Grateful Russia - the heroes of 1812

Nowadays, we have the power of the Internet to do tours of famous museums, castles and some other places of interest. We should thank the inventors of such brilliant things. A few years ago, students enjoyed only the postcards, printed photographs, illustrations and numerous descriptions placed in journals and books of far away countries. We had to think carefully about every detail of monuments, paintings, buildings, sculpture to do the written or oral report or a composition very well. And we coped with it. We might have never been to France, but we could speak a lot about its history, literature and culture. We had to go to the non-electronic libraries, to read non-ebooks and to chat with non-virtual friends. Perhaps we were not so cool and advanced users, but we managed to multitask :) 

Today I want to speak about a noteworthy monument named ‘Greatful Russia – the heroes of 1812’. It is situated in Smolensk, a boundary town in Central Russia. By the way, the town celebrated 1150 anniversary on September 25 this year.

The monument Grateful Russia - the heroes of 1812

The monument was established on the very place where in 1812 there was the most stubborn fighting between valiant Russian forces and brave French soldiers under the command of Napoleon, a genius military leader.

The monument itself represents a steep cliff with a nest at its top guarded by two huge eagles. When you stand in front of this sculptural masterpiece you can see a Gallic soldier climbing towards the nest with the sword in his right hand. The nest belongs to huge and powerful eagles. One with outstretched wings grasps the Gaul's arm, while the second eagle guards the nest and is ready to get rid of the enemy at any occasion.

The cliff symbolizes the Russian Empire, the eagles are the two Russian armies commanded by Russian Field Marshal Barclay de Tolly and Russian General Bagration that were success to unite in time at Smolensk. The Gallic Soldier stands for the French Army. The bronze scene looks very dynamic. Have a glance at it. Now listen! Thousands of soldier souls are ready to tell you about the battle in 1812.

The back part of the monument

On the eastern part of the monument you can see a bronze plaque with the map of the European part of Russia and the phrase that can be translated as “From Grateful Russia to the Heroes of 1812”. At the back of the monument there is another plaque with the names of the Russian Commanders: Barclay de Tolly, Bagration, Neverovsky, Raevsky and Dokhturov. On the other sides there are bronze wreaths framing the Emblem of the Russian Empire and the Emblem of Smolensk.

The Gallic soldier grabbed by the Eagles

That is a short description of what you can see when you look at the monument. However, I am not going to give a cognizable point. Feelings are individual. We can only sum them up. Some native people feel proud, they are grateful to their brave ancestors. Some feel power and strength of their land. Unfortunately, there are always some younger natives who cannot explain why there is a monument. Their feelings are unknown and, to tell the truth, are not interesting.

Visit Smolensk one day. Share your impressions!