AV

COLLECTING CULTURAL MEANINGS. The monument to A. Pushkin and N. Goncharova is installed at the Linen Factory

In the village of Polotnyany Zavod, Kaluga Region, in front of the main house of the Goncharov estate, a monument to the People's Artist of the USSR O.K.Komov "Alexander Pushkin" was unveiled on the 225th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Pushkin. Natalia Goncharova". He has been waiting in the wings for more than 30 years.

The urban-type settlement of Polotnyany Zavod is located northwest of Kaluga, a half-hour drive away. The name of the village goes back to the sailing, linen and paper industries, which were founded in the bend of the Sukhodrev River by the Kaluga merchant T.Karamyshev in the late 1710s - early 1720s by the personal order of Peter I. In the 1730s, the manufactories passed into the hands of his companions A. Goncharov, the great-great-grandfather of Natalia Goncharova, and G.Shchepochkin, who built in the second half of the XVIII century. next to the factory buildings are manor complexes, which, as a result of reconstruction at the end of the century, acquired classic features.

The Goncharov estate is associated with the names of many notable figures of Russian history — Catherine II, M.I.Kutuzov, N.I.Pirogov, but this list opens, of course, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, who visited the estate in 1830 and 1834.

In 1925, the Linen factory received the status of a working settlement, the population of which in the 1960s reached 7.5 thousand people, today 5 thousand inhabitants live here. The production of sailcloth came to naught back in the XIX century, but paper and cardboard are produced to this day, which is dedicated to the exposition of the Buseon paper Museum, opened in one of the former workshops.
The Goncharov estate suffered greatly during the Great Patriotic War. In the late 1960s — 1990s, it was restored, having received the status of a museum in jubilee 1999. However, in the early 1990s, when, by order of the USSR Ministry of Culture, sculptor Oleg Komov worked on the monument to A. Pushkin and N. Goncharova, continuing his Pushkiniana — as he himself calls the poet's biography, the house and the surrounding area, in addition to factory buildings, included the baroque Spassky Gate, a horse yard with gates, a manor park, Pushkin's gazebo, finally, already in the 2010s. The Baroque Church of the Saviour of the Transfiguration, recreated by the Bolsheviks, was in ruin.

O.K.Komov is one of the leaders of the "harsh style", a representative of the generation that came in the late 1950s — early 1960s. His most famous work of that time is the sculpture "Glass" in 1958 — perhaps the most architectural of the master's works, with its dynamics and opposition of geometric principles referring to our 1920s.M. Pushkin's works, including monuments to A. Pushkin in Tver and Boldino, Pskov and Madrid, sculptures that can be combined with the title "To the Death of the poet", the feature of which are multi—figure compositions with muses soaring over the body of a dying man and a drooping figure of an angel - dates back to the 1970s and 1980s.

The Komovsky monument to A. Pushkin and N. Goncharova reflects the era of the 1970s and 1980s. The image of A. Pushkin is not interpreted head-on — he appears not as one of the peaks of the golden age of Russian classical literature, but rather as a representative of the generation inheriting the era of the 1960s - at least from our distance, this time binding is seen from all over distinctness. The image of Natalia Nikolaevna, referring to the first decades of the XIX century, sets off this roll call of historical epochs.

In the early 1990s, the project was approved, and a plaster model was already made, ready for casting in bronze. But the collapse of the Union broke out, the project was forgotten. In 1994, O.K.Komov passed away. So the plaster cast stood in his workshop for more than thirty years. The sculptor's widow and co-author of many of his works, architect N.I.Komova, bequeathed to her sons, artist I.O.Komov and architect A.O.Komov, to finish the phrase, cut off in mid-sentence, to install a paternal monument to A.Pushkin and N. Goncharova.

As A.O.Komov admits, he thought about the triumph of justice, about the installation of the monument from the day he became the chief architect of Kaluga. The Pushkin jubilee was approaching, at the beginning of 2024, there were patrons — more than ten of them in total, who took on the burden of making the monument. From a plaster model made to size by the author himself, it was cast in bronze at the foundry and mechanical plant in Dmitrov under the guidance of the outstanding master A.Kardeev. The pedestal was made in Kaluga according to A.O.Komov's drawings.

On May 25, the grand opening of the monument took place as part of the festival dedicated to the 225th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Pushkin and held at the Linen Factory. It was attended by former and current governors of the Kaluga region V.V.Shapsha and A.D.Artamonov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation P.O.Tolstoy, Metropolitan Borovsky and Kaluga Kliment, etc. But most importantly, thousands of citizens and tourists gathered for the holiday — it was impossible to park in the village. As well as to photograph the monument in a staged way — next to A. Pushkin and N. Goncharova, someone constantly tried to capture himself.

The monument is installed on a small square in front of the main entrance to the manor house — now the museum building. It is shifted from the main axis, to the southeastern edge of the site, growing out of a low snow-white pedestal. A natural slope acts as a backdrop. The architectural part — the location of the monument, the pedestal, including the font outline — was made by A.O.Komov. According to him, it is a great happiness to become a co—author of his father.

For the local museum, whose collection has been formed since the late 1990s and is characterized by a fragmentary character, the monument to A. Pushkin and N. Goncharova is an important acquisition. He not only expands the museum's collection, but also plays the role of a tuning fork, bringing together the cultural meanings of this place.

Dmitry Fesenko



Monument "A.S. Pushkin. N.N.Goncharova" at the Linen factory in the Kaluga region. Sculptor O.K.Komov. Architect A.O.Komov.


Since the opening of the monument. May 25, 2024
Made on
Tilda