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Accommodated in the General Staff’s interiors, restored specially for the occasion, Russia’s first Museum of the Guards displays about 200 objects, including uniforms, weaponry, banners, regiment regalia, paintings, drawings, applied art, coins and documents, which trace the brilliant and dramatic history of the Russian Imperial Guards from the age of Alexander I to the Guards’ departure for the battlefields of the 1st World War under Nicholas II. Portraits show Russian Emperors Alexander I, Nicholas I, Alexander II, Alexander III and Nicholas II in the Guards’ uniforms among commanders and officers of the Guards’ Regiments. The painting Battle at Tarutino was executed for the Winter Palace by the famous Munich-born military painter Peter Hess together with a big group of other military scenes. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Napoleon’s defeat, Nicholas I decided to create in the Winter Palace a Gallery of Battles in addition to the War Gallery, inviting for this purpose Hess to Russia in 1839 and commissioning from him canvases devoted to the most important battles of the 1812 Patriotic War. Drawings show various episodes in the Guards’ life, mostly associated with the Russian capital — parades, guard mounts, regiments marching through the city’s streets, and servicemen in various uniforms of the Guards. Uniforms along with weaponry occupy an important section in the exhibition. Pageantry of military ceremonies and parades to a great extent depended on the brilliance of the Guards’ uniforms. Each regiment had its specific colors, decorations, headgear, etc. They are showed along with banners and standards of the Guards’ Regiments from various reigns. One of the Museum’s halls accommodates priceless relics, preserved abroad and brought back to Russia after many decades. Descendants of the Preobrazhensky Regiment’s soldiers gave the Hermitage a portrait of Peter I. M.G. Yelachich arranged for the repatriation of two standards of the Life Guards’ Preobrazhensky Regiment dating from the 18th century; one of them was received in gift, the other purchased with the support of Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Princes N.R. Romanov and D.R. Romanov handed over the personal standard of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich the Elder. The standard of His Majesty’s Life Guards’ Lancer Regiment was presented by Boris Jordan and Yelena Bogolyubova, the heirs of its custodians. From O.B. Levshina, the new museum received the archive of Her Majesty’s Life Guards’ Cuirassier Regiment. The St George Banner of the Life Guards’ Grenadier Regiment found its way back to St. Petersburg from London, after Russian President Vladimir Putin received it in the United Kingdom on his state visit. The Russian Imperial Guards were created by Peter the Great and
passed its first examination in the battles of the Great Northern War.
During the first three decades of their existence, the Guards consisted
of just two infantry Though the Guards took part in many battles during the 18th century, they continued to perform their initial function of guarding the sovereign and played key role in the palace coups of 1725, 1730, 1741, 1762 and 1801. However, during the Napoleonic Wars the Russian Guards regained the status of the elite of Russia’s Armed Forces; during the reign of Alexander I they included artillery, engineering units and the Guards’ Naval Company, along with infantry and cavalry. Their long evolution included the dissolution in 1761 of the violent Leib Companie — the Preobrazhensky Regiment’s company, which brought Empress Elizabeth to power; the Semenovsky Regiment’s riot in 1820; and the events of 14 December, 1825, when the Guards’ loyalty was split between the government and the rebels. However, in succeeding generations’ memory the Russian Guards are associated with military honor, perseverance and fortitude showed by them in the course of two centuries, from the Great Northern War to the 1st World War. |
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Copyright © 2006 State Hermitage Museum |
