THE CROSSING OF THE FATES OF THE PROVINCIAL ARCHITECT AND THE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF POLTAVA IN THE 1930-1980S

Abstract

The report examines the transformations of the urban environment of Poltava, the center of which was designed at the beginning of the 19th century “small Petersburg” (including buildings, monuments, urban planning solutions). In the fall of 1943, the retreating Nazis completely destroyed the city. In a difficult discussion about the restoration of Poltava, the point of view of its chief architect (who held this post from 1938 to 1971) prevailed about the restoration of all monuments, freeing the historical center from recent additions (he was actively supported by Fyodor Oleinik, the chief architect of the restoration of the Pavlovsk Palace on the same principles)... The priority of historical memory was preserved through the efforts of the same architect during the further development of the city, especially in the areas surrounding the restored house-museums of Korolenko, Kotlyarevsky, Panas Mirny. At the same time, the development of the architect himself was going on: a guy from the Poltava suburb, who grew up in the family of a worker of a spinning factory, after graduating from an architectural institute and two years of work at Metrostroy, appointed chief architect of Poltava at the age of 26, who later became the initiator and author of the project for the reconstruction of the Gogol estate in the village of Vasilyevka “near Dikanka”. The architect becomes the first director of the museum, who developed not only the projects of buildings and the landscape park, but also the museum concept and laid the foundation for the collection. The narrative of cultural memory became the basis for personal development and the transformation of the “Soviet intellectual in the first generation” into an intelligent conductor of Russian culture in the Soviet province.