The Burning of Moscow

by Alexander Mikaberidze

  That same day the emperor also signed a decree dismissing Rostopchin from his post as governor of Moscow. By then, Russian public opinion, especially in Moscow, had begun to look for explanations for what had transpired in Moscow and soon found its scapegoat in the governor. After all, it was Rostopchin who had assured everyone that Moscow would not be abandoned, and ridiculed those who chose to leave the city; many now held him solely responsible for the fire. In the face of public anger and mistrust, Rostopchin tried to find support in St Petersburg, but society turned away from him. ‘It is difficult to get used to the fact that you are well treated when you are needed and cast aside and called a wild beast when the danger has passed,’ he lamented in November 1812.144 After his dismissal from the governorship, Rostopchin became a member of the State Council, a largely honorary function that gave him plenty of free time to tend to his family and pursue other interests.145 ‘I wash my hands of Moscow and everything else,’ he told his wife in the wake of his discharge.146 In the autumn of 1814 Rostopchin decided to travel abroad to improve his health and was surprised by his enthusiastic reception in the salons of Berlin, Paris and London, where he was hailed as a hero and as a man who had contributed to the fall of the despised Corsican ogre. He stayed abroad for almost a decade, returning home only in 1823. Settling back in his estate in Moscow, he watched cheerfully as the city rose from the ashes. The death of his beloved daughter Elizabeth in March 1825 had a profound impact on him, and his already weakened health never recovered from this blow. He died on 30 January 1826 and was buried at the Pyatnitskoe cemetery.

  Rising From the Ashes

  The Russian campaign had disastrous consequences for Napoleon. The loss of up to half a million men in Russia shattered his military might. The French cavalry was virtually wiped out and never fully recovered during the subsequent campaigns in 1813–1814. More importantly, Austria and Prussia exploited the moment to break their alliance with France and turned their efforts to destroying the French empire, which was accomplished in 1815. The war, of course, had important effects on Russia. The Russian army became the main force in the subsequent struggle for Germany, adding tremendous clout to Russia in European affairs so that by 1815 Emperor Alexander had become one of the arbiters of European affairs. The war also deeply influenced cultural and social life in Russia. It launched a period of national self-definition when the century-long identity crisis since Peter the Great began to resolve into a sense of Russia’s place and purpose in the world.

  For Moscow, the war meant a disaster of unparalleled severity, as no European city of comparable size had suffered such devastation in generations before or after the event. Yet, the calamitous conflagration in 1812 precipitated a momentous urban rebuilding programme that turned Moscow into one of Europe’s foremost classical cities. During the half-century before 1812 Russia had been actively adopting the new classical architectural style as the newly emancipated nobility embarked on extensive constructions of estate houses in town and country. These new constructions reflected the growing sense of the ‘golden age of the nobility, and the government’s own planning enterprises only further underscored this appreciation of the new style. The rebuilding of St Petersburg with its grandiose ensembles is quite well known but Catherine II, the mastermind behind many of these efforts, also sought to rebuilt Moscow, which by the time of her accession still retained its medieval character. Catherine had a distaste for the city147 and was keen on changing it. By 1775 the Commission for Building of St Petersburg and Moscow had developed a plan of rebuilding for Moscow which Catherine supported and sought to carry out. As discussed in chapter 2, this Project Plan of 1775148 was the most important of numerous plans for Moscow developed in the late eighteenth century. It intended to revitalize the city by razing numerous buildings to make way for the construction of vast squares and public buildings. In the Belyi Gorod alone, the plan called for the demolition of ancient fortifications and densely packed housing and their replacement with a semicircular chain of squares embracing the Kremlin and Kitai-gorod. New canals would revitalize smaller rivers, such the Neglinnaya, which served largely as rubbish dumps, by pumping more water through them, improving their appearance and enhancing the buildings and squares built along their banks. The 1775 Plan was only partly implemented in the 1780s and early 1790s but, despite its shortcomings, it still had a profound impact on the central parts of the city. The Soviet historian S. Zombe described it as ‘one of the most interesting examples’ of municipal planning, and remarked that it was outstanding for ‘its great comprehension of realistic ideas over abstractions’. Indeed, as the result of these rebuilding efforts an ordered and classical central Moscow had emerged in the midst of the ancient, and rather dilapidated, city on the eve of 1812. The great radial thoroughfares – the Prechistenka, Great Nikitskaya and Tverskaya – cutting through the city were a good example of the dichotomy between old and new.

  The Great Fire of 1812 was a turning-point in Moscow’s history. The fiery destruction of almost the entire city offered a remarkable opportunity for the city to be rebuilt in a better and grander style. To the Russian authorities there were three aspects to the restoration. First, housing had to be provided for the returning residents. At the same time a long-term plan for the new city had to be developed and implemented. Finally, this rebuilding had to incorporate monumental architecture to fulfil the new aesthetic objectives that Russia had embraced in the wake of its triumph over Napoleon. In May 1813 the Moscow Building Commission (Komissiya dlya stroeniya v Moskve) was established to supervise this mammoth undertaking.

  Emperor Alexander selected the Scottish architect and planner William Hastie, who had already earned fame for his constructions in St Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo, to lead the drafting of a plan for the new Moscow.149 For Hastie, the fire offered opportunities unimagined by Moscow’s architects before. He adopted the 1775 Plan as the basis of his own vision of the new Moscow but made several important revisions to it. Hastie’s 1813 Plan focused on the districts surrounding the Kremlin that were almost completely gutted in the fire. He envisioned eliminating the trading stalls opposite the Kremlin, removing the earthen bastions of the Kitai-gorod and widening Red Square. In the Belyi Gorod Hastie adopted the earlier idea of a series of squares around Moscow’s centre but also intended to build new radial thoroughfares. In the Zemlyanoi Gorod he called for the demolition of the remaining old structures and the elimination of the ancient crooked alleys and the construction in their place of linear streets and radial highways, with eleven major squares dispersed throughout the suburbs. Although Alexander liked the boldness of Hastie’s vision, the plan met with strong objections from the building commission, which complained that it took little account of the natural or man-made environment, and many of his suggestions indicated rather a decorative than utilitarian purpose. The new plan, with its vast demolitions and constructions, also would have been excessively costly. The commission’s detailed critique and its own suggestions for Moscow’s development were delivered to St Petersburg in early 1814 when the Russian army, together with Emperor Alexander, was still fighting abroad. So it was not until 1816 that the new plan, which the commission continuously revised, was reviewed. At last the ‘Project Plan for the Capital City of Moscow’ was approved on 19 December 1817 and this served as the basis for restoring and renovating the city. The new plan downscaled Hastie’s earlier proposals by eliminating the most dramatic proposals and focusing more on Moscow’s immediate needs, but adhering to the city’s natural and historic contours. It divided the city into four construction zones, each including several city districts, with each zone directed by a carefully chosen architect and his staff. A number of brick factories were placed at the commission’s disposal and military labour battalions committed to assist the construction. One of the important elements in the plan was the construction of masonry dwellings that would both provide better accommodation and embrace the aesthetics of the classical style. The so-called ‘model façade’ program
me involved developing design standards to which all new constructions had to adhere.

  The reconstruction of central Moscow brought forth a new generation of talented architects, including Joseph (Osip) Bove, Domenico (Dementii) Giliardi and Afanasii Grigoriev, whose architectural visions transformed much of the city. Their work resulted in the removal of hundreds of trading stalls and the defence bastions of Peter I in the Kitai-gorod, while a number of streets were widened and de-cluttered. Bove was particularly instrumental in transforming Red Square into Moscow’s most iconic sight: he filled in the Kremlin moat, demolished shops and constructed a new set of buildings in the classical style. In 1818 a bronze statue of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin, who had played a prominent role in rallying Russian forces against the Poles during the Time of Troubles in the seventeenth century, was erected in front of St Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square, symbolising the rise of patriotic consciousness during Russia’s recent struggles as well. In the rest of the city numerous masonry and wooden houses were erected, all conforming to the ‘façade model’ guidelines, causing one British traveller to observe that ‘there is something captivating in this display of Grecian and Palladian architecture intermingled among the old national structures’.150 Most of Moscow’s smaller rivers, including the Neglinnaya, were converted into underground channels. The Moscow river embankment was further improved in an effort to both exercise flood control and impose a new classical aesthetic. Along the Kremlin’s west wall Bove created the 20-acre Alexander Gardens, which some visitors described as a ‘magnificent ornament and an elegant promenade’.151 The 1820s and 1830s saw the construction of the Boulevard and Garden (sadovoe) rings – derived from Moscow’s historic encompassing ramparts – which became delightful garden areas with both modest and elegant dwellings. The city’s aesthetics further benefited from the appearance of spacious squares at the intersections of major boulevards and radial streets. Work on Theatre Square was completed between 1817 and 1819, resulting in the creation of another of Moscow’s iconic public squares, further embellished by the monumental edifice of the renowned Bolshoi Theatre, completed in 1825.

  With the enemy defeated and expelled, many Muscovites embraced the sense of greater destiny that Heaven itself had chosen for Moscow. One of them proudly shared his feelings with a friend:

  We are experiencing divine miracles that, one may say, Moscow has long been destined for. How many times did it burn? How many times has it been in the hands of the most fierce enemies? And yet there exists no power that can destroy Moscow, the city most beloved by Heaven, and nothing can extinguish the love that the Muscovites feel towards their beloved and ancient mother-city. Not even a Hades with millions of Napoleons is capable of accomplishing this. Just recently destroyed and devastated, Moscow is already the best city in Russia … Thousands of axes are at work and buildings are built; devastated alleyways are once again rebuilt and streets are once more jammed with transports full of timber and building material. Numerous people are all around and one can hardly move about … May dim-witted Europe see who she is dealing with!152

  Notes

  Preface

  1. Joseph Fiévée to Napoleon, October 1812, Correspondance et Relations de J. Fiévée avec Bonaparte (Paris, 1836), III, 239.

  2. ‘Proritsatel Abel,’ in Russkii arkhiv 7 (1878), 353–365; ‘Predskazatel monakh Abel,’ in Russkaya starina (1875), 414–435; N.P. Rozanov, ‘Predskazatel monakh Abel,’ in Russkaya starina (1875), 815–819; L.N. Engelhardt, Zapiski (Moscow, 1867), 218.

  3. A. Villemain, Souvenirs contemporains d’Histoire et de Littérature (Paris, 1854), I, 175–180.

  4. On the eve of the war, the head of the French intelligence in the Duchy of Warsaw, discussing massive preparations for the war with Russia, wondered ‘what would be a worthy reward for such a vast undertaking? What goal is sufficiently grandiose to justify these preparations?’ For him, the answer was clear – the impending war with Russia ultimately aimed at India, for Russia would ‘have to join, willingly or on the basis of the laws of victors, the greatest undertaking that would change the history of the world’. Many Russian participants, including Denis Davydov, Peter Chuikevich, Alexander Bulgakov and Pavel Grabbe, shared such beliefs, which were seemingly confirmed when, in 1813, the Russian police arrested French spies as far as Astrakhan, carrying draft map drawings of eastern Russian provinces that lay on routes to India. For an insightful discussion, see V. Bezotosnyi, Razvedka i plany storon v 1812 godu (Moscow, 2005), 80–85.

  5. Buturlin, I, 306.

  6. Barry Edward O’Meara, Napoleon at St Helena (New York, 1889), I, 177–178.

  7. Mitarevskii, 88.

  8. Méneval, III, 67–68.

  9. Marchal to curé Thugnet, 25 September 1812, in Lettres interceptées par les Russes durant la campagne de 1812, 34; Peyrusse, Mémorial, 102–103.

  10. For just a few examples of letters see Joseph Ficher to Roch, 25 September 1812; Baron Jean-Louis Charrière to Tostch, 27 September 1812; Corneille-Gérard-Iman Van Boecop to his father, 27 September 1812, in Lettres interceptées par les Russes durant la campagne de 1812, 36–37, 49.

  11. Castellane, I, 154–155.

  12. Paradis to Geneviève Bonnegrace, 20 September 1812; Pierre Besnard to his wife, 23 September 1812, in Lettres interceptées par les Russes durant la campagne de 1812, 22, 30.

  13. Barries to his wife, 24 September in Ibid., 33.

  14. Grandeau d’Abeacourt to Baron Joseph-Francois Noos, 27 September 1812, in Ibid., 39. On the other hand, there were also a number of Grande Armée troops who disagreed with the majority. Brandt, thus, noted that he did not ‘hear the shots supposed, by many writers, to have been signals to the incendiaries to start fires’. Regarding the explosions that occurred on 14–15 September, he believed that ‘there was no question of these explosions being anything other than accidents. They were in the wrong part of the city and the smoke was white, which is certainly not the case when houses are on fire.’ Brandt, 229.

  15. Labaume’s Relation Circonstanciés de la Campagne de Russie, initially published in 1814, proved very popular in Europe. Within three years, it was released in multiple editions in French, Italian, German and Spanish. Chambray’s two-volume Histoire de l’Expédition de Russie remains one of the most important early works on the Russian Campaign and it exercised great influence on subsequent French historiography of this subject.

  16. Zemtsov, 96.

  17. Caroline Pavlova, Vospominaniya, in Russkhi arkhiv 10 (1875), 224.

  18. Rostopchin to Semen Vorontsov, 10 May 1813, in Russkii arkhiv 6 (1908), 274.

  19. Sverbeev, I, 79.

  20. Alexey Merzlyakov to Fedor Velyaminov-Zernov, 26 March 1813 in Russkii arkhiv 1 (1865), 112–113.

  21. Emperor Alexander to Crown Prince Karl Johan (Bernadotte) of Sweden, 1 October 1812, in Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii (1843), II, 395–396.

  22. ‘Iz pravitelstvennogo soobsheniya o prebyvanii v Moskve Napoleonovskikh voisk’, 29 October 1812, in M.I. Kutuzov: Sbornik Dokumentov, IV, part 2, 149–152.

  23. Moskovskie vedomosti, 23 November 1812.

  24. Iz pravitelstvennogo soobsheniya o prebyvanii v Moskve Napoleonovskikh voisk, in M.I. Kutuzov: Sbornik Dokumentov, IV, part 2, 150.

  25. Vorontsov to Rostopchin, 19 June 1814, Russkii arkhiv (1872), 2188.

  26. Joseph de Maistre to King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia, 14 June 1813, in Russkii arkhiv 1 (1912), 48.

  27. Runich, 604–605.

  28. For example see Dmitri Sverbeev, ‘O Moskovskikh pozharakh’ in Vestnik evropy 11 (1872), 427–449.

  29. Sergei Glinka, Zapiski o Moskve (St Petersburg, 1837), 65–66.

  30. Tolstoy, War and Peace, 963–964.

  31. Dmitri Buturlin, Istoriya nashestviya imperatora Napoleona na Rossiyu v 1812 godu (St Petersburg, 1837) I, 305. Nikolai Okunev’s classic analysis of the Russian Campaign concurred with Buturlin in assigning responsibility to the Russians. Nikolai Okunev, Razsuzhdenie o bolshikh voennykh deistvi
yakh, bitvakh i srazheniyakh proiskhodivshikh pri vtrozhenii v Rossiyu v 1812 godu (St Petersburg, 1833), 198–200. The book was originally published in French in 1829.

  32. Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii (1843), II, 363–379. For an insightful critique of Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii’s account see I. Liprandi, Russkie ili Frantsuzy zazhgli Moskvu? (St Petersburg, 1855).

  33. Modest Bogdanovich, Istoriya voiny 1812 goda po dostovernym istochnikam (St Petersburg, 1859), II, 314–318.

  34. For example, S. Melgunov, ‘Kho szheg Moskvu?’ in Otechestvennaya voina i Russkoe Obschestvo (St Petersburg, 1911), IV, 162–171; Hans Schmidt, Vinovniki pozhara Moskvy v 1812 godu (Riga, 1912).

  35. A. Smirnov, ‘Evolutsiya vzglyadov otechestvennykh istorikov na prichiny pozhara Moskvy v 1812 g.: analiticheskii obzor,’ in Moskva v 1812 godu: Materialy nauchnoi konferentsii (Moscow, 1997), 20.