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Post a Comment Ivan Dmitriev’s Unknown Poem and the Founding of St. Michael’s Castle in St. Petersburg in 1797
Abstract
The article presents a publication of Ivan Dmitriev’s unknown poem On the Founding of the Church in the Summer Palace of His Imperial Majesty: “While the Monarch by his sovereign hand instead of (as if) a thunder / Founds the church for the glory of the Holy Trinity; / The king of kings bless this feat from heaven! / Send to the founder Solomon’s antiquity (wisdom) as well / For glorification of the Russian throne / And people’s happiness”. (The manuscript was revealed in the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences.) This short poem is devoted to the founding of St. Michael’s Castle by Paul the First on February 26, 1797 on the site of Empress Elizabeth’s Summer Palace. The point that Dmitriev made in the title on the founding of a church by the monarch (and not a palace with a church inside) corresponds with the tale that appeared in St. Petersburg during November of 1796 and described the apparition of archangel Michael in that Summer Palace with the demand to build a church on this site and dedicate it to him. The monarch, according to the poem, founds this church “by his sovereign hand instead of a thunder”. This expression can be understood as a contrasting of this emperor’s sacred act with his military image. However, another interpretation of these words is possible as well—they can be understood as an indication that the monarch’s “sovereign hand” founds a church as if a thunder. Indeed, in the hagiographic tale about the apparitions of archangel Michael on mount Gargano (especially—in the version that was included in St. Demetrius of Rostov’s Monthly Readings (Chetii-Minei)) a thunder, accompanied the shaking of mount Gargano, preceded the finding of the church, which was created by archangel Michael, in the cave on its pinnacle by the local residents. The revealed poem, in spite of its brevity, allows assuming that it reflects some unknown features of the perception of St. Michael’s Castle by the contemporaries of its founding and construction.
10.31168/2305-6754.2024.2.07
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