In which countries does the eternal flame burn? Eternal flame. History of tradition
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Eternal flame Compiled by: teacher-defectologist Kirchenkova E.A. Ryazan, 2015
The eternal flame is a constantly burning fire that burns in winter and summer, day and night. It symbolizes that the memory of the feat of the defenders of the Motherland will live forever.
On Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War(May 9), and on other days, they bring flowers to the Eternal Flame, they come to stand, be silent, and bow to the memory of the heroes...
In the main city of our country - the city of Moscow - three Eternal Flames were installed in memory of those killed in the Great Patriotic War. One of them is located at the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” in the Alexander Garden (it is the main component of the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” complex).
The memorial architectural ensemble “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” was opened on May 8, 1967. L.I. Brezhnev lights the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (1967)
Since 1997, State Post No. 1 has been transferred to the Eternal Flame from the Mausoleum, to which the honor guard of the Presidential Regiment takes over. The Honor Guard Post at the Eternal Flame in Moscow at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Post No. 1) is the main guard post in Russian Federation. In accordance with the Decree of Russian President Boris Yeltsin (dated December 8, 1997), the Guard of Honor stands guard in the Alexander Garden near the Eternal Flame every day from 08.00 to 20.00. Post No. 1 Changing of the guard
There are many such graves on our land. These graves contain the remains of soldiers who died on the battlefield during the Great Patriotic War. Many soldiers died in that war. Not all of the dead could be identified, and not all of them had documents. The ashes of one of these soldiers are buried near the Kremlin wall in Moscow. Therefore, on the tombstone it is written: “Your name is unknown.” - Why do you think the grave is called the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier? - What does the second part of the inscription mean: “Your feat is immortal”? - This inscription means that people will always remember: the soldiers buried here died defending the Motherland, their relatives and friends, their children and grandchildren.
Two other Eternal Flames in Moscow are installed on Poklonnaya Hill and Preobrazhenskoye Cemetery. Eternal Flame (Fire of Memory and Glory) on Poklonnaya Hill Eternal Flame at Preobrazhenskoye Cemetery
The eternal flame in memory of those killed in the Great Patriotic War burns in many cities of the former Soviet Union. The Eternal Flame on the Champ de Mars is the first Eternal Flame in the Soviet Union. All other eternal fires throughout the territory of our country were lit precisely from this fire. Eternal Flame on the Champ de Mars (St. Petersburg). Year of creation of the Eternal Flame on the Champ de Mars: 1956.
It is interesting that Post No. 1 in the city of Rostov-on-Don is one of the few, and perhaps the only place in Russia where high school students perform the guard of honor. The changing of the guards takes place every 15-20 minutes. The guards are dressed in full dress uniform and armed with machine guns. Schoolchildren study the charter, engage in marching, drill exercises and take a solemn oath. The post has been in effect since 1975. The Eternal Flame and Post No. 1 in Rostov-on-Don (are part of the memorial complex “Fallen Warriors”)
In our city (Ryazan) the Eternal Flame is located on Victory Square.
At the Eternal Flame, the tulips are drooping and looking at the ground. The ninth of May is the holiday of soldiers: So that you and I could live, they fought... Tulips are burning - flowers are like fires. The fire blazes at the mass graves, So that no one forgets the feat of the dead: The color is scarlet - the color of blood shed by war... But the fire is eternal - that means the hero is eternal! N. Samoniy Many poems, songs, and stories have been composed on the theme of the Eternal Flame.
Eternal flame Eternal flame. Alexander Garden. Everlasting memory heroes. Who was he, the unknown soldier, Honored by the Great Country. Maybe he was still a young cadet, or a simple militiaman. Maybe he was killed because he did not kneel before the enemy. Maybe he went on the attack full height, The bullet reached its end. Or he was an unknown sailor, the one who died at the helm. Maybe he was a pilot, or maybe a tanker; It doesn't matter today. We will never read this sheet, That paper triangle. Eternal flame. Alexander Garden. Monument to thousands of lives. The eternal flame is the memory of soldiers who honestly served their homeland. Yu. Schmidt
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War in 2005, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation issued a 10 ruble coin, on the reverse of which the Eternal Flame is depicted and the inscription “No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten.”
The eternal flame remains, despite all political changes, a symbol of heroism, national independence and true love for the Motherland. We will disappear, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will leave, and the Eternal Flame will burn. “Time changes - but our attitude towards our Victories does not change” (c)
Thank you for your attention!
For 50 years now, the flame of the Eternal Flame near the walls of the Kremlin has not been able to blow out the wind, cover the snow and pour in the rain. It is inextinguishable. However, this is not a miracle, but a complex technical device. On February 22, late in the evening, I was able to observe a unique moment - the ceremonial maintenance of the burner of the Sacred Flame, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Eternal Flame in the Alexander Garden.
A little educational history. The first “Eternal Flame” in the USSR was lit in the village of Pervomaisky, Shchekinsky district Tula region May 6, 1955 in memory of those who fell in the Great Patriotic War. However, it cannot be called Eternal in the full sense of these words, since its combustion regularly stopped. The first truly Eternal (never stopped burning) fire in the USSR was the fire lit on November 6, 1957 on the Field of Mars in Leningrad. Three Eternal Flames are currently burning in Moscow.
The eternal flame at the walls of the Kremlin was solemnly lit on May 8, 1967 by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev, who accepted the torch from the Hero of the Soviet Union military pilot Alexei Maresyev. Historical photo:
The MOSGAZ museum still preserves the portable gas torch with which Brezhnev lit the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The torch consists of a metal body, inside of which there is a liquefied gas cartridge and a burner. The torch is still operational.
In order to maintain the constant burning of the flame of the Eternal Flame, it is necessary to carry out preventive maintenance of the unique gas burner device. By the way, from the very first day of the lighting of the Eternal Flame at the walls of the Kremlin, for half a century now, the MOSGAZ company has been servicing it.
To prevent the flame from extinguishing during maintenance work, it was transferred to another burner using a special torch. The torch was carried by the developer of the Eternal Flame burner, Honored Inventor of the Russian Federation, Kirill Reader.
The temporary gas burner device is a smaller copy of the main burner. And it also has its own unique history, because it was thanks to him that in 2010 the sacred flame returned to the Alexander Garden after the reconstruction of the memorial from its temporary stay on Poklonnaya Hill.
Just in case of a fire, a candle is also lit nearby.
The star is lifted and taken to the side.
The star, by the way, is also not simple, but was created using space technologies at the country’s leading rocket enterprise - now RSC Energia named after Korolev.
Locksmiths of the highest level are allowed to perform the work. They check the igniters, which are under high voltage.
In total, the burner design provides three igniters, which provide triple redundancy so that the Eternal Flame burns in any weather.
The burner of the Eternal Flame is supplied with ordinary natural gas, which is present in the homes of Muscovites. But it burns not with blue, but with bright yellow flames near the Kremlin wall, precisely because of the design of the burner.
I found an infographic on the Internet that clearly shows the burner design. Thanks AiF
After the procedure was completed, the entire structure was reassembled.
At the end, the flame of the Eternal Flame was lit by the head of MOSGAZ, Hasan Gasangadzhiev, and a veteran of the Great Patriotic War and the gas industry, Viktor Volkov.
The current inspection of all systems is special - timed to coincide with Defender of the Fatherland Day and the half-century anniversary of the monument itself, so all Russian federal television channels decided to capture this moment.
On February 23, as always according to the old tradition, at the Eternal Flame, Vladimir Putin honored the memory of the fallen soldiers by laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier...
The news especially emphasized that this particular Eternal Flame was the first in the USSR. At the end of the 1990s, it stopped burning continuously and was ignited from a gas cylinder only once a year on May 9. In the spring of 2013, reconstruction was carried out, as a result of which it became possible to resume the constant operation of the Eternal Flame. The “return” ceremony took place on May 6, on the eve of Victory Day. The first part of the ceremony took place in the regional center on Victory Square, the second - in the village itself. According to employees of the local history museum and a war veteran, an eyewitness and participant in those events, the Eternal Flame at the mass grave was lit on the initiative of a front-line soldier, the director of a local gas plant, on May 9, 1955, and two years later, in 1957, a monument was erected “The Mourning Warrior”, after which the memorial took on its modern appearance.
The eternal flame on the Field of Mars in Leningrad was lit on November 6, 1957, and in Sevastopol on Malakhov Kurgan on February 23, 1958. Consequently, the first Eternal Flame in the USSR was lit in a village near Tula. Until 2013, almost no one knew about this.
According to preliminary information, the ceremony was supposed to begin in Tula on Victory Square at 9.00 and then continue in the village itself. To be sure, I tried to find more detailed information about the event on the Internet, but to no avail. This surprised me, since the program for celebrating May 9 in the regional center was posted on all news portals in the city several weeks before the holiday itself. Later it turned out that the event was closed and included only specially invited guests.
In 1941, in this area there was a field along which the front line of the city’s defense passed. For 45 days, in October-December 1941, Tula was almost completely surrounded, subjected to artillery and mortar fire, and air raids, but the city was not surrendered. After the war it grew rapidly; on the territory where the fighting took place, a bus station, a hotel, residential and administrative buildings were built, the space between them was landscaped and made pedestrian, and in 1965 it turned into Victory Square. On the 25th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazi invaders near Moscow (1966), Tula was awarded the Order of Lenin, and ten years later, on December 7, 1976, it was awarded the title of “Hero City” with the presentation of the Gold Star medal.
At the foot of the monument burns the Eternal Flame, lit from the flame from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin Wall in Moscow and delivered to Tula on an armored personnel carrier, accompanied by an honorary escort of motorcyclists, as well as cars with participants in the city’s defense. The right to light the Eternal Flame was granted to the leaders of regional party organizations and defense participants. IN Soviet period“Post number one” was installed at the memorial, which was carried daily, replacing each other, by Tula Komsomol members and pioneers.
On May 6, 2013, a torch lit from the memorial on Victory Square was supposed to be taken to the village of Pervomaisky from Tula. The square is a developed social space: it is a pedestrian zone, there are benches along its perimeter, and from early morning until late evening it is filled with citizens and guests of the city. According to my observations, regardless of the proximity of Victory Day, in good weather, citizens and visitors often take pictures and spend time at the memorial.
Coming out to the square, I saw several policemen in front of anti-aircraft guns standing in front of the memorial: the area around the monument was cordoned off, and entry was only allowed by invitation. Parked on the road were two Pobeda cars and an open military vintage car, in the trunk of which there was a portable fire burner. By this time, a guard of two cadets was already standing at the memorial artillery school, the cadets were also on both sides of the road leading to the car with the burner. As it turned out later, this was the route of the torchbearer. Passing people stopped for a few minutes to watch the action, and then continued on their way. I had already resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to come closer, but one of the policemen asked me in surprise: “So you just want to take a photo?” - after which he allowed me to go through the cordon. That's how I ended up at the ceremony.
The topography of the ceremony was as follows. If you turn your back to the avenue, to the right of the “Three Bayonets” and the Eternal Flame stood six veterans (of war and labor), behind them were young people in wartime tunics. Next to the veterans stood the regional governor, his deputies and representatives public organizations, as well as the hosts of the ceremony - everyone had St. George ribbons on their chests. Opposite the memorial there were groups of young people: junior students and cadets. The rest of the space around the flame, between veterans and youth, was occupied by journalists from federal and local television channels, as well as print media. Tula students took part in the torch lighting ceremony state university: as part of the “Flame of Victory” campaign, they brought plastic lamps lit from the Eternal Flames in other hero cities of the country.
The event began around 9 a.m. and lasted approximately 20 minutes. The memorial event was opened by a metronome counting down the seconds. The presenters (a man and a woman) read poems that said that “fire is a symbol of memory.” Next, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, an honorary citizen of Tula, addressed those present with words of greeting, calling on the younger generation to remember this war and be “always ready to defend their homeland, which has many enemies.” The regional governor emphasized that the passing of the torch to light the Eternal Flame in the village of Pervomaisky is a unique and important event, that “we should not be Ivans who do not remember our kinship, we should be people who know how to defend their victory.” As in 1968, a student activist spoke, but from Tula State University. The ceremony culminated with the lighting of the torch by the governor and the veteran. Then the veteran carried a lit torch through the honor guard of artillerymen at a marching pace; from this torch a mobile gas burner mounted in the car was lit. After which the fire went as part of an honorary column of vintage cars and bikers to the village of Pervomaisky. Meanwhile, students and cadets laid red carnations at the memorial and took photographs against its background.
In Pervomaisky, the solemn meeting began at about 10.30 and lasted about an hour. The venue was a memorial located on the territory of the village, at the intersection of the Tula-Shchekino road (part of the Simferopol federal highway) and the highway connecting Pervomaisky with the city-forming chemical enterprise. The memorial is a complex whose main monument is a sculptural group of two mourning warriors (sometimes the monument is called the “Mourning Warrior”). In front of the monument is the Eternal Flame and four mass graves. The graves contain the remains of soldiers and officers of the 217th and 290th rifle divisions 50th Army, who fell in the battles for the defense and liberation of the villages of the Shchekinsky region: Vorobyovka, Kochaki, Yasenki, Kaznacheevka, Yasnaya Polyana, Staraya Kolpna, Grumanty, Myasoedovo, Baburinka, Deminka, Velyatinki, as well as those who died from wounds and illnesses in hospitals. In total, 75 people were buried in mass graves. Of these, the names of 44 are known, and they are carved on memorial plaques.
Young people stood along the perimeter of the memorial, their T-shirts and caps formed a repeated Russian flag, and they held plastic lamps in their hands. The police were present, but very discreetly and in much smaller numbers than in Tula. It was possible to move freely throughout the entire territory; there was only one unspoken taboo - not to damage the fresh lawn.
In front of the memorial, employees of the local history museum set up a mobile exhibition with archival photographs, including from the opening of the monument, and findings of the local search team. One of the main exhibits was a copy of a photograph depicting the lighting of the Eternal Flame by the director of the gas plant, front-line soldier Sergei Jobadze, and a pioneer schoolgirl. According to the director of the museum, on the back of the original photograph there is a handwritten inscription: “May 9, 1955” - this valuable exhibit was given to the museum by the director’s widow. Part of the exhibition was dedicated to his military and labor achievements. A chronicle of the opening of the Eternal Lights in the USSR, which began precisely in Pervomaisky, was also presented.
The “return” ceremony in its program was very reminiscent of the May 9 celebration. The audience at the event was very diverse: representatives of the administration; collectives of workers at gas and chemical enterprises who are different time supervised the memorial; veterans of war and labor; schoolchildren, cadets, soldiers, students, pensioners. A feeling of celebration reigned, which was facilitated by the sound of war songs and the concert program of a local creative group, which began after the official words of greeting.
The governor, heads of municipality and local administration, as well as the management of gas companies that installed the new burner. Its installers (gas welder, excavator driver, repairman) were presented with certificates of gratitude . After melodic recitations on the theme of memory and the Eternal Flame as its symbol, the Tula veteran lit a torch from a mobile burner and handed it to a 91-year-old veteran of the Great Patriotic War, Honored Teacher of Russia, resident of the village of Pervomaisky Vasily Novikov, who, with the help of cadets, lit the Eternal Flame. “I want to appeal to the younger generation,” said the veteran. “Take care of Russia, make it a great and invincible power!” . This was followed by a dance performance with lamps given by a local amateur group, after which the presenters invited everyone present to lay flowers, wreaths and a traditional garland of fir branches, which is woven annually by teenagers from the village special school. Senior schoolchildren placed the words “We remember” with lamps (later assembled by teachers), then a gun salute thundered. The ceremony ended with a small concert, after which mass photography began against the backdrop of the monument and the Eternal Flame. The veterans were not allowed to leave for a long time by journalists and local residents who wanted to take pictures or present flowers.
This is how Vasily Novikov told journalists about the lighting of the Eternal Flame:
“Death is oblivion... The eternal flame was lit on May 9, 1955. The monument was opened in 1957. Burials were moved here from the local cemetery. The first reburial took place in 1948. I went to the front at the age of 18. Was a pilot. When the fire was lit, I was 33 years old. It was sunny, the same as today, only warmer, and at the end there was a warm rain. There were a lot of people, even more than now. Everyone was cheerful, life was getting better. The memory of the war and Victory was everywhere, only ten years had passed. Now, looking at the Eternal Flame, thoughts come about the fire of war, killing people, and peaceful fire. When the fire just went out, there was resentment: how can this be, this is a memory... But we understand, those were the times. I would like to wish young people to love Russia!”
Fire in sacred and public spaces
Fire as a sacred element or a sign of the presence of a deity exists in many mythologies, religions and cults. A constantly or temporarily maintained flame in a specially designated place is found in ritual practices dedicated to gods (Zoroastrianism), kings and warriors (Media), priests (Persia), cattle breeders and farmers (Parthia). Fire temples were founded everywhere in honor of victories. The Old Testament instructs us to continually keep the fire burning on the altar.
There was a menorah in the tabernacle and in the Jerusalem temple until it was destroyed again by the Romans in 70. - a golden seven-barreled lamp, which was lit by the high priest at dusk and burned all night. The eternal flame was kept inside the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in Greece. The Temple of Vesta in Rome symbolized the main home - the “hearth of the state”, until in 394, by order of Emperor Theodosius, it was closed.
In Catholic and Orthodox churches eternal light - a lamp or candle, signifying the constant presence of the Holy Spirit - burns in front of the tabernacle. In Orthodox churches, continuous burning is also maintained in unquenchable lamps in front of a particularly revered shrine (icon, relics and graves of revered saints).
Of the folk rituals, the closest to this tradition is the custom of southern Russian peasants at Christmas time to “warm the dead” (or “parents”), the purpose of which is to warm deceased relatives and increase productivity. Dmitry Zelenin attributed this custom to the cult of ancestors and the agricultural cult.
In public space, the first fire was lit on the anniversary of the signing of the armistice in the First World War on November 11, 1923, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. After this war, ceremonial reburials of the remains of unidentified fallen soldiers were carried out in many participating countries.
Eternal Flame in the USSR
By 1937, the Eternal Flame was lit at the graves of the Unknown Soldier in Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Czechoslovakia. In the USSR, one of the most famous is the Eternal Flame on the Champ de Mars in St. Petersburg. In most studies, it is considered to be the first in the USSR, which is not surprising, given its location and ideological significance. In 1917, a public burial was held on the Champ de Mars for revolutionaries and victims of armed street clashes. The first reconstruction of this memorial was carried out in 1920, as a result of which a square was laid out with a monumental fence around the graves of the fighters for the victory of the revolution. The tombstone “with an unquenchable lamp” at the burial site of the victims of the Great October Socialist Revolution was built in the fall of 1957 on the eve of its 40th anniversary.
There are two versions of who and how lit the Eternal Flame on the Champ de Mars. According to one of them, it was steelmaker Zhukovsky, who lit it with a torch from open-hearth furnace No. 1 from the Kirov plant. According to another, more substantiated version, based on an article in Leningradskaya Pravda, it was lit by the oldest communist of Leningrad, Praskovya Kulyabko, and the secretary of the Komsomol city committee, V.N. Smirnov. However, another worker of the Kirov plant, Pyotr Zaichenko, on May 9, 1960, lit a torch from the fire on the Champ de Mars to open a memorial at the Piskarevskoye cemetery. It is noteworthy that in the same article of Leningradskaya Pravda and in the Bulletin of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council of Working People, the decision to open the tombstone and light the fire in the fall of 1957 is presented as an exclusively local, Leningrad initiative of the executive committee of the Leningrad City Council of Working People's Deputies and personally the first secretary of the Leningrad City Party Committee.
The lighting of the Eternal Flame on the Champ de Mars realized the idea of People's Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky about self-sacrifice in the name of the common good, which ensures the memory, and therefore the immortality of heroes. It was he who designed the inscriptions for the 1919 granite memorial dedicated to the soldiers of the revolution:
“Not victims - heroes lie under this grave. It is not grief, but envy that your fate gives birth to in the hearts of all grateful descendants. In the red, terrible days you lived gloriously and died wonderfully.”
Despite the fact that the Eternal Flame was lit almost 40 years after the creation of this epitaph, the idea of continuity of generations and memory of descendants was embodied in the opening ceremony itself, in which representatives of several generations participated Soviet people.
History of the memorial in Pervomaisky
As already mentioned, the “return” of the Eternal Flame to Pervomaisky became a noticeable news item in the local press. Naturally, I was interested in the fact that the first Eternal Flame in the USSR was lit not in Leningrad and Moscow, but in a small workers’ village; that the initiators of its lighting were the front-line soldiers who worked at the plant, and not high-ranking Soviet ideologists. A pilot survey conducted at a solemn meeting on May 9 showed an almost complete lack of historical knowledge about the memorial (not duplicating information given in the media) among respondents in the age category under 70 years old and/or among people who are not related to the memorial due to their professional responsibilities. Therefore, I decided that to study the history of the memorial, the most productive method would be interviews and conversations with experts, who were selected as employees of the administration of Pervomaisky (military registration table), the municipal archive, the military registration and enlistment office and the local history museum of the city of Shchekino, war and labor veterans, and also an activist in the local youth association.
In written sources, I found two options for dating the creation of the memorial and the lighting of the Eternal Flame: September 1956 and May 9, 1957. The first, most accessible source turned out to be a very informative website of the municipality of Pervomaisky. When reading the “Historical Information” I was surprised by its tone: a lot of personal memories and details. As it turned out later, the certificate was an almost verbatim extract from the memoirs of Pyotr Sharov, director of the Shchekino Chemical Plant (1962-1976). These memoirs are the most comprehensive chronicle of the village and the memorial; they list 1956 as the date of creation of the monument:
“On the territory of the former village of Kochaki, where there was an administrative settlement (now called Temporary) next to the St. Nicholas Church, there was a mass grave on which stood a small wooden obelisk with a star. During the construction of the village in 1948, it was decided to transfer the remains of fallen soldiers to a new burial ground. A new mass grave was built on the site of the modern monument; a concrete obelisk with a fence was installed above it. In 1956, on the initiative of the local military registration and enlistment office, the remains of fallen soldiers were transported from different places in the area to the location of the concrete obelisk. The question immediately arose about the construction of a new monument with tombstones and the Eternal Flame.”
My next step was to search for information about the memorial in local history literature. In two of the most detailed works According to the local history of the Shchekino region, very little has been written about this memorial. For example, in one of them the entire sentence is dedicated to him: “The eternal flame burns on mass graves and at the obelisks in Shchekin and the village of Pervomaisky.” A little more information is contained in another work: “In 1956, a monument was erected at the mass grave of Soviet soldiers and the first Eternal Flame in the area was lit.” Thus, 1956 is once again indicated as the year of lighting the Eternal Flame, which, however, did not bring final clarity to this issue.
In the absence of information, I also studied the stages of development of the plant. It turned out that the Shchekino gas plant was put into operation on May 15-17, 1955, then household gas was supplied to Tula, and the first stage of the Moscow - Shchekino gas pipeline was launched on May 30. It is known that the gas for the Eternal Flame was local, that is, it is logical to assume that the lighting of the Eternal Flame and the launch of the plant should have been interconnected. In addition, I came across two versions of when the village was supplied with gas. One at a time - in 1956, the first in the Shchekinsky region. According to the local newspaper Shchekinsky Khimik, the village was gasified after the launch of the Shchekinsky gas plant in 1955, at the same time the director of the enterprise proposed lighting the Eternal Flame at the mass grave.
It must be said that the launch of the plant was premature, the enterprise was not ready for it: almost immediately three of the four gas generators failed, requiring expensive dismantling and re-installation of structures; as a result, the old director of the plant was removed, and front-line soldier and experienced organizer Sergei Jobadze was appointed in his place. By the fall of 1956, the plant still did not fulfill the plan, since it was officially launched in May 1955, but in fact it was still being installed. As a result, the Moscow gas pipeline was connected to the Stavropol - Tula natural gas pipeline. In 1957, the plant began to operate at full capacity. Thus, the lighting of the Eternal Flame in Pervomaisky was not only closely associated with the fresh memory of the war, but was also an inspiring symbol of the final commissioning of the plant, new to the gas production area, which was so difficult for everyone who worked on it in this post-war decade.
The next stage of my research was the study of the filing for the 1950s of the regional newspaper, which during its existence was renamed several times and at different times was called “Iskra” (1931-1934), “Shchekinsky Miner” (1936-1954) and “Banner of Communism” "(since 1955) (now the newspaper is called "Shchekinsky Chemist"). In the reports on the celebration of Victory Day for 1955 and 1956, there was no mention of the opening of the Eternal Flame in Pervomaisky, however, according to these reports, it is possible to reconstruct the celebration of May 9 in that period. They talk about the solemn anniversary of the 10th anniversary of the Victory, rallies that took place at mass graves and monuments. The real find was an article in the Banner of Communism dated May 12, 1957. This is how the “ceremonial meeting” was described in that festive issue:
“Here, on May 9, thousands of workers of the gas plant, the Shchekingazstroy trust and other enterprises, employees of institutions, and school students gathered here for a rally dedicated to the opening of the monument. At five o'clock in the evening, the chairman of the village council, Comrade Strizhkov, opens the meeting. The Anthem of the Soviet Union is played. There is a small marble arch in front of the warriors' grave. It is engraved on it: “The memory of you will not fade for centuries.” Pioneer Lyuba Korotkikh approaches the arch and lights a gas torch. The director of the gas plant, Comrade Jobadze, and the manager of the Shchekingazstroy trust, Comrade Volkov, remove the white cloth from the monument - and a sculptural group is presented in front of thousands of people gathered: on a marble pedestal, two warriors with bare heads. One, bowed, holds a wreath, and the other holds a battle banner. On the pedestal is inscribed in gold: “Eternal glory to the warrior heroes Soviet army and to the partisans who died in the battles for the freedom and independence of our Motherland in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.” The floor is given to the Secretary of the Shchekino City Committee of the CPSU, Comrade Ukhabov. He talks about the glorious military exploits performed by the Soviet people under the leadership Communist Party during the Great Patriotic War. Representatives of the workers speak one after another: Comrade Rakhmanov, manager of the Shchekingazstroy trust, Comrade Volkov, deputy chairman of the factory committee of the gas plant, Comrade Pisarevskaya, fourth-grade student Bazdereva. Representatives of enterprises, institutions, public organizations, and schools lay wreaths at the foot of the monument. Three-time fireworks go off. The mournful melody is replaced by the powerful wave of the Anthem of the Soviet Union. The rally is over. The memory of the soldiers who gave their lives for our beloved Motherland will never fade in the hearts of Soviet people.”
It follows from the article that on the evening of May 9, 1957, six months earlier than on the Field of Mars, in the village of Pervomaisky, Shchekinsky district, Tula region, at the opening of a memorial to those who fell in the battles for the liberation of their homeland in the Great Patriotic War, the Eternal Flame was lit. Thus, it is the first Eternal Flame in the USSR, dedicated to the memory of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, and in general - the first Eternal Flame in the USSR.
I was interested not only in the question of the opening date, but also in the authorship of the monument. In the work of the bibliographer of the Shchekino Municipal Central Library, dedicated to all the memorials of the Great Patriotic War in the Shchekino region, there is information that the monument was made at the Kaluga Plant of Monumental Sculpture (now the Kaluga Sculpture Factory) and its author is unknown. The monument was accepted for state protection on April 9, 1969 by decision of the Tuloblis Executive Committee. In this work, 1957 is indicated as the year of the “capital equipment of the grave”: the installation of a sculptural monument and the Eternal Flame, which is listed in the inventory of the memorial as an “unquenchable torch.”
According to the historical information on the village’s website and the memoirs of Pyotr Sharov, the sculptural group was ordered from Kyiv architectural workshops, and the design of the pedestal and layout were developed by the plant’s managers together with the architect Ekaterina Nezhurbida. Granite, facing and tombstone slabs were brought from Moscow. The first gas for the flare was supplied from a gas plant, then it was switched to natural gas.
I had an idea about how the discrepancy in dating could have occurred after I got acquainted with the registration cards of war memorials with burials at the military commissariat for the Tula region in the Shchekinsky district. According to these documents, in the Shchekinsky district there are 17 military graves, which were built from 1949 to 1971. Among them, 14 monuments were made at the Kaluga Plant of Monumental Sculpture, as evidenced by their registration cards - in some cases it is indicated that the author is unknown or that this is mass production. The card for the May Day memorial only notes that the author is unknown, but does not indicate the place of manufacture, and also indicates 1957 as the date of creation. This may have confused the compiler of a very detailed publication about the area's memorials.
In local history literature and local periodicals, I looked not only for dates, but also for references emphasizing that the May Day Eternal Flame was the first in the USSR. I only discovered this in an article by the secretary of the Komsomol committee of the Azot plant, which also repeats the opening date of the memorial in 1956 and emphasizes the assistance of Sergei Jobadze in implementing this initiative:
“There are many such monuments in middle lane Russia was left behind by the war, but this monument is special. Exactly 24 years ago, on May 9, 1957, the Eternal Flame was lit over the grave. This was the first Eternal Flame for the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. It was lit by workers of the gas plant, now the Azot production association. […] Despite the difficult situation with construction, the former director of the gas plant S.A. Jobadze and the manager of the Shchekingazstroy trust V.A. Volkov allocated funds for the construction of the monument and specialist builders.”
Subsequent publications also talk about the construction of the monument in 1956 and that it was the first Eternal Flame in the USSR:
“In September 1956, this monument was built by the staff of the Shchekino Gas Plant. And then, for the first time in our country, it was here that the Eternal Flame was lit over a mass grave.”
Pyotr Sharov in his memoirs especially emphasizes that this Eternal Flame “was lit for the first time in the Soviet Union. And it was the workers of our factory who did this.”
Only the Shchekinazot veterans’ council helped me shed light on the confusing situation with the dates: as it turned out, the memorial was opened twice. On May 9, 1957, the second opening took place, timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, and the first opening of the monument and the lighting of the Eternal Flame took place in September 1956 and was dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the liberation of Shchekin and Yasnaya Polyana from the Germans. fascist invaders (December 1941).
According to the recollections of my informant, in September 1956 a solemn meeting was held, which was attended by a lot of people. The event was supervised by the Shchekino military registration and enlistment office. The fire was lit by the military: either personnel or participants in the Great Patriotic War, front-line soldiers with the right to wear military uniforms. At that time, the memorial was not fully landscaped (apparently, the perimeter and borders around the monument, the Eternal Flame and mass graves were not fully designed), the design of the burner itself was temporary: household gas for the torch was supplied from the factory. In 1957, it was connected to a compressor station with natural gas, and the memorial acquired its final appearance, which it retained with minor changes until reconstruction in 2013.
It should be noted that neither in the funds of the former party archive of the Tula region (now the Center modern history) - the archives of the production association "Azot" and the Shchekino Komsomol - nor in the minutes of the meetings of the Shchekino City Executive Committee (Shchekino Municipal Archives) I did not find any direct evidence of the opening of the monument and the lighting of the Eternal Flame. A search in the funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation also did not produce any results.
The main experts on the history of the memorial were employees of the local history museum; they gave interviews to journalists and organized a traveling museum exhibition at the “return” ceremony of the Eternal Flame. According to the director of the museum, war and labor veterans who lived and worked in the village in the 1950s were interviewed. It turned out that there were almost no living witnesses to the lighting of the fire: some had memory failures - which is not surprising, given their venerable age; someone remembered only the opening of the monument, but did not remember the moment of lighting; someone remembered the crying of women during the reburial of the remains of the fallen. Conflicting versions have been expressed. Only one veteran was able to remember that the Eternal Flame was lit on May 9, 1955, and two years later, in 1957, a monument was erected. The director of the museum was told that the Eternal Flame was the first in the USSR by the head of the May Day film club at the House of Culture, who is no longer alive. The museum staff also made an attempt to find either the mature pioneer who lit the Eternal Flame, or information about her, for which an advertisement was placed in the local newspaper. It turned out that she died in a traffic accident in the 1970s. The museum is inclined to believe that the Eternal Flame was lit in 1955, and the monument was unveiled in 1957, since in the same archival photograph that captured the opening of the memorial, the monument is not yet there, although the angle suggests its presence.
The first May Day Eternal Flame did not become the main one not only in the USSR, but even in the Tula region, although other fires were lit from it - but only within the Shchekino region. So, on May 9, 1975, a torch with fire from the village of Pervomaisky was delivered by car to the city of Shchekino. On that day, the obelisk stela “To the Shchekin warriors who died in battles for their Motherland during the Great Patriotic War” was unveiled and the Eternal Flame was lit, and at the same time the Eternal Flame was lit at the mass grave in the city of Sovetsk, Shchekinsky district. The eternal flame in Tula was already lit from the flame from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin wall in October 1968.
Concluding remarks
The first monuments created on Soviet territory during the war were tombstones on the graves of Red Army soldiers; they were made mainly in the form of pyramid-obelisks topped with a star. The materials from which they were made were the most accessible at that time: wood, stone, brick, plaster, concrete, and sometimes iron. The first military sculptural monuments in the USSR began to be erected in the territories liberated by the Red Army. Researchers have noted characteristic trends in the monumental memorialization of each post-war decade. For example, it is believed that in the 1950s the most common was the creation of individual monuments to fallen heroes (Alexander Matrosov in Velikiye Luki, Young Guards in Krasnodon, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya in Moscow). And the second half of the 1960s (after the large-scale celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Victory) is called the time of widespread creation of memorial complexes with a repeating set of visual images.
How have these trends been implemented in local contexts? As a veteran of the search movement told me, under the leadership of local military personnel, collective farmers collected and searched for the remains of fallen soldiers for workdays. The regional military commissariat was in charge of the burials. According to his archival information, on April 2, 1945, in the Shchekinsky district there were 2 mass graves and 15 individual graves, and in May 1946 there were already 17 mass graves and 8 individual graves.
On April 5, 1945 and May 29, 1946, the executive committee of the Shchekino district executive committee of workers' deputies approved the resolution “On the improvement and cultural maintenance of mass and individual officer and Red Army graves located in the region,” according to which it obliged all village council chairmen to clarify the number of graves on their territories and entrusted the protection and maintenance of graves to specific collective farms. The production of fences, pyramid monuments and tablets with inscriptions, the equipment of graves (turf and flowers, planting trees) were entrusted to collective farms, mines and enterprises located on the territory of the village council. It was also ordered to involve the local Komsomol organization in the repair and “loving courtship” of the graves. Subsequently, the enterprises and schools supervising them were assigned to each memorial. By 1970, only three of the seventeen mass graves had not had their obelisks replaced with monuments, which was corrected a year later. In the 1990s, the memorials were transferred to the balance of local administrations, and their condition began to be controlled by regional military commissariats. In accordance with the Law of the Russian Federation dated January 14, 1993 No. 4292-1 “On perpetuating the memory of those killed in defense of the Fatherland” and the order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation dated April 10, 1993 No. 185 “On measures to implement” this law, before May 9 the military commissariat sends heads of district administrations request to conduct surveys of memorials and provide written reports on their condition.
Memorials in large cities were created by famous sculptors and architects, their designs preserved either in private or state archives. The history of such monuments is less controversial, since they have been the focus of attention since their creation (reference books, guidebooks, newspaper articles, sets of postcards). Monuments in small settlements, as a rule, are standard mass-produced monuments, however, they are much more variable in terms of visual images than it might seem at first glance. For example, in the Shchekinsky district there are more than twenty different sculptural monuments dedicated to those who fell in the Great Patriotic War, and in only two cases the names of the authors are known.
At the beginning of my research, I sought to reconstruct how things “really” were, so that the pieces of the puzzle would connect, without the contradictions that so confused me in various sources. My initial desire to find out in what year the Eternal Flame was lit gradually faded away, as I came to the conclusion that this was simply impossible. I cannot say with complete certainty which document or whose testimony is the most comprehensive and convincing. At first, I was inclined to the version of May 9, 1957, since the archived issue of the newspaper with a report on the opening of the monument and the lighting of the Eternal Flame seemed to me the most reliable source (as they told me in the archive: “There is a document, there is a fact”). Then I learned about the first opening of the monument in September 1956 and the second one in 1957, timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the revolution, and this version explained many remaining questions and also seemed quite plausible. Nevertheless, over and over again I peered at the photograph in which the director of the plant and the pioneer lit the unquenchable torch, compared it with other old photographs of the memorial, turned on my spatial imagination and agreed with the museum staff that from this angle the monument should have entered the frame if If only he were standing there at this time, but he is not.
Now, almost two years after the start of the research, I am not thinking about what year the Eternal Flame was lit on May Day, but about how the memory of a particular event is preserved and transmitted. How to determine the degree of its significance in the local history of an individual settlement? Does it depend on the scale of the event and how to evaluate this scale? How and for how long is the memory of an event retained? How many years will eyewitnesses remember him, how detailed will their descendants have an idea of him almost 60 years later? What evidence will the archives preserve?
On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Victory, interest in memorials and their fate is especially great. Retrospectively, the lighting of the first Eternal Flame in the USSR is a significant event, and not only on the scale of the district and region. But was it perceived in a similar way at the moment when it happened, did contemporaries notice it, and how can we judge it now? I suppose that this event, on the one hand, can be considered as a potential “place of memory,” that is, “a significant unity of a material or ideal order, which the will of people or the work of time has transformed into a symbolic element of the heritage of memory of a certain community.” On the other hand, using his example one can trace the transition from individual-communicative memory to collective-cultural memory and vice versa
Do you love looking at candle fire? Probably few of us will say no. For some reason, the flame has a magical, bewitching effect on a person.
And the flame itself has been something magical since ancient times; one second we see the flame, the next it disappears, only to appear again. Therefore, the ancients believed that fire easily and simply unites the worlds.
When a person dies, the flame of his heart slowly fades away to be rekindled in another world. This is, of course, an image, but from it arose the tradition of lighting a fire in honor of the dead and dead.
To put it even more simply, fire is our memory, eternal fire is eternal memory.
Now, probably, in every city you can see a memorial or monument with an eternal flame.
For the older generation, this is not just a symbol of worship of a feat. This is an eternal connection with the dead, no matter how long ago it happened.
Fire has been considered a symbol of purification since ancient times. Do you think you just keep looking at the candle flame? No.
It turns out that our thoughts, passing through this flame, are also purified, everything superficial, everything unnecessary is burned, everything that remains is your truth. So it is very useful for a person to look at the fire from time to time.
Remember May 9... How the whole country freezes in mute silence, without taking its eyes off the flame of the eternal flame. This minute is a moment of strength for the whole country. At this moment there is an energetic unification of the entire family. Somewhere in some dimension, the gazes of the living and the dead meet.
This is just what they say, that the gaze is unseeing..... Another kind of seeing, just not with the ordinary human eye, but rather with the soul.
In ancient times, when moving to a new house, it was a tradition to bring a pot of fire from the old house. This was done for a reason. This tradition had great meaning. With this fire, the connection with the ancestors, with the lineage of this family, was transferred to the new home.
Remember that a woman is the keeper of the family hearth? We're just used to thinking now that it's just a metaphor. And in ancient times, the fire in the house had to be constantly maintained, so the family connection was not lost.
It's like looking for someone in the dark with a flashlight. You'll find him faster if he also lights a flashlight, right?
We must always remember that certain traditions do not arise just like that. And if we don’t know something, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist and never happened.
We are simply given the opportunity to forget. Sometimes this gift is useful, sometimes it is not. But we must remember and honor those who have passed on.
And we must not only remember those who gave their lives so that you and I could live and rejoice now. We must be worthy of them.
And when your gaze once again freezes on the flame of a burning fire, you mentally send gratitude and bow. You can rest assured that you will be seen and heard.
It seems to us that the main role fire to warm our homes, make our lives more comfortable and cozy. It seems so to us...
And FIRE itself only smiles at human naivety. After all, human knowledge is already at the “warm” level, but it is still far from “hot”.
I am always glad to see you on the pages of the site
45 years ago, on May 8, 1967, the Eternal Flame was lit at the Kremlin wall at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in memory of the heroes who fell during the Great Patriotic War.
The tradition of maintaining an eternal flame in special burners at monuments, memorial complexes, cemeteries, and graves dates back to the ancient cult of Vesta. Every year on March 1, the great priest lit a sacred fire in her temple at the main Roman Forum, which the Vestal priestesses had to maintain around the clock throughout the year.
In recent history, the eternal flame was first lit in Paris at the Arc de Triomphe at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in which the remains of a French soldier who died in the battles of the First World War were buried. The fire in the memorial appeared two years after its opening. In 1921, the French sculptor Grégoire Calvet put forward a proposal: to equip the monument with a special gas burner, which would allow illumination of the tomb at night. This idea was actively supported by journalist Gabriel Boissy in October 1923.
On November 11, 1923 at 18.00, French Minister of War Andre Maginot in a solemn ceremony lit the flame of the memorial flame for the first time. From this day on, the flame at the memorial is lit every day at 18.30, and veterans of the Second World War participate in the ceremony.
The tradition was adopted by many states, which created national and city monuments in memory of the soldiers who died in the First World War. The eternal flame was lit in Belgium, Portugal, Romania, and the Czech Republic in the 1930s and 1940s.
The first country to perpetuate the memory of those killed in World War II with a memorial fire was Poland. On May 8, 1946, the eternal flame was lit in Warsaw on Marshal Józef Pilsudski Square, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, restored after the Nazi occupation. The honor of conducting this ceremony was given to the division general, the mayor of Warsaw, Marian Spychalski. A guard of honor from the Representative Battalion of the Polish Army was posted near the memorial.
In the German capital Berlin, an eternal flame burned for 20 years in the building of the former Neue Wache guardhouse. In 1969, on the 20th anniversary of the formation of the GDR, in the center of the hall of the “Memorial to the Victims of Militarism and Fascism” opened there, a glass prism with an eternal flame was installed, which was lit over the remains of an unknown victim concentration camps World War II and an unknown German fighter. In 1991, the monument was transformed into the “Central Memorial to the Victims of Tyranny and War of the Federal Republic of Germany”, the eternal flame was dismantled, and an enlarged copy of the statue “Mother with a Dead Child” by Käthe Kollwitz was installed in its place.
The eternal flame in memory of those killed in World War II was lit in many countries in Europe, Asia, as well as in Canada and the USA.
In May 1975, in Rostov-on-Don, the eternal flame was lit at the Memorial to the Victims of Fascism, the largest in modern Russia burial site for Holocaust victims.
The tradition of lighting an eternal flame has also become widespread on the African continent. One of the oldest and most famous monuments, the “Pioneer Monument” (Voortrekker) in Pretoria was lit in 1938, it symbolizes the memory of the mass migration of Africans into the interior of the continent in 1835-1854, called the Great Trek (“Die Groot Trek”).
On August 1, 1964, the eternal flame was lit in Japan in Hiroshima at the Flame of Peace Monument in the Peace Memorial Park. According to the idea of the park's creators, this fire will burn until the complete destruction of nuclear weapons on the planet.
On September 14, 1984, with a torch lit from the flames of the Hiroshima memorial, Pope John Paul II opened the eternal flame, symbolizing humanity's hope for peace, in the Peace Garden in Toronto, Canada.
The first fire dedicated to the memory of a specific historical figure was lit in the United States in Dallas at Arlington Cemetery at the grave of US President John F. Kennedy at the request of his widow Jacqueline Kennedy on November 25, 1963.
One of the five eternal flames Latin America also lit in honor of a historical figure. In the capital of Nicaragua, Managua, on Revolution Square, a flame burns at the grave of Carlos Fonseca Amador, one of the founders and leaders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (SFNL).
On July 7, 1989, Queen Elizabeth II lit the Fire of Hope at Frederick Banting Square in Ontario, Canada. This eternal flame, on the one hand, is a tribute to the memory of the Canadian physiologist who first received insulin, on the other hand, symbolizes the hope of humanity to defeat diabetes mellitus. The creators of the monument plan to extinguish the flame as soon as a cure for diabetes is invented.
In the countries formed after the collapse of the USSR, the eternal flame was extinguished at many monuments due to economic or political considerations.
In 1994, the eternal flame went out near the Monument to the Soldier-Liberator of Tallinn from the Nazi invaders (since 1995 - the Monument to the Fallen in World War II) in the capital of Estonia.
In many Russian cities, the eternal flame is lit irregularly - on days of remembrance and military holidays - May 9, June 22, days of remembrance of significant military operations.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
