Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin (102 page)

Just as it is usual to thank everyone who was involved (and the thanks are very real), so it is customary to absolve them all of any responsibility for the book itself. In the case of my greatest debts, however, such absolution can only ever be technical, for a few people have worked so hard on my behalf that the book would simply not exist without them. Two talented editors, Sara Bershtel at Metropolitan and Simon Winder at Penguin, put their prodigious energies to work, bombarding me with questions while somehow adding fresh coherence and fluency to the text. They would never have seen a manuscript at all, however, had it not been for Peter Robinson, who generously allowed me to redefine his duties as literary agent to include unhealthy quantities of reading along with his unfailing support, intellectual as well as practical and moral. I thank them all, and hope the published book will reflect each of their very different kinds of creativity. Meanwhile, and always, I am most grateful of all to Frank Payne. It was never going to be easy to make this journey, but he not only stayed the entire distance but managed to fall in love with Moscow in the process. May there be many Moscows to come.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C
ATHERINE
M
ERRIDALE
is the author of the critically acclaimed
Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939–1945
and
Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia.
A professor of contemporary history at Queen Mary university of London, she has also written for
The Guardian,
the
Literary Review,
and the
London Review of Books
and contributes regularly to broadcasts on BBC radio. She lives in Oxfordshire, England.

List of Illustrations

1. Simon Ushakov,
The Tree of the State of Muscovy,
1668 (State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia)

2. Kremlin Cathedral of the Dormition (photograph Frank Payne)

3. Sixteenth-century Moscow School:
The Entry into Jerusalem
(Kremlin Museums/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library)

4.
Blessed Be the Hosts of the Heavenly Tsar
(mid-sixteenth century) (State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia)

5. Joan Blaue,
Kremlenagrad,
1662 (Yale Center for British Art/Bridgeman Art Library)

6. Bell tower of Ivan the Great (photo Frank Payne)

7. Celebrations in the Faceted Palace for the coronation of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, July 1613 (akg-images)

8. Adam Olearius’ Kremlin, showing Palm Sunday celebrations on Red Square in the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich (1613–45) (Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy)

9. Pieter Picart, panorama of Moscow in 1707 (detail) (akg-images/RIA Novosti)

10. Bazhenov’s model of the Grand Kremlin Palace (finally approved version: the central part of the façade from the Moscow river, 1772–3; scale 1:48) (Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, Russian Federation)

11. Bazhenov’s model of the Grand Kremlin Palace (first version: view of a fragment from the central part from inside, 1769–1773; scale 1:48) (Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, Russian Federation)

12. Johann Christian Oldendorp,
The Fire of Moscow in September 1812
(Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin/DHM/Bridgeman Art Library)

13. Fedor Yakovlevich Alekseev,
Cathedral Square in the Moscow Kremlin
(early nineteenth century) (State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia)

14. Jean-Baptiste Arnout,
Saviour Tower and the Ascension Convent
(Anatoly Sapronenkov/Getty Images)

15. F. Dreher after F. G. Solntsev, view of the Patriarch’s Court (from
Antiquities of the Russian State,
1849–53) (Slavic and Baltic Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

16. F. Dreher after F. G. Solntsev, helmet of Prince Alexander Nevsky (from
Antiquities of the Russian State,
1849–53) (Slavic and Baltic Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

17. Fedor Yakovlevich Alekseev: Church of the Saviour in the Forest, 1800–1810 (Fine Art Images/Getty Images)

18. Interior of the Faceted Palace (Photoshot)

19. Early twentieth-century postcard of the monument to Tsar Alexander II (Mary Evans/John Massey Stewart Russian Collection)

20. Street scene close to the Saviour Tower and the Kremlin walls,
c.
1898 (Corbis)

21. Bartenev’s Kremlin map, early twentieth century (courtesy of the author)

22. Henri Gervex, Study for
The Coronation of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra in the Church of the Assumption [Dormition] on 14th May 1896
(Musée d’Orsay/Giraudon/Bridgeman Art Library)

23. Mounted soldiers guarding the Nikolsky Gate in the aftermath of the February 1917 revolution (Getty Images)

24. Shrapnel damage to the Chudov Monastery in the wake of shelling in November 1917 (Getty Images)

25. Lenin at the inauguration of S. T. Konenkov’s commemorative bas-relief, ‘Genius’, 7 November 1918 (Ullstein bild/Imagno)

26. Alexander Gerasimov,
Joseph Stalin and Kliment Voroshilov in the Kremlin, 1938
(State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia)

27. Victory Parade in Red Square, 1945 (Yevgeny Kaldai/Corbis)

28. Lenin’s Mausoleum on Red Square (Frank Payne)

29. Group of Party VIPs, including Leonid Brezhnev, Nikolai Podgorny, East Germany’s Walter Ulbricht, Mikhail Suslov and Mongolian leader Yumzhagin Tsedenbal, on top of the Lenin Mausoleum during a ceremonial meeting of the All-Union Winners Youth Rally, Moscow, September 1966 (Getty Images)

30. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian President Boris Yeltsin at a Kremlin press conference, October 1991 (AFP/Getty Images)

31. Exterior of the Faceted Palace and reconstructed Red Stair (Natalia Volkova/Shuttershock)

32. Russian President Vladimir Putin and former President Boris Yeltsin on the ceremonial palace steps during the inauguration ceremony for Putin, 7 May 2000 (Getty Images)

RED FORTRESS. Copyright 2013 by Catherine Merridale. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.henryholt.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Merridale, Catherine, 1959–

Red fortress: history and illusion in the Kremlin / Catherine Merridale.—First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8050-8680-5 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-8050-9837-2 (electronic book) 1. Kremlin (Moscow, Russia)—History. 2. Moscow (Russia)—Buildings, structures, etc. 3. Moscow (Russia)—History. I. Title.

DK602.3M47 2013

947'.31—dc23

2013026769

e-ISBN 978-0-8050-9837-2

First U.S. Edition: October 2013

First eBook edition: October 2013