Victims of the Revolution, Monuments to the

Categories / Architecture/Sculpture, Monuments
VICTIMS OF THE REVOLUTION, MONUMENTS TO THE. The first monument To the fighters for the revolution was erected on the Field of Mars. On the 23 March (5 April, New Style) 1917, a ceremonial funeral took place here: 184 out of 1,382 citizens that died in street fighting during the February Revolution of 1917, were interred here (about 800,000 persons took part in the uprising). All the dead were honoured with a salute from the guns of the St. Peter and Paul Fortress. Veterans of the revolutionary movement took the rostrum: V.I. Zasulich, G.A. Lopatin, V.N. Figner. The monument was designed by architect L.V. Rudnev: it represented a rectangular yard surrounded by terraced granite walls with memorial inscriptions (author, A.V. Lunacharsky, inscriptions made by artists V.M. Konashevich, V.V. Lebedev). The construction of the monument lasted until 1919. For that purpose, the blocks of the granite plinth of previously dismantled Tallow barnhouse were used. In 1918, V. Volodarsky and M.S. Uritsky, whose death in Petrograd led to the beginning of the Red Terror, were buried beside the monument. Also interred here, were the members of the suppression of the anti-Bolshevik armed uprising in Yaroslavl (1918), the participants of the defence of Petrograd from troops of General N.N. Yudenich in 1919. During the first communist volunteer working day of 1 May 1920, a parterre garden was laid out (architect I.A. Fomin, gardener R.F. Katzer). In 1922-33, some party and Soviet functionaries were buried here: D.N. Avrov, I.I. Gaza, M.M. Lashevich and others. In 1957, the Eternal Flame was lit by the monument, the first in the USSR (the torch was lit from the open-hearth furnace of the Kirovsky plant). In 1917-21, in the park beside St. Nicholas’ Naval Cathedral (the park was renamed Kommunarov Square) the following people were buried: sailor G.I. Astakhov, perished in February, 1917; P.M. Voytik, involved in the suppression of the anti-Bolshevik uprising in Kronstadt in 1921; commissar K.Y. Krustein; veteran of the battles at Narva in 1918, S.M. Matveev et al. Small obelisks were installed on the graves. In 1977, a common monument in the shape of a granite wall was built there. In the park of the Forest Resources Academy, the Red Army soldiers from Vyborgskaya Side were buried on 19 November 1917; they perished while defending Petrograd from the troops of Kerensky and Krasnov. From 1919 to 1934, victims of the Revolution and Civil War continued to be buried here. The graves were marked by a three metre high hill, where a granite obelisk was established. In 1918-36, the burials of the same kind took place at the so-called Communist ground situated in the area of Alexander Nevsky Monastery, where veteran Bolsheviks E.A. Rakhya, D.A. Trilisser, Z.I. Lilina, and others were interred. Many monuments were lost during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. Defenders of Leningrad were buried here.

References: Шварц В. С. Архитектурный ансамбль Марсова поля. Л., 1989.

Y. M. Piryutko. Astakhov G.I.
Avrov Dmitry Nikolaevich
Figner Vera Nikolaevna
Fomin Ivan Alexandrovich
Gaza Ivan Ivanovich
Katzer Rudolf Frantsevich
Kerensky Alexander Fedorovich
Konashevich Vladimir Mikhailovich
Krasnov Peter Nikolaevich
Krustein Karl Yakovlevich
Lashevich Mikhail Mikhailovich
Lebedev Vladimir Vasilievich
Lilina Zlata Ionovna
Lopatin German Alexandrovich
Lunacharsky Anatoly Vasilievich
Matveev Sergey Matveevich
Rakhya Eino Abramovich
Rudnev Lev Vladimirovich
Trilisser David Abramovich
Uritsky Moisey Solomonovich
Volodarsky V. (Moisey Markovich Goldstein)
Voytik Pavel Mikhailovich
Yudenich Nikolay Nikolaevich
Zasulich Vera Ivanovna
The Field of Mars/Saint Petersburg, city
Шварц В. С. Архитектурный ансамбль Марсова поля. Л., 1989 February Revolution of 1917
St. Peter and Paul fortress
St. Peter and Paul fortress
Red Terror
Kirovsky Plant
St. Nicholas' Naval Cathedral
Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921
Forestry Engineering Academy
1919