pedestal 3.5 metres; the inscription names him field marshal and prince and lists the years of his campaigns, from 1812 to 1815.

Owing to the monuments' enormous popularity, in 1839 they were enclosed by cast-iron railings designed by Ton, later replaced by posts and chains. During the Siege of Leningrad the statues remained in place, and troops marching along Nevsky Prospect saluted them in formation; restorations were carried out in 1945, 1972 and 2002. In 1835 Alexander Pushkin dedicated the poem "The Commander" to Barclay de Tolly, defending the reputation of a general whose strategy of retreat his contemporaries had long found hard to forgive.

Today both monuments, framed by the perspective of the colonnade as if by giant frames, remain one of the most recognizable combinations of sculpture and architecture on Nevsky Prospect — a monument not only to military glory, but to the reassessment of the historical memory of Barclay de Tolly's achievements.