Moscow's Victory Park: <em>A Monumental Change</em>
2001; Indiana University Press; Volume: 13; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2979/his.2001.13.2.5
ISSN1527-1994
Autores Tópico(s)Ecology, Conservation, and Geographical Studies
ResumoArriving in Moscow from the west, following in the footsteps of the Poles in the seventeenth century, Napoleon in 1812 and the Germans in the summer of 1941, one is confronted by the capital's "Park pobedy" (Victory Park). On entering Kutuzov Avenue, only the dark cupola of the War Museum, topped by a spear-like needle, can be seen (figure 1). In ancient times, though, the westward highway from the capital passed over that site, and travelers entering the city or leaving it would stop on Poklonnaia gora (Prostration Hill), turning toward the city and bowing down in reverence to Holy Moscow and its saints. Russia projects onto this place the memory of its fateful moments in a succession of Western assaults. It was there, on this hill, that in May 1610 the hetman Stanislas Zolkiewskii received a delegation of the Muscovite boyars before entering the Kremlin to crown Dmitrii the False--soon to be expelled by a popular uprising. After the indecisive battle of Borodino (26 August 1812), 1 the Grande Armée advanced as far as the outskirts of the Russian capital. There, from Poklonnaia gora, Napoleon saw the city for the first time, and "fell in love with her," "waiting in vain for a delegation to hand him the keys to the city." Not far away the decision had been taken to reject the French offer of surrender, evacuate Moscow instead and continue the struggle that eventually brought victory. 2
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