Prominent Scientists in the Monumental Sculpture of Leningrad — Saint Petersburg

Abstract

The article examines the monuments to scientists and inventors installed in Leningrad and modern St. Petersburg and their influence on shaping collective historical representations of the past. On the basis of the analysis of reference literature and scholarship, a range of monuments for the study was determined, which led to the conclusions about which new monuments
to scientists emerged in Soviet Leningrad and modern St. Petersburg more often and in which periods in the history of the city. The article explores the history of installation of some monuments with regard to both the mechanisms for developing the projects and the implementation of competitive procedures. The paper also addresses the initiators and reasons
for the installation of a particular monument. The author comes to the conclusion that the projects for the monuments are most often initiated by the state, and less often — by the scientific community or some influential scientist. Business community rarely proposes to erect a monument to a famous scientist. The article reveals that monuments to representatives
of the exact and natural sciences prevail over those to humanitarians, which can be attributed to both the applied nature of the work of the former and to the perception of the latter as part of the general pantheon of heroes of the national culture. A possible explanation for almost complete absence of monuments to historians, philologists, and philosophers in monumental
sculpture may be due to the substitution of their role by monuments to writers and poets erected in large numbers both in Soviet Leningrad and in modern St. Petersburg.

Keywords:

monumental sculpture, historical memory, scientists, St. Petersburg, M. V. Lomonosov, I. P. Pavlov