Tsar Bell
The Tsar Bell ( Russian Царь-колокол / Tsar-kolokol) is a historical bell that is exhibited in the Moscow Kremlin . It was cast in 1735 and is considered to be one of the largest and heaviest bells in the world to date. The tsar's bell was never rung; it has been a sight on an octagonal base since 1836 and is one of the most important tourist attractions within the Kremlin.
general description
The tsar's bell stands on Ivan Square of the Moscow Kremlin, between the Ivan the Great bell tower and the secret passage garden leading to the southern Kremlin wall and the banks of the Moscow River . The bronze bell is 6.14 meters high and up to 61 cm thick and has a diameter in the lower part of 6.60 meters and a weight of 201,924 kg. When the bell was lifted from the casting pit to the surface for the first time, a piece weighing around 11,500 kg broke out of the bell (for comparison: 11,450 kg is the total weight of the Gloriosa in Erfurt Cathedral ) and is now standing next to the base. The latter dates from 1836 and is based on a design by the well-known French architect Auguste de Montferrand . It consists of bricks, which are also hooked with iron clips, and is clad on the outside with white limestone . Inside the base there is also the approximately five meter long clapper of the Tsar's bell.
With its great size, the Tsar Bell is not only the largest specimens of their kind in the world, but also represents an important monument of Russian casting technology is in the early 18th century. In this role, she adds only about 100 meters away standing Tsar Cannon , who also never has been used in accordance with its actual purpose.
Another distinctive feature of the bell in addition to its dimensions are its numerous decorations, which also make the bell a monument to the applied arts of the 18th century. The rich relief representations on all sides of the bell are ornaments with stylized Baroque depictions of plants and angels as well as oval medallions with portraits of saints. They are complemented by motifs from Russian heraldry as well as almost life-size full-body images of Empress Anna Ioannovna (during whose reign the Tsar Bell was made) and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich (from whose reign the bell originates, from the remains of which the Tsar bell was later cast). These tsar images also gave the bell its name. The imperial orb as a great power symbol on the top of the bell with the gold-plated cross above, as well as the base, originate from the time when the bell was lifted to the surface.
Under the ornament with the depiction of the Empress Anna you can see a cast inscription from the time the bell was made. There it says literally: "This bell was cast by the Russian master Ivan Fjodor's son Motorin with his son Mikhail Motorin".
history
prehistory
The history of the Russian bell-making trade goes back to the 10th century. Only a few specimens from the 16th century, when the production of large bells in Russian tsarism reached its peak in terms of both quantity and technology, have survived to this day. The purpose of the bells in medieval and early modern Russia was not limited to ringing in church services, but the ringing of bells also served, for example, as an announcement of important state acts, celebrations, but also as an alarm signal in the event of military attacks or fires.
One of the largest bells cast in Russia in the 16th century was the first predecessor of today's Tsar Bell, which was known as the Great Uspensky Bell ( Большой Успенский колокол ). It was completed in 1599 and weighed almost 18,000 kg, which was unusually high for the time: at least 24 men were required to move the clapper when the bell was rung. This bell hung on a wooden bell tower of the Kremlin until the mid-17th century when it fell in a fire and broke into pieces. A few months later, the remains of the bell were melted down and a new bell with a weight of around 130,000 kg was cast from it, which, however, broke with the first blow of the clapper.
In 1655 a young master foundry named Alexander Grigoryev made another attempt to cast a bell that was huge in terms of size, again using pieces from the previous bell. At almost 200,000 kg, this new product weighed almost as much as the tsar's bell that has been preserved to this day. It remained in use until 1701 when it crashed in another major fire in the Kremlin and burst into many small parts. These parts were used with the addition of larger amounts of copper as well as 525 kg of silver and 72 kg of gold for the manufacture of today's Tsar Bell.
Emergence
The preparations for the casting of today's tsar's bell did not begin until 1730 on the initiative of the then tsarina Anna Ioannovna , who presumably wanted to set a new record with the project and approved the casting work with a corresponding decree . The foundry master Iwan Motorin (* around 1665, † 1735) was commissioned with the execution , who had already made a 50,000 kg bell for the Ivan the Great bell tower in 1702 . This led the casting work. The ornamentation of the finished bell, on the other hand, is the work of the little-known sculptor Fyodor Medvedev .
The preparatory work lasted several years and included, among other things, the digging of a ten-meter-deep casting pit (not far from the current location of the bell), in which the molten metal should flow into a clay mold, as well as the not always easy procurement of the metal and obtaining official permits. A first attempt at casting was made at the end of November 1734. Over 100,000 kg of metal, including the remains of the old Uspenski bell, were melted down in specially constructed furnaces. This first attempt failed, however, after the overheated walls and floors of the ovens partially leaked and large amounts of metal had leaked.
Preparations for a renewed melting process began immediately and lasted several months, with Ivan Motorin surprisingly died in August 1735 without ever having seen his tsar's bell. His son Mikhail then took over the majority of the work. On November 25, 1735, the second attempt was made to melt the material and let it run into the mold. All ornamentation work on the finished surface of the bell was started a few months after it was poured and continued until 1737.
History of the bell after completion
Before the last ornamentation work could be completed and the finished bell had to be lifted out of the pit, a major fire broke out in the Kremlin in May 1737, to which the remaining wooden structures in particular fell victim. With them, the wooden constructions for lifting the tsar's bell were caught in the fire and fell down burning on the bell. When cold extinguishing water got on the now red-hot bell, it shattered due to the extreme temperature difference, causing a piece weighing 11.5 tons to split off from it. This is also considered to be the most likely cause of the damage to the tsar's bell, which also showed cracks in several other places.
After the fire, casting technicians suggested a large number of designs for restoring the bell, but these were discarded for various reasons (often simply for lack of money). So it came about that the bell remained in the pit for decades. It was there during the war against Napoléon in 1812. At that time, Napoléon Bonaparte wanted to transport the bell as a trophy to France after conquering Moscow, but this project also failed because of its enormous weight and the logistical problems associated with it.
It was not until a few years after the war that the raising of the tsar's bell was started again as part of the extensive reconstruction of the Kremlin and Moscow. However, it would be more than 20 years before a first attempt was made: In the summer of 1836, the French architect Auguste de Montferrand (who later created the stone base for the bell) had an elaborate lifting structure built, which, with the help of hundreds of workers and soldiers, had the pulled on a variety of ropes attached to the bell should work. However, after this construction proved to be far too unstable for the weight of the bell, the experiment had to be interrupted. It was not until the second attempt, which was initiated on July 23, 1836, that the bell could be raised and placed on a specially made wooden wagon structure. Three days later, the tsar's bell was placed on the base on which it is still to this day.
Individual evidence
- ↑ И. Костина: Царь Колокол. In: Наука И Жизнь, July 1992 ( memento from July 13, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ).
literature
- Moscow Kremlin - tourist guide. Art Courier, Moscow 2002, ISBN 5-93842-019-9 .
- AJ Kiseljow (Ed.): Moskwa. Kremlin in Krasnaya Ploshchad. AST / Astrel, Moscow 2006, ISBN 5-17-034875-4 , pp. 93-97.
- ME Portnow: Tsar Pushka i Tsar Kolokol. Moskowski Rabotschi, Moscow 1990, ISBN 5-239-00778-0 .
Web links
- Description of the Tsar Bell on the official website of the Moscow Kremlin (Russian) ( Memento of August 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 55 ° 45 ′ 2.8 ″ N , 37 ° 37 ′ 6.5 ″ E