Презентация The History of the Tomb of the Unkniwn Soldier

The memorial "The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" is dedicated to the Soviet soldiers killed during World War II. It is located at the Kremlin Wall in the Alexander Garden. The composition represents a dark red porphyry monument decorated with a bronze sculpture of a laurel branch and a soldier's helmet laid upon a banner.

In front of the monument, there is a five-pointed star in a square field of labradorite, which emanates the Eternal Flame from its centre. The flame illuminates a bronze inscription «Имя твое неизвестно, подвиг твой бессмертен» -"Your name is unknown, your deed is immortal".

To the left of the tomb there is a crimson quartzite wall with an inlay stating, "1941 - To Those Who Have Fallen for the Motherland - 1945". To the right of the tomb, lining the walkway there are dark red porphyry blocks with incapsulated soils from hero cities, Leningrad, Kiev, Stalingrad, Odessa, Sevastopol, Minsk, Kerch, Novorossiysk, Tula, Brest, Murmansk, Smolensk. The plate for "Stalingrad" read "Volgograd" up until September 2004. Further to the right of these monuments there is an obelisk in red granite, listing the names of 40 "Cities of Military Glory" divided into groups of four. This monument was opened on May 8, 2010.

The history of this memorial is very interesting. The Soviet people started to celebrate the Victory in the Great Patriotic War on a large scale only in 1965 when Moscow got the rank of a hero city and May 9 became a national holiday. In December 1966 it was decided to celebrate triumphantly the 25^th anniversary of crushing defeat of German troops near Moscow. It was the first secretary of the Moscow party committee Nikolay Egorychev who came up with the idea to erect a monument to soldiers who fought and died in the battles near Moscow. But he was sure that this monument shouldn't be of a local significance but of a nation-wide importance. And only the monument to the Unknown Soldier could be the very monument the country needed.

Despite an evident rightness of the idea the project wasn't realized immediately. The head of the Soviet Union L. Brezhnev didn't approve Alexander Garden as the place of erection.

Nikolay Egorychev insisted on choosing the place for the memorial in Alexander Garden near the Kremlin Wall. It was a neglected place with a stunted lawn. The wall itself demanded the restoration. But the greatest obstacle was the fact that on the very spot where the Eternal Flame is burning now there was an obelisk dedicated to the 300^th anniversary of the Romanovs' House. The obelisk was erected in 1913. After the revolution by Lenin's initiative the names of the reining dynasty were scraped away and the names of revolutionary activists were carved.

Nikolay Egorychev proposed the architects to remove the obelisk to the right side where the grotto is. He appealed to the common sense of the Сhief Architect of Moscow Gennadiy Fomin to act without any permission of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party.

And yet, before starting the construction work it was necessary to get the approval of the Political Bureau members. N. Egorychev asked G. Fomin to prepare all the models concerning the project and exhibit them in the resting room of the Palace of Congresses. On November 6, 1966 when a celebratory meeting dedicated to the 49^th anniversary of the Great October Socialst Revolution was over, Egorychev asked the Political Bureau members to come into the resting room and have a look at the models. Egorychev told them about a future memorial. When asked about their opinions, they all answered that it was a great idea. The General Secretary of the Communist Party Leonid Brezhnev had nothing to do but agree.

It was also a problem who was to be buried near the Kremlin wall and where to find the remains. If it turned out to be a deserter…? Or a fascist? Those days in Zelinograd during the construction work a communal grave of the wartime was discovered and it was decided to choose the remains of a killed soldier just right from this grave. The choice fell upon the soldier in a well-preserved uniform without any commander's decorations. Wartime connoisseurs asserted that if the soldier had been a deserter, he wouldn't have worn a strap. This soldier may not have been captured because the German troops hadn't reached this place. The soldier had no documents with him - so his remains were truly unknown.

The monument was designed by the architects D. Burdin, V. Klimov, Yu. Rabaev and the sculptor N. Tomsky.

The military men worked out a solemn ritual for holding the procedure of burying. On the gun-carriage the remains of the unknown soldier were delivered to Moscow from Zelinograd, the 41^st kilometre of Leningrad highway on December 3, 1966.

On May 7, 1967 the torch for the memorial's Eternal Flame was transported from Leningrad, where it had been lit from the Eternal Flame in the Field of Mars. It was said that along all the way from Leningrad to Moscow there stood a live corridor - people wanted to see what was sacred to them.

In the early morning, on May 8 1967, all the streets along which the procession was moving towards Manezhnaya Square were crowded with people. Men were crying, old women were crossing the procession.

In Manezhnaya Square a legendary pilot, the Hero of the Soviet Union Alexey Maresyev received the torch. The party bosses and the Marshal Rokossovsky passed the last few metres to the place of the memorial carrying the coffin with the remains. It is noticeable that the Marshal Zhukov was not honoured to take part in the mourning procession. He was in disgrace.

On May, 8 1967 the memorial "The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" was opened. The Eternal Flame was lit on the tomb by L. Brezhnev who took the torch from the hands of the Hero of the Soviet Union A. Maresyev.

Since then every year on May 9, a lot of people come to the Eternal Flame. Everybody knows the lines on a granite tombstone. But who was the author of these lines? When the idea of the memorial was approved, Nikolay Egorychev asked the venerable poets - Sergey Mikhalkov, Konstanstin Simonov, Mikhail Lukonin and Sergey Smirnov - to make up an inscription on the tomb. Everybody agreed that the words written by S. Mikhalkov were the best, "His name is unknown, his deed is immortal"

Later Nikolay Egorychev remembered, "When left alone, I thought how people would be coming up to the tomb. Those who lost relatives might not know where they had found their eternal peace. What will they say? Maybe, "Thank you, a soldier. Your deed is immortal".

Although it was a late evening Egorychev called Sergey Mikhalkov, "The word "his" should be exchanged for the word "your". Sergey Mikhalkov thought a little and said, "Yes. It's better".

So, on a granite tombstone the words appeared "Your name is unknown, your deed is immortal".

In 1997, a Guard of Honour of the Kremlin Regiment (which had guarded the Lenin Mausoleum) was restored at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the federal law of December 8, 1997, "On Immortalizing the Soviet People's Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945". A Changing of the Guard Ceremony takes place every hour.

On 24^th October 2014 The State Duma of The Russian Federation announced December 3 memorable date of Russia - The Day of the Unknown Soldier.

Someone of the greatest said, "Time is changing apart from our attitude to our Victories".

И от лучей багровое, как знамя,
Весенним днем фанфарами звеня,
Как символ славы возгорелось пламя -
Святое пламя вечного огня!

(Э.Асадов «Могила неизвестного соладата»_

And from the rays as red as combat banner,

With trumpets blaring on a spring-time day,

The fire has burnt up as a glorious symbol,

The Holy fire of the Eternal Flame!

Источники:

1. Подлинная история создания мемориала «Могила Неизвестного соладата» - feldgrau.info/index.php/other/7533

2. История Вечного Огня. - crm.gazrossii.ru

3. Могила Неизвестного Солдата - ru.wikipedia.org