Bohdan Khmelnytsky Monument, Kyiv

The Bohdan Khmelnytsky Monument (Ukrainian: Пам'ятник Богданові Хмельницькому) is a monument in Kyiv dedicated to the Hetman of Zaporizhian Host Bohdan Khmelnytsky built in 1888. It is one of the oldest sculptural monuments, a dominating feature of Sophia Square and one of the city's symbols.

Monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky
Пам'ятник Богданові Хмельницькому
Coordinates50°27′13″N 30°30′59″E
LocationSophia Square, Kyiv, Ukraine
DesignerMikhail Mikeshin (statue), Vladimir Nikolaev (pedestal)
TypeEquestrian statue
Materialbronze (statue), granite (pedestal)
Completion date1888
Dedicated toBohdan Khmelnytsky
Installation of the monument in 1888 and the Church of the Tithes right behind the prospective view
Side view with the right hand extended towards the "High City" center holding bulawa

The monument is located almost in the middle of the Sophia Square (formerly the main city's square) on the axis that unites both belltowers of the Sophia Cathedral and the St.Michael's Monastery.

Here on 23 December 1648 residents of Kyiv met Khmelnytsky leading his Cossacks' regiments by entering the city through the Golden Gates soon after the victory over Polish Army at the battle of Pyliavtsi.

History

History of creating the monument appeared in public on initiative of a historian and professor of the Kyiv University Nikolay Kostomarov in 1840s. The assistant director of the Kyiv School District Mikhail Yuzefovich supported that idea and originally wanted to establish the monument for the 200th anniversary of the Council of Pereyaslav.[1] The monument was supposed to be installed at the Bessarabian Square, for which the square carried the name of Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1869-1881. However, the construction was postponed due to the Crimean War.[1] After receiving permission from the Tsar government in 1860 on establishment of the monument there was created a committee headed by Mikhail Yuzefovich, a professor of the St.Vladimir Imperial University, the head of the Kyiv Archaeography Commission, theorist of the Omni-State movement in Ukraine and the famous Ukrainophobe. As result, the initial draft of the monument created by Mikhail Mikeshin was outright chauvinistic – the Khmelnytsky's horse was dropping a Polish szlachcic, Jewish leaseholder, and Jesuit from a cliff, in front of which a Little Russian, Red Russian, White Russian, and Great Russian were listening to the song of a blind kobzar. Basrelief of the pedestal was showing images of the Siege of Zbarazh, the Council of Pereyaslav, and the scene of entering Kyiv by the Khmelnytsky's Cossack Host.

In 1863 the establishment of the monument was postponed again due to the 1863 January Uprising.[1] In 1868 Mikeshin who already was creating Khmelnytsky for the monument to the Millennium of Russia in Novgorod was offered to create a draft for the Kyiv's monument.[1] In 1869 the draft was approved and in 1870 on the Russian subscription there started fundraising for the monument. However, the committee decided to cut the budget, due to the fact that the collected sum was small (only 37,000 rubles) as well as the monument was recognized as anti-Polish and anti-Semitic by the Kyiv Governor-General Prince Aleksandr Dondukov-Korsakov, leaving only the central figure of the Hetman.

In 1877 there was created a gypsum model of the monument. In 1879 at the Saint Petersburg Baird Works was cast a statue that was materialized in metal on a Mikeshin's draft by Pius Weloński and Artemiy Ober and for which the Naval department donated 1,600 poodi (25.6 t) of scrap metal. Portrait features and details of the Khmelnytsky's clothes were recreated on consultations of Volodymyr Antonovych.

In 1879 the statue was brought to Kyiv, however due to lack of funding for the construction of the pedestal, the works on installation of it were ceased until the mid 1880s and the statue for several years was being holdover in the courtyard of the Kyiv Government Office Building (дом Присутственных мест). The city architect Vladimir Nikolayev designed a simpler pedestal and supervised its construction as well as the installation of the monument. The Kyiv Fortress administration donated for the pedestal granite blocks that were left after the construction of the Nicholas Chain Bridge over Dnieper. On 23 June 1888[2] there took place a grand opening and consecration of the monument.

Since 2001 the object is included in State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine as the monument of national importance.

  • Initial draft, 1869
  • Installation of the monument in 1888
  • The 19th century picture
  • Up close, 2017
  • Monument in front of the Hyatt hotel
  • in the beginning of the 20th century
  • View of the monument on the Sophia Square (Sofiiska Ploshcha), behind it the "Prisutstvinyie mesta" building

See also

References
  1. Tsalyk, S. The monument to Khmelnytsky should have been standing on the Bessarabian Square (Пам"ятник Хмельницькому мав стояти на Бессарабці). Gazeta.ua. 19 June 2008.
  2. Памятник Богдану Хмельницкому (Исторический очерк его сооружения) // Киевская старина. -1888. - №7. (Monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsiy (Historical outline of its construction)//Kievskaya starina magazine. 1888. N 7.)
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