The life, death and resurrection of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow

History Workshop Journal

Volumn 46, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 63-95

  Gentes, Andrew ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 54649084468     PISSN: 13633554     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hwj/1998.46.63     Document Type: Article

References (185)

1. In Russian, khram Khrista Spasitelia. Sometimes alternatively translated as the 'Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer', as in Timothy Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis, Cambridge: Belknap, 1995;
2. and Richard S. Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, vol. 1, Princeton: University Press, 1995. 'Khram' can be rendered as either 'cathedral' or 'temple'.
3. See Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, New York: Basic Books, 1973, pp. 240-41, 243-44.
4. This document and others are reproduced in Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve, New York: Komitet Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Molodezhi Zagranitsei, 1986, n.p. This is a collection of primary documents published by the Committee of Orthodox Russian Youth Abroad. Unfortunately the sources for most of these documents are not provided.
5. F. I. Rychin, Putevoditel' po Moskovskoi sviatyne, Moscow: I. N. Kushnerev, 1890, pp. 267-268. This characterization of Alexander's intentions is implicit in Rychin and, as his account suggests, represented the public's notion as well.
6. Evgeniia I. Kirichenko, Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve, Moscow: Planeta, 1992, pp. 12-13.
7. Herzen is quoted in Isaak Eigel', 'K istorii postroeniia i snosa khrama Khrista Spasitelia', Arkhitektura i stroitel'stvo Moskvy 7, July 1988, p. 30;
8. Wortman, Scenarios, pp. 224-25, 230-31, charter quoted p. 231.
9. Alexander's conception of the cathedral may have been influenced by his mystical inclinations. Allen McConnell, Tsar Alexander I: Paternalistic Reformer, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1970, pp. 134-135.
10. Cf. Alan Palmer, Alexander I: Tsar of War and Peace, New York: Harper and Row, 1974, pp. 318-320, 318n, 325-327, 334-335.
11. See also Madame la Comtesse de Choiseul-Gouffier, Historical Memoirs of the Emperor Alexander I and the Court of Russia, trans. Mary Berenice Patterson, Chicago, A. C. McClurg and Co., 1900, pp. 152-3n;
12. and Earnest John Knapton, The Lady of the Holy Alliance: The Life of Julie de Krudener, New York: Columbia University Press, 1939.
13. Regarding Alexander's infatuation with Napoleon, especially the accounts of their meetings at Tilsit in 1807 and Erfurt in 1808, cf. Choiseul-Gouffier, Memoirs, p. 63;
14. Palmer, Alexander I, pp. 136-137.
15. McConnell argues that at Tilsit Alexander's effusions praising Napoleon were for show and designed to ingratiate himself so as to reduce the severity of the treaty signed there. 'Alexander feigned delight and lied with skill and persistence' (Tsar Alexander, p. 66). But as Choiseul-Gouffier unintentionally shows (pp. 133-4, 151), Alexander's favourable comments regarding Napoleon when in the presence of others cast doubt on McConnell's assertion.
16. Statistic cited in Albert J. Schmidt, 'The Restoration of Moscow After 1812' Slavic Review 40: 1, 1981, p. 42.
17. Ségur, Napoleon's Russian Campaign, trans. J. David Townsend (1958), rpt New York: Time Life Books, 1965, p. 114.
18. For an account of the fire itself, see Armand de Caulaincourt, With Napoleon in Russia: The Memoirs of General de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1935, chap. 6.
19. Schmidt, 'Restoration', p. 37;
20. Wortman, Scenarios, p. 232f.
21. Quotation in Moskva belokamennaia: eia sviatyni i dostoprimechatel'nosti, St. Petersburg: Izd. red. Mirskoi vestnik, 1875, p. 157.
22. (This book was published with 'Special Permission from the Ministry of Public Education'.) See also Rychin, Putevoditel', p. 268;
23. Wortman, Scenarios, p. 236.
24. Moskva belokamennaia, pp. 157-159;
25. Tat'iana A. Slavina, Konstantin Ton, Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1982, p. 80;
26. Wortman, Scenarios, pp. 232-38.
27. This last notion combines theories from Kertzer and Geertz. For discussions of these and other theories of political ritual see Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 128-37;
28. Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 230-31.
29. See also David I. Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988, throughout.
30. Hobsbawm's discussion of tradition can be found in his 'Introduction: Invention of Traditions' and 'Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe 1870-1914', in Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition (1983) rpt Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Hobsbawm and the other contributors are, however, mainly concerned with tradition in Western Europe during the bourgeois revolution of the nineteenth century, and do not address specifically the issues immanent in Russia during that time. This is problematic given the comparative numerical insignificance of the Russian bourgeoisie before the revolution; and there is also scholarly debate as to whether Russia ever underwent a bourgeois revolution, or at least one comparable with those in Western Europe. Hobsbawm notes the limitations of his interpretive model and calls for a study specifically of Russia's political tradition. Richard Wortman has responded with the study cited herein and a forthcoming volume.
31. Muir, Ritual, pp. 229-30, 239-46;
32. Wortman, Scenarios, chap. 4. As a German princess for whom Orthodoxy was the unwelcome accoutrement of marriage to a Russian tsarevich, who, when tsar, was then murdered so that she could usurp the throne, Catherine did indeed require such rituals to confirm her legitimacy.
33. Wortman, Scenarios, p. 170 and throughout.
34. I would maintain that even a church is a 'city' in the sense that it encapsulates heaven on earth and is therefore a kind of mimesis of Holy Jerusalem. See notes 29 and 30 and related discussion in text.
35. Ceremony described in Moskva belokamennaia, pp. 159-160.
36. Prayer appears in Service Book of the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church, New York: Syrian Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese, 1949, pp. 225-26.
37. Moskva belokamennaia, p. 160;
38. Ukazatel' ulits i domov stolichnago goroda Moskvy (Moscow: Tip. pri Kantseliarii g. moskovskago ober-politsmeistera, 1882, p. 775;
39. Rychin, Putevoditel', pp. 269-270;
40. Sviatyni Moskvy, New York: Komitet Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Molodezhi Zagranitsei, 1984, p. 142;
41. Slavina, Konstantin Ton, 1982, p. 80;
42. Slavina, Konstantin Ton, Leningrad: Stroiizdat, 1989, p. 112.
43. Rychin, Putevoditel', p. 270;
44. Slavina, Konstantin Ton, 1982, p. 80.
45. The phrase 'the monastery was moved [pereveden]' is a euphemism for its destruction. Moskovskie sviatyni i pamiatniki, Moscow: Sinodal'naia tip-iia, 1903, p. 18.
46. As note 19.
47. Quoted from an unidentified document reproduced in Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve, 1986, p. 8.
48. It is unclear from this account which Holy Mother of Vladimir icon was carried, since there were at least two, one produced in the early twelfth century, the other painted by Semen Ushakov in 1662. Both were highly revered and either would confer in equal measure the sanctity the event required. See James H. Billington, The Icon and Axe (1966), New York: Vintage, 1970, plate I;
49. and Ancient Russian Icons from Soviet Museums, Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1987, p. 60. I have been unable to find information about the Holy Mother of Iversk icon.
50. From a document reproduced in Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve, 1986, pp. 7-11;
51. Moskva belokamennaia, p. 161;
52. Rychin, Putevoditel', p. 271;
53. Sviatyni Moskvy, p. 142. The inscriptions on the medals read, 'ne nam, ne nam, a imeni Tvoemu' and 'zaveshchal Alexander I, nachal ispolnenie Nikolai I'. The medals were probably designed by Fedor P. Tolstoi (see below, note 25). One of them is on display in the recently reopened Russian State Historical Museum (Rossisskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Muzei) in Moscow.
54. Rychin, Putevoditel', p. 273;
55. Aleksei Butorov, Khram Khrista Spasitelia, Moscow: Iunyi khudozhnik, 1992, pp. 14-15;
56. Slavina, Konstantin Ton, 1982, p. 82;
57. Moskva belokamennaia, p. 162;
58. Moltke, Letters From Russia, trans. Robina Napier, London: C. K. Paul, 1881, p. 108.
59. Kathleen E. Smith, 'Khram Khrista Spasitelia II: A New Political Statement' (paper delivered at the AAASS Convention, Boston, MA, 14 November 1996), p. 4;
60. quotations and figures from Moskva belokamennaia, pp. 163-164.
61. Rychin, Putevoditel', p. 273;
62. Slavina, Konstantin Ton, 1982, pp. 83-85.
63. For Krestovokupol'nyi khram Slavina (p. 143) provides a glossary definition: a rectangular or square building in plan, the arches of the longitudinal and transverse spaces (nefov) forming a cross, the four supports in the centre creating with the cupola a cylinder.
64. Ton's design for the cathedral reflected the influence of at least the first two of the three Nicolaevan precepts of the time: Orthodoxy, nationalism, and autocracy. For a comparison of architectural styles informing this description see Samuel Hazzard Cross, Mediaeval Russian Churches, Cambridge: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1949;
65. Rowland J. Mainstone, Hagia Sophia: Architecture, Structure and Liturgy of Justinian's Great Church, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988;
66. Robert Mark and Ahmet S. Cakmak, eds, Hagia Sophia From the Age of Justinian to the Present, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
67. The cathedral artists are named in Slavina, Konstantin Ton, 1982, p. 85;
68. and listed in a quotation in Vladimir Kozlov, 'Gibel' khrama', Moskovskii zhurnal, 9, 1991, p. 12.
69. Basin (1793-1877), professor of religious and historical art at St Petersburg University, painted a number of portraits for the Winter Palace, created around forty icons, and painted the interior of St Isaac's Cathedral in St Petersburg. See Joseph L. Wieczynski, (ed.), The Modern Encyclopaedia of Russian and Soviet History, Gulf Breeze FL: Academic International Press, vol. 3, 1977, p. 150. Bruni (1799-1875) was famous for his Biblical paintings.
70. His masterpiece, 'Mednyi zmii' (1841), on which he worked fifteen years, depicts the Old Testament story of God's punishment for the worship of false idols with a rain of snakes. See M. M. Allenov and others, Istoriia russkogo i sovetskogo iskusstva, Moscow: Vyshaia shkola, 1989, p. 211;
71. and [Nikolai Novouspenskii] Gosudarstvennyi russkii muzei, 4th edn, Leningrad: Sov. Khudozhnik, 1966, plate 45.
72. Vereshchagin was a painter of the 'new realistic style'. Commissioned by the government to chronicle the Russian conquest of Turkestan he produced paintings so vivid in their realism that they incited emotions which the government had not intended. One triptych of a soldier gradually freezing to death inspired Vereshchagin's friend Vsevolod Garshin to write a poem called 'The Exhibition of Vereshchagin', '. . . contrasting the horror of the scene in the painting with the blase, well-dressed viewers walking past it': Billington, Icon and Axe, p. 406.
73. Vereshchagin (born 1842) died in 1904 when the battleship Petropavlovsk was sunk during the Russo-Japanese War: Wieczynski, Encyclopaedia vol. 42, 1986, p. 34. Ramazanov (1817-1867) was a master sculptor and author of Materialy dlia istorii khudozhestv v Rossii. He taught sculpture at MUZhV (Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture) during his last two decades.
74. See I. A. Bartenev and others, eds, 225 let Akademii khudozhestv SSSR: Katalog vystavki, 1757-1917, vol. 1, 2nd edn, Moscow: Izobrazitel'noe iskusstvo, 1985, p. 404.
75. Tolstoi (1783-1873), 'medaller' for the court mint from 1810, created a series of medals commemorating the 1812-1814 war. Vice-president of the Academy of Art 1828-1859, in 1842 he received a professorship in the art of medal-making, and in 1849 a professorship in sculpture: Bartenev, p. 488. Ramazanov's and Tolstoi's dates suggest that their works in the cathedral may not have been made specifically for that location. Surikov (1848-1916) was a 'panegyric chronicler' of Russian history whose most famous paintings are 'Utro streletskoi kazni' (The Morning of the Execution of the Strel'tsy) (1881) and 'Boiarynia Morozova' (1887), the latter in homage to the tenacity of the Old Believers. These and other paintings were related to the anti-Western surge of nationalism in the 1880s. See Archie Brown and others, eds, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 181. Repin (1844-1930), perhaps the most famous Russian painter of the late nineteenth century, employed the aesthetics of the Wanderers school and left a vast oeuvre of portrait and historical painting.
76. The artistic (as opposed to architectural) symbolism of the cathedral comprises a subject unto itself which I will not treat here. See Rychin (Putevoditel') for a description of the murals and sculptures. Franklin A. Sciacca delivered an illuminating paper on this subject at the 1996 AAASS National Convention: 'Khram Khrista Spasitelia I: "Holy Russia" Cast in Stone', Boston, MA, 14 November 1996.
77. Slavina, Konstantin Ton, 1982, pp. 80-81. The plaques were actually something of a holdover from Vitberg's original design. 'In the below ground [podzemnoi] section [Vitberg] intended to carve into the walls the names of the fallen of 1812 - from the generals to the privates':
78. Eigel', 'K istorii', p. 30. From 1812 onward a 'Museum of 1812' was talked of, but only in 1908 was a commission for its construction finally formed. The museum was to have been situated next to Christ the Saviour, but it was never built.
79. See Tat'iana Savarenskaia, 'Memorial'nyi ansambl' 1812 goda', Moskovskii zhurnal 1: 5, 1991. I thank Kathleen Smith for bringing this article to my attention.
80. Texts reproduced in Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve, 1986, pp. 132-33, 165.
81. David M. Knipe, 'The Temple in Image and Reality', Temple in Society, Michael V. Fox, ed., Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1988, p. 110.
82. 'The temple complex or ceremonial center is for many cultures not only the reintegrated space of original creation but ... also the locus of original time, that is to say, the cosmogonic moment. As such the temple, the center spatially and temporally, is a cosmic resource. Time becomes encapsulated and portionable; it is ladled out routinely in the daily services of the temple and in megaportions during great festival occasions': Knipe (as n. 29), p. 112 (my italics). Although Knipe refers here to 'original time' there is no reason that historical time cannot likewise be encapsulated, especially if that time is endowed with as much cosmic significance as was Napoleon's defeat. (Cf. the earlier discussion of Alexander I's mystical interpretation of France's defeat.)
83. Butorov, Khram Khrista Spasitelia, p. 37;
84. 'Eto pamiatnik na veka', Literaturnaia Rossiia 38, 22 September 1989 [Interview with Apollos Feodos'evich Ivanov, who photographed the life and destruction of the cathedral], p. 11.
85. Butorov, Khram Khrista Spasitelia, pp. 15, 33;
86. Moskva belokamennaia, p. 160;
87. Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve, 1986, p. 2;
88. Slavina, Konstantin Ton, 1982, p. 82. Butorov reports that the statue lasted until it was torn down in 1918, an event memoralized on film by Eisenstein. Curiously, the pedestal remained until 1931.
89. Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve, 1986, pp. 101-106;
90. Butorov, Khram Khrista Spasitelia, p. 34.
91. Alexander Nevskii was revered mostly for his military leadership in the defeat of incursions by the Teutonic Knights and the Swedes in the 1240s. 'Nevskii's military successes and his role as progenitor of the princes and tsars of Moscow combined to make him, in time, a Russian national hero', writes Wieczynski. During the reign of Ivan IV ('the Terrible') Nevskii was canonized as a saint by the church. Wieczynski, Encyclopaedia vol. 1, 1977, pp. 148-52. As for St Nicholas, virtually nothing of historical veracity is known about him. He was Bishop of Myra (Lycia) in the early fourth century, and from him the figure of Santa Claus is derived. He was named the patron saint of Russia, but how and why is apparently not known. He is also the patron saint of sailors: it is somewhat odd that a sea-fearing people (such as the Russians were before Peter's dragging them to the shores of the Baltic) would choose him as their saint.
92. In his 1844 travel account J. G. Kohl gives a detailed first-hand description (albeit by an outsider) of nineteenth-century mass in a Russian Orthodox church. The mass itself is of great historical interest, but since it was generic I have decided to focus instead on those rituals specific to Christ the Saviour. See J. G. Kohl, Russia, New York: Arno Press, 1970 [orig. pub. with a different title in 1844], pp. 251-254.
93. Butorov, Khram Khrista Spasitelia, p. 34.
94. As note 35, pp. 34-35. Vasnetsov (1848-1926) began as a genre painter in the style of Fedotov and Perov, but in 1880, with his painting 'Posle poboisha Igoria Sviatoslavicha s polovtsami' (After Igor Sviatoslavicha's Battle with the Polovtsy), he launched a new style 'to make an effort to find a graphic equivalent to the characteristically poetic reversals of Russia's epics. . . .' His later painting, 'Bogatyri' (1898), is particularly illustrative of this style. Around 1905 he designed the entrance to the Tret'iakov Gallery. Allenov, Istoriia, pp. 267-269;
95. Brown, Cambridge Encyclopaedia, pp. 170, 182.
96. Kirichenko, Khram Khrista Spasitelia, p. 205.
97. Kozlov, 'Gibel' Khrama', p. 9.
98. As note 38, pp. 12-13. The full name of the department was the Department on Museum Affairs and Protection of Landmarks. See below.
99. Kozlov, 'Gibel' Khrama', p. 13.
100. As note 40; Colton, Moscow, pp. 229, 233.
101. Kozlov 'Gibel' Khrama', pp. 14-15; Ivanov interview (see note 31), p. 11.
102. Kozlov 'Gibel' Khrama', p. 15;
103. Colton, Moscow p. 233. Both Kozlov and Colton write that, for example, there were calls in the press to turn the cathedral into a gymnasium (fizkul'-turnyi zal).
104. Colton, Moscow, pp. 110, 259;
105. date and direct quote of Kirov's proposal in Eigel', 'K istorii postroeniia', p. 31. Cf. Ivanov interview (see note 31), p. 10;
106. Selim Khan-Magomedov, 'K istorii vybora mesta dlia Dvortsa Sovetov', Arkhitektura i stroitel'stvo Moskvy 1, January 1988, p. 21;
107. Kozlov, 'Gibel' Khrama', p. 15.
108. Khan-Magomedov, 'K istorii vybora', p. 21. The first letter was published 7 February 1924; the second group of articles 24 February.
109. Notes and letters reproduced in Khan-Magomedov, 'K istorii vybora', pp. 21-22.
110. At various - rather indeterminate - points the plans for a Lenin statue merged with those for a Palace of Soviets, though the collapsing together of both projects was probably not sanctioned by the government until 1931 at the earliest. Certainly some architects envisioned both projects as one, while others planned simply for a (gigantic) statue of Lenin. Balikhin seems to have considered both projects as unified.
111. Pamphlet text written 11 June 1924 and reproduced in Khan-Magomedov, 'K istorii vybora', p. 23.
112. MS dated 14 September 1924 and reproduced in Khan-Magomedov, 'K istorii vybora'.
113. Colton discusses the Party's attempts to, in his words, 'pacify' Moscow. He also cites figures on overcrowding. See Timothy J. Colton, 'Moscow: Urban Politics and Policy Under Stalin', Washington, DC: Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars [colloquium paper delivered 6/28/82], pp. 3-5, 27-28.
114. For the overcrowding of Moscow at the beginning of the 1930s, and the construction and related politics of the first lines of the Moscow metro see Andrew Gentes, 'The Metrostroevetsy: Metrostroi and the Building of the Moscow Metro, 1932-35' (unpublished).
115. See also Il'ia E. Kattsen, Metro Moskvy, Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1947, esp. pp. 16, 18;
116. and Konstantin Sergeevich Ryzhkov, Moskovskii Metropoliten, Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1957, p. 18.
117. Kozlov, 'Gibel' Khrama', p. 8;
118. Colton, Moscow, pp. 232-33.
119. Mikhailov was also in charge of construction. Eigel', 'K istorii postroeniia', p. 31;
120. Alexei Tarkhanov and Sergei Kavtardze, Architecture of the Stalin Era, New York: Rizzoli, 1992, p. 25.
121. What follows is from the minutes reproduced in Eigel', 'K istorii postroeniia', pp. 31-33.
122. Mayer, former chief architect of Cologne, was then chief architect of the Department on Basic Planning of the Land-Planning Section of Mosgorispolkom (Moscow City Executive Committee). Meyer, before coming to Moscow to redesign the city, had been director of Bauhaus following Walter Gropius. Despite his presence in Moscow and at this meeting, Meyer's 'fanatical factionalism', as Éva Forgács calls it, had virtually no influence on either the design of the palace or the rebuilding of Moscow, which began in 1935. Although his iconoclasm and utilitarianism suggest motivations for the annihilation of entire cities, the destruction of parts of Moscow to build the subway and, later, the new city centre above ground, reflect trends endemic to Bolshevism quite independent of Meyer's ideas. He did, however, influence the (re)construction of other Soviet cities. For background on Mayer and Meyer and their activities in Moscow see Colton, Moscow, pp. 215, 273, 276. Meyer went on to lead a society of architects residing at the All-Union Academy of Architects of the USSR in 1934-35.
123. Eigel', 'K istorii postroeniia', p. 32n. For a discussion of Meyer's ideas, as well as the very real connection between the Bauhaus and the Russian avant-garde up until the latter's demise (which was followed only two years later by the closing of the Bauhaus under Nazism),
124. see Éva Forgács, The Bauhaus Idea and Bauhaus Politics, trans. John Bátki, New York: Central European University Press, 1995, chaps 14, 15;
125. Peter Chametzky, 'The Once and Future Bauhaus', Art in America 81:12 1993, pp. 28-33;
126. William Richardson, 'Architecture, Urban Planning and Housing During the First Five Year Plans: Hannes Meyer in the USSR, 1930-1936', Urban Studies 26, 1989, pp. 155-63;
127. K. Michael Hays, Modernism and the Posthumanist Subject: The Architecture of Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Hilberseimer, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992.
128. Both Colton and Volkogonov rue the (often indiscriminate) destruction of many historical buildings during the building of the subway and the reconstruction of Moscow. Colton, Moscow, throughout; Dmitri Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, pp. 234-35, 249.
129. Ivanov quoted in Ivanov interview (see note 31), p. 10.
130. Molotov quoted in a 9 December 1982 interview in Albert Resis, ed., Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics: Conversations with Felix Chuev, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993, p. 185. The 'commission' to which Molotov refers is almost certainly the Building Committee for the Palace of Soviets.
131. Feliks Chuev, Tak govoril Kaganovich: Ispoved' stalinskogo apostola, Moscow: Otechestvo, 1992, pp. 47-48.
132. Volkogonov asserts that only Kaganovich was 'among those responsible' for destroying the cathedral. Volkogonov, Stalin, p. 249.
133. Reproduced in Eigel', 'K istorii postroeniia', p. 33. Ellipsis in original.
134. Kirichenko, Khram Khrista Spasitelia, pp. 235, 244.
135. Stalin's on-site inspection is also described in Colton, Moscow, pp. 260, 262. Volkogonov writes that Stalin approved a plan by Molotov and Kaganovich to build the palace on the site of the cathedral, but that when the demolition began the general secretary, working at his desk, was startled into thinking Moscow was being bombarded, having forgotten that December 5 was the day. Volkogonov, p. 234.
136. Quoted in Kozlov, 'Gibel' Khrama', p. 15. Kozlov does not say to whom the letter was addressed, but since it is located in TsGAOR g. Moskvy, it can be assumed it was sent to a city or raion official.
137. Colton, Moscow, p. 262.
138. Molotov Remembers, 9 December 1982 interview, p. 185.
139. Kozlov, 'Gibel' Khrama', pp. 16-18; Interview with Ivanov (see note 31), p. 11.
140. Kozlov, p. 18; Interview with Ivanov, p. 11.
141. According to Kirichenko this announcement in Izvestiia is the only known document revealing the decision to build the Palace of Soviets on the site of the cathedral. There also exists a 'situational plan of the area of the future Palace of Soviets with the outline inside it of the plan for the Cathedral of Christ. On the plan sits the date 22 April 1935, and the signatures of approval (I. Stalin, V. Molotov, S. Ordzhonikidze, N. Bulganin) show that at that time such a decision [to build the palace] was agreed upon'. Kirichenko, Khram Khrista Spasitelia, p. 235.
142. Included in the defeat of radical movements in architectural design was the defeat of radical plans in urban planning. See S. Frederick Starr, 'Visionary Town Planning During the Cultural Revolution', in Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928-1931, Bloomington: Indiana University, 1978, p. 208;
143. William Richardson, Urban Studies 26;
144. Hugh D. Hudson, Jr, Blueprints and Blood: The Stalinization of Soviet Architecture, 1917-1937, Princeton: Princeton University, 1994, chap. 3, and pp. 140-41;
145. Wojciech G. Lesnikowski, Rationalism and Romanticism in Architecture, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982, p. 109;
146. Kenneth Frampton, 'Notes on Soviet Urbanism, 1917-32', in David Lewis, ed., Urban Structure, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1968, pp. 251-52.
147. Kirichenko, Khram Khrista Spasitelia, p. 235;
148. Colton, Moscow, p. 259;
149. quotation in Tarkhanov and Kavtardze, Architecture, p. 27.
150. Reproductions of some of the submissions are found in Tarkhanov and Kavtardze, pp. 24-29;
151. and in Catherine Cooke and Igor Kazus, Soviet Architectural Competitions 1924-1936, Laren [Netherlands]: V+K Publishing, 1992, pp. 60-83.
152. Colton, Moscow, p. 260;
153. Cooke and Kazus, Competitions, pp. 16, 59;
154. Lunacharskii quoted in Tarkhanov and Kavtardze, Architecture, p. 33.
155. It appears certain that Iofan benefited from nepotism. In the late twenties he and his brother built a complex of luxury apartment buildings for party apparatchiks, a fact Cooke considers important in the ultimate choosing of his design. Cooke and Kazus, Competitions, p. 105.
156. According to Apollos Ivanov, Ivanov's design was chosen because he was related to Kaganovich's closest assistant. Ivanov interview, p. 10 (see note 31). Molotov, many years later, said of Iofan, 'he was not a distinguished architect, but he managed to win the competition. . . .' As a member of the Building Committee, Molotov initially refused to sign the order adopting Iofan's design, but eventually yielded to pressure by Stalin and Voroshilov. Molotov Remembers, 9 December 1982 interview, pp. 184-185.
157. Cf. the earlier discussion concerning political ritual. For ASNOVA philosophy and its influence see Hudson, Blueprints and Blood, pp. 77ff.
158. Colton, Moscow, pp. 260, 332;
159. Molotov Remembers, 9 December 1982 interview, p. 185.
160. For reproductions of design sketches see Tarkhanov and Kavtardze, Architecture, esp. figures on pp. 4, 31.
161. For a discussion of Stalinist, Fascist, and Nazi monumentalism see Lesnikowski, Rationalism and Romanticism, chap. 4;
162. for Hitler's views on architecture see Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs by Albert Speer, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, New York: Macmillan, 1970, throughout.
163. Colton, Moscow, p. 260; building statistics p. 332.
164. Colton, Moscow, pp. 333-334.
165. Colton, Moscow, pp. 333-334, 355.
166. See also Smith, 'Khram Khrista Spasitelia II', p. 6.
167. Colton, Moscow, pp. 365-367.
168. Colton, Moscow, pp. 366-367;
169. Smith, 'Khram Khrista Spasitelia II', p. 7. Happening upon this pool - filled with babushki bobbing in their multi-coloured swim caps - on a bitterly cold November day was something of an existential experience for the author, who snapped what is perhaps one of the last photographs of the spectacle.
170. Smith, 'Khram Khrista Spasitelia II', p. 8;
171. Colton, Moscow, p. 731.
172. Smith, 'Khram Khrista Spasitelia II', pp. 8-10;
173. Nina Tumarkin, The Living and the Dead: The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia, New York: Basic Books, 1994, p. 170. Tumarkin further discusses the cathedral on pp. 170 and 217.
174. Smith, 'Khram Khrista Spasitelia II', pp. 10-11.
175. Yeltsin quoted in Smith, 'Khram Khrista Spasitelia II;, p. 11.
176. Colton, Moscow, pp. 732-733;
177. Susanne Hoell, 'Russian Christians mark Easter with rebuilt cathedral', C-reuters@clari.net (12 April 1996).
178. Ptichnikov quoted in 5 December 1996 TASS item on Lexis/Nexis; Flore de Preneuf, 'Facade of Glory: A Potemkin Cathedral for New Russia', Washington Post, 'Outlook Section' on Lexis/Nexis, 24 November 1996;
179. Smith, 'Khram Khrista Spasitelia II', pp. 11-14;
180. Iakunin quoted in Hoell, 'Russian Christians'.
181. Petr quote in Smith, 'Khram Khrista Spastelia II', pp. 14; Preneuf (as note 82).
182. Smith, 'Khram Khrista Spasitelia II', pp. 15-18;
183. Preneuf; Moscow Times, 28 December 1996 and 9 January 1997 on Lexis/Nexis.
184. Alastair Macdonald, 'Yeltsin marks Easter in resurrected cathedral', C-reuters@clari. net (14 April 1996).
185. See Wortman, Scenarios, throughout.