Catherine Park / Ekaterininsky Park, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 196601
The Kagul (Rumyantsev) Obelisk is a monument in the Catherine Park of Tsarskoye Selo. It was erected in honor of the victory of Russian troops under the command of Count Pyotr Rumyantsev over the Turks in the Battle of Kagul on July 21 (August 1), 1770, during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774. It is a simple marble obelisk with a bronze plaque containing a commemorative inscription. It was constructed near the Grand Catherine Palace according to a design by the Italian architect Antonio Rinaldi in 1771–1772. Its total height, including the pedestal, was 5 sazhen (about 10.7 meters).
The monument is one of a series of military memorials in Catherine Park, created in the 1770s and associated with the Russo-Turkish War. It is a cultural heritage site of federal significance in Russia, categorized as a monument of urban planning and architecture.
On July 21 (August 1), 1770, during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, the Battle of Kagul took place, in which Rumyantsev’s Russian army defeated the vastly superior Turkish forces. In 1771–1772, an obelisk was erected in Catherine Park of Tsarskoye Selo to commemorate this military triumph. Much later, in the 19th century, another monument to the battle was built on the actual battlefield (in the south of modern Moldova). Another obelisk honoring Rumyantsev’s military merits was later erected in Saint Petersburg — the Rumyantsev Obelisk, now standing on Rumyantsev Square.
The monument appeared in Catherine Park during the period when the landscape section between Podkaprizovaya Road and Ramp Alley was being developed by architect Neelov and gardener Bush. The gentle slope of the hill south of the Grand Catherine Palace was decided to be left open, placing the monument in the center of a wide green meadow rising along the hill’s slope. This meadow, arranged in 1771, was called the Large or Great English Meadow and stretched over 200 meters with paths along its sides. In 1830, Yakovkin wrote in his guidebook to Tsarskoye Selo that approaching the obelisk standing in the middle of the meadow was forbidden “so as not to trample the turf.”
At the time the monument was installed, the main entrance to the palace was located on the south side, as the Parade Staircase was situated in that part of the palace until 1780. Positioned near the entrance, the Kagul Obelisk thus gained special significance among the symbolic objects of the imperial residence. Between 1779 and 1785, after the Parade Staircase was moved to the center of the building, the so-called Zubov Wing (named after Catherine II’s favorite Zubov) was added to the south side of the Catherine Palace. From that moment, the monument was located in the part of the park directly adjacent to Catherine’s private chambers on the second floor of the Zubov Wing. From the wing’s windows, both the Kagul Obelisk and the Upper Ponds laid out behind the Great Meadow with their free-form banks and winding connecting canals were clearly visible. This created the illusion of a naturally flowing river, possibly a reference to the Kagul River. This view was one of the most spectacular perspectives of the park’s landscape section in the second half of the 18th century.
Empress Catherine wrote to Voltaire in August 1771: “If this war continues, my Tsarskoye Selo garden will look like a toy — after every glorious military deed a fitting monument is erected in it. The Battle of Kagul, where 17 thousand warriors defeated 150 thousand, revived in it an Obelisk with an inscription that only records the event and the commander’s name.”
A copy of the Kagul Obelisk, made in St. Petersburg by order of Catherine II, was gifted to Count Sheremetev, who received the Empress in Moscow in 1785 during celebrations marking the tenth anniversary of the Küçük Kaynarca Peace Treaty of 1774, which ended the war with the Turks. This obelisk was a gift marking the end of the Count’s term as elected leader of the nobility of Moscow Province and was installed at his suburban estate Kuskovo in 1786.
In 1855, the part of the Great Meadow adjacent to the Catherine Palace was closed to the public. The following year, it was fenced with a low cast-iron railing with three gates designed by Vidov, creating the so-called Private Garden intended for members of the royal family and their close associates. At that time, the personal rooms of Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna were located in the Zubov Wing, which opened onto the garden. In 1865, Vidov prepared a layout plan for the Private Garden by imperial order. During its implementation in 1866, an open veranda “in the Italian style” — a pergola made of Bremen sandstone at the Peterhof grinding factory — was built to enclose the garden. It blocked the view from the palace to the Kagul Obelisk and the green meadow behind it, visually dividing the Great Meadow into two parts. Thus, the obelisk’s role as a local dominant feature of the park in front of the Zubov Wing was diminished, and one of the best perspectives of the landscape park in Tsarskoye Selo was lost. The Kagul Obelisk is located west of the Cameron Gallery Ramp, near the western boundary of the Private Garden. In the group of trees bordering the Great Meadow on the other side, near the Upper Ponds, stands the Lansky Monument. It is aligned on the same axis as the obelisk. The obelisk stands in the center of a small square surrounded by round granite posts connected by metal chains.
The monument is designed in the Neoclassical style. It rests on a three-step stylobate. On the base stands a pedestal — square in plan, with rectangular panels on all four sides and a profiled cornice at the top. On the panel on the north side of the obelisk, facing the Zubov Wing of the palace, there is a bronze plaque with the following inscription:
“In memory of the victory at the river Kagul in Moldavia on July 21, 1770, under the leadership of General Count Pyotr Rumyantsev, the Russian army numbering seventeen thousand routed the Turkish vizier Halil Bey’s forces of one hundred and fifty thousand to the banks of the Danube.”
The narrow four-sided needle-shaped top of the obelisk stands on a high stepped plinth, which serves as a kind of transition from the pedestal to the obelisk’s shaft. In the middle part, the plinth has a “muff” of stone of a different color fitted onto it. The decoration of the “muff” on all four sides imitates quoins with long longitudinal “diamond rustication.”
V. L. Borovikovsky. “Catherine II on a Walk in the Tsarskoye Selo Park” (with the Kagul Obelisk in the background). 1800–1810s, State Russian Museum
In a letter to Voltaire, Catherine II wrote about the Tsarskoye Selo military memorials: “All of this is made from the finest marbles, which even the Italians marvel at. They are sourced from the shores of Lake Ladoga and from the Siberian city of Yekaterinburg.”
The Kagul Obelisk is also mentioned in two poems by A. S. Pushkin — “Memories in Tsarskoye Selo” and “Elegy.”
Memories in Tsarskoye Selo
In the shade of dense gloomy pines
A simple monument arose.
Oh, how disgraceful you are, Kagul shore!
And glorious to the dear homeland!
Pushkin, 1814
Elegy
Enraptured by memories,
With reverence and longing
I embrace your stern marble,
The proud monument of Kagul.
Pushkin, 1819
There are no allegorical decorations — military trophies or war attributes — in the monument’s design. The memorial significance of the monument is conveyed solely by the text of the inscription on its pedestal. The desired effect for the viewer is achieved through the beauty of the silhouette, well-chosen proportions, and a successful color scheme involving the use of marble of different colors. The Kagul Obelisk is described by various authors as slender, light, austere, ascetic, and majestic.
After the Great Patriotic War, the Kagul Obelisk, along with the Morea Column, was among the first objects in Catherine Park to be restored. Its restoration was completed in 1949, marking the 150th anniversary of Pushkin’s birth.
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