Monument to Minin and Pozharsky
| Па́мятник Ми́нину и Пожа́рскому | |
Pozharsky (sitting) and Minin (standing) monument in Moscow
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| Coordinates | 55°45′10″N 37°37′21″E / 55.752778°N 37.6225°ECoordinates: 55°45′10″N 37°37′21″E / 55.752778°N 37.6225°E |
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| Location | Red Square, Moscow, Russia |
| Designer | Ivan Martos |
| Material | bronze |
| Beginning date | 1816 |
| Completion date | 1818 |
The Monument to Minin and Pozharsky (Russian: Па́мятник Ми́нину и Пожа́рскому) is a bronze statue on Red Square in Moscow, Russia, in front of Saint Basil's Cathedral. The statue commemorates Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin, who gathered an all-Russian volunteer army and expelled the forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the command of King Sigismund III of Poland from Moscow, thus putting an end to the Time of Troubles in 1612.
The monument was conceived by the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Science, and the Arts to commemorate the 200th anniversary of those events. Construction was funded by public conscription in Nizhny Novgorod, the city from where Minin and Pozharsky came to save Moscow. Tsar Alexander I, however, decided the monument should be installed on Red Square next to the Moscow Kremlin rather than in Nizhny Novgorod. The competition for the best design was won by the celebrated sculptor Ivan Martos in 1808. Martos completed a model, which was approved by Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and the Russian Academy of Fine Arts in 1813. Casting work using 1100 lbs of copper was carried out in 1816 in St Petersburg. The base, made of three massive blocks of granite from Finland, was also carved at St Petersburg. Moving the statue and base to Moscow presented logistical challenges and was accomplished in winter by using the frozen waterways. However, in the wake of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, the monument could not be unveiled until 1818.
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