Historian, museum specialist, and scholar of the imperial residences and issues of historical memory Pavel Kotlyar gave a lecture at Manege on May 5.

Hundreds of world-class sculptures decorate the parks of the famous St. Petersburg suburbs – Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo, Pavlovsk, Gatchina, and Oranienbaum. Antiquity’s gods and heroes stand side by side with memorial figures of members of the royal family and those close to them. The lecture “Memorial sculpture in the imperial residences” delved into this understudied category of statues at the imperial residences. How can we systematise the memorial busts, obelisks, and benches erected in these suburbs in honour of the Romanovs? How does a sculpture made as a sign of familial memory acquire (or lose) over time a wider memorial significance?

The “main characters” in this lecture were: the bust of Grand Prince Nikolay Aleksandrovich from Tsarskoye Selo that is featured in the exhibition, Anatolsky’s image of Peter the Great that stands in the Lower Park at Peterhof, and Auguste Dumont’s lost depiction of Francis I, whose pedestal continues to be used for great individuals.