In June 1788, the Swedish King Gustav III started a war with Russia, violating the constitution that allowed him to use armed forces only for the defense of the state. Meanwhile, since 1787, Russia had been engaged in military actions against Turkey, which could not come to terms with the loss of Crimea. To increase the number of troops, extraordinary measures were taken concerning state peasants. They were offered voluntary enlistment in military service on preferential terms, without any oppression. A personal decree was also read out in the Fishing Settlement. Forty volunteers responded, that is, every fifth man.
Catherine II sought to immortalize the end of the Russo-Swedish war as well as other military-political achievements of her reign. A diary entry by State Secretary Khrapovitsky records the Empress’s desire to establish “a pillar with a laudatory inscription for the Fishing Settlement, for the voluntary provision of men in the current Swedish war, and similar ones for other villages of the Tsarskoye Selo department,” architect Rinaldi.
In 1791, a granite obelisk with a commemorative cast-iron plaque bearing a gilded inscription was unveiled, “probably containing much wisdom and dignity; for it was composed, as is heard, by Catherine herself,” recalls Svinin in 1822, by which time the inscription was no longer legible.
In 1838, surveyor Zaitsev was ordered “to take drawings of the granite pillar located in the village of Rybatskoye and the inscription on it, indicating in which part of the village this pillar exists.” From the report submitted after the task was completed, it is known that there were no inscriptions, “they do not exist, and the list is with the rural clerk of the village of Rybatskaya Sloboda, who, having given me a copy, announced that the previously existing gilded copper letters on these pillars were removed for repair by order of the local authorities.”
The plaque reappeared on the pedestal during the first restoration of the obelisk in 1889. In the same year, Pylyaev’s book was published, where he recorded the renewed gilded inscription on the cast-iron plate: “Erected by the order of the most pious autocratic Empress Catherine the Second in memory of the zeal of the peasants of the Fishing Settlement, who voluntarily enlisted four-fifths of the men for the service of Her Majesty and the Fatherland during the Swedish war of 1789. June 15th.”
In 1917, all the metal parts of the obelisk were removed, and their fate is unknown. The cast-iron plate was recreated during the second restoration of the monument in 1954, but it soon disappeared again. For many years, the monument remained without a commemorative inscription.
For the 200th anniversary of the obelisk’s unveiling, on the initiative of the Nevsky District organization of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, a marble plaque was installed. Over its history, the marble plaque has been restored several times. After each restoration, the text of the inscription was edited to some extent.
Sources:
Natalya Podvintseva, Obelisk in Rybatskoye
https://vk.com/@nevzastava-obelisk-v-rybackom
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Обелиск_в_Рыбацком
