Sawwa Ivanovich Mamontov

Ilya Repin's portrait by Sawwa Mamontow (1880)

Savva Mamontov ( Russian Савва Иванович Мамонтов ., Scientific transliteration Savva Ivanovich Mamontov ; born October 3 ^{. Jul} / 15. October  1841 ^greg. In Yalutorovsk ; † 6. April 1918 in Moscow ) was a Russian industrialist and art patron of the 19th. Century, which became famous mainly through the railway construction .

Life

Young years and studies

Sawwa Mamontow came from a wealthy merchant family from the western Siberian city ​​of Yalutorovsk, which belonged to the Tobolsk governorate in the mid-19th century . In 1849 the Mamontov family moved to Moscow , where Sawwa went to high school. From a young age he was interested in fine arts and wanted to study it. Under pressure from his father, Sawwa Mamontow had to devote himself primarily to trade. After graduating from high school, he studied mining engineering in Saint Petersburg and law at Moscow's Lomonosov University .

Since Sawwa's father, Ivan Fyodorowitsch Mamontow, had been investing in railway construction since the middle of the 19th century, this would later become Sawwa's calling. Since there were very few railway lines in the Russian Empire in the 1850s and 1860s, there was an enormous amount of catching up to do in this area at that time. In addition, existing railways were not yet state-owned. Usually, the construction of a railway line has been financed by private investors, usually by setting up a public company . The merchant Ivan Mamontov also acted as an investor in the railway construction. In particular, he was one of the initiators and co-founders of the Moscow-Yaroslavl Railway Company , whose task it was to connect Moscow first with the monastery town of Sergiev Posad and then with the Volga metropolis of Yaroslavl . This was also realized in the years 1862 to 1870. Today this line is part of the Trans-Siberian Railway .

Because Sawwa Mamontow showed little interest in law even during his studies, but instead became more and more enthusiastic about art - for example, he took part in an amateur theater troupe - his father finally decided to send him to Baku to have him there entered the management of a silk trading company belonging to the Mamontows . Sawwa then dropped out and went to Baku. He showed a certain entrepreneurial talent and was allowed to run the Moscow branch of that company from the end of 1863. The cultural interest continued, however: In 1864, Sawwa went to Italy for a few years , where he began to study painting and singing. There he met his future wife Jelisaveta Saposhnikova, also a merchant's daughter, whom he married in 1865.

Patronage and railway construction

After returning to Russia, Sawwa Mamontow lived with his wife, who was also passionate about art, in a house on the Gartenring that his father had bought . At this time he also began to actively promote young artists. He often received her in his house, which made it a cultural center. Gradually, around Sawwa Mamontow and his wife, a group of artists formed, which later included famous painters such as Ilya Repin , Valentin Serow and Viktor Wasnetsov . In 1870, the Mamontows finally acquired the Abramzewo estate , 60 kilometers northeast of Moscow on the railway line to Sergiev Posad, which was co-financed by Sawwa's father at the time, and founded an artist's workshop there that is still internationally known today. A special feature of the Abramzewo at that time is the fact that Savva Mamontov also invited liberal and socially critical-minded artists there, which contributed significantly to the development of new currents in the art of Russia at the time.

After the death of Ivan Mamontov in 1869, Sawwa Mamontov devoted himself again increasingly to entrepreneurship, but without giving up art patronage. He worked in the company of the Moscow-Yaroslavl Railway, which his father co-founded, and in 1872 took over the post of director of the company. In 1875 Mamontow took part in a public tender for the construction of a railway line that was supposed to connect the coal deposits of the so-called Donets Basin (now part of Ukraine ). Finally he received the concession for the construction from the state and founded the joint stock company of the Donetsk Railway. The traffic on the more than 400 kilometers long routes could be started at the end of 1878; until 1882 further routes were completed. The project proved to be consistently successful and brought Sawwa Mamontow to the height of his notoriety. Another major railway construction project initiated by Mamontow in the 1890s was the extension of the existing Moscow – Yaroslavl – Vologda line further north to the northern sea port city of Arkhangelsk .

In addition to the construction of railroads, Sawwa Mamontow also invested money in industrial operations, primarily those that directly or indirectly served railway operations. He played a key role in the founding of the wagon construction factory in Mytishchi near Moscow in 1897 , which still exists today under the name Metrowagonmasch and is the best-known Russian manufacturer of underground trains and rail buses. Furthermore, several companies from the field of iron mining and metal processing belonged in whole or in part to Sawwa Mamontow.

Last years and bankruptcy

Mamontov's economic decline as an entrepreneur, caused by several bad investments, began in the early 1890s. At that time Mamontov wanted to build a new railway line from the capital Saint Petersburg to Vyatka . Since the 2,000-kilometer route was very expensive, Mamontow asked the Finance Minister at the time, Sergei Witte, for financial aid for the construction. Witte refused, however, citing the lack of funds and instead offered Mamontov to buy up his company from the Donetsk Railway. In return, Mamontow was supposed to take over a state-owned St. Petersburg Nevsky shipyard .

Monument on the station square in Sergiev Posad

What Mamontow initially regarded as an economically profitable business turned out to be a wrong decision in retrospect: the state-owned company that Mamontow wanted to convert to the production of steam locomotives was ailing and required far more investments than initially assumed. Mamontov then sold a large block of shares in the Moscow-Yaroslavl-Arkhangelsk Railway and acquired a metallurgy company in Irkutsk , Siberia , which he hoped to set up with government subsidies in order to be able to raise the metal required for locomotive construction himself. But even here it was ultimately not possible to raise funds for the necessary investments. Mamontow got into debt by pledging his remaining shares and in 1899 finally fell into arrears. In the bankruptcy proceedings , the state also wanted to have uncovered illegal activities in the administration of the Moscow-Yaroslavl-Arkhangelsk Railway, whereupon Mamontov was arrested. Even though he was acquitted and released a few months later for lack of evidence, he lost a large part of his possessions, which have now been seized to pay off his debts. The Moscow-Yaroslavl-Arkhangelsk Railway Company and its infrastructure became state property.

As a result of this affair, Mamontow not only lost his capital, but also his previously impeccable reputation as an entrepreneur, which made it no longer possible for him to be economically active. Mamontov's enthusiasm for art remained until his death, however, and he continued to promote the artists of the Abramzewoer circle wherever possible. During the last years of his life, Mamontow lived in a modest house near what is now the Zavyolovo train station and in Abramzewo, which still belonged to his wife. He was buried there after he died in his Moscow house in 1918 after a long illness.

In the same year, a few months after Mamontov's death, the Abramzewo estate was nationalized by the new communist rulers and converted into a museum that is still in existence today, initially managed by Mamontov's youngest daughter Alexandra.

literature

• Бахревский В. А. : Савва Мамонтов. - М .: Молодая гвардия, 2000. - 528 с. - (ЖЗЛ). - ISBN 5-235-02403-6 .

Web links

Commons : Sawwa Mamontow  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• To the glory of Russia : An article about Sawwa Mamontow at ZEIT Online (German)
• Biography at RIA Novosti (Russian)
• Biography at shkolazhizni.ru (Russian)
• Biography of Mamontov and history of the Donetsk Railway (Russian)