Cathedral

The Aleksandr Nevskii Cathedral, Tallinn

On 19 February 1887, the Reval clergy turned to Prince Sergei V. Shakhovskoi, the governor of Estland, with a paper about the need to build a new cathedral in the city. Shakhovskoi forwarded it to D. A. Tolstoi, the minister of internal affairs, together with a petition to Emperor Alexander III asking for permission to conduct an alms collection across the empire to fund the construction: he also asked for the establishment of a special committee to manage the donations and the cathedral’s decoration. That the cathedral was named after Prince Aleksandr Nevskii is explained by the fact that his name ‘in this region is connected with memories, dear to any Russian, of the heroic deeds of Russian arms for the Orthodox faith and integrity of the state.’ In Shakhovskoi’s opinion, the memory of the sainted prince had a special importance for Estland, since around Pühtitsa ‘lie the graves of warriors fallen in the battles of Aleksandr Nevskii’[1] (a notion of ancient Orthodoxy more characteristic of governance of the western provinces than the Baltic ones). Equally, the name established a connection with Alexander III, ‘whose supreme will it is that the present borderland now enters into a bodily unity with our great fatherland’. The proposed name was also an expression of joy at the tsar’s escape from a train crash on 17 October 1888 at Borki station. [2]

‘With an Orthodox cathedral on Vyshgorod [Toompea],[3] a one-time strong fortress of alien rule over the region, the prince desired to conclusively strengthen the victory of Orthodoxy and the Russian state, achieved in Estland at the dear price of a relentless struggle in the name of the russification reforms introduced into the Baltic region in the current reign’ was how one of Shakhovskoi’s closest officials underlined the ideological aspect of the building project.[4] Analogous thoughts sounded in the call for donations. Among the reasons cited were the growth of the Russian population and the fact that the old cathedral, rebuilt from a Lutheran church in the eighteenth century, did not correspond ‘to its appointment – to serve as a worthy representative of the state church in the provincial capital’. It was underlined that with the construction of the cathedral, the architectural visage of ‘Russian Reval’ would change, where one could ‘not see the Orthodox cross or hear the Sunday bells’ ‘behind the spires of German churches’: ‘it is necessary that the external traces of the Orthodox Church’s humiliation disappear as a blessed mark of the victory of Orthodoxy and a monument to valiant confessors. From both sea and land, the cross of the Orthodox cathedral will shine high.’[5] The project’s ‘russifying’ character reflected the long-standing aspirations of those who lamented the overly ‘German’ face of Reval.  

On 2 April 1888, the emperor confirmed a general collection for the construction project and the establishment of a committee for handling donations and the building efforts. In 1894, 55,595 subscription lists were distributed around Russia with requests for donations. Under the chairmanship of Prince Shakhovskoi, the committee included Vice Governor A. P. Vasilevskii, the provincial engineer R. E. Kniupfer, Archpriest Simeon Popov (the Estland dean from 1875 to 1909 and the first head priest of the new cathedral from 1900 to 1909), the priests M. T. Ikonnikov and Karp Tiisik, Professor Mikhail Preobrazhenskii,[6] and the provincial architect E. R. Berngard.

The first meeting of the committee was held on 10 August 1888: by 1 December 1894, it had met 29 times.[7] Over five years, the committee amassed considerable sums. Between 1889 and 1899, the all-empire donations drive had raised 434,623 roubles: the remaining sums were issued from the state treasury. On 3 November 1889, the committee marked a square on Toompea for the construction. It also resolved to entrust the project to the architect Professor Preobrazhenskii. On the basis of a rough sketch from 17 April 1892, he was to build a ‘a cathedral with three altars and five domes in the style of old Russian churches’ for 1,500 people. On 4 May, a contract was concluded with Preobrazhenskii for 24,000 roubles. The architect himself wrote that the cathedral ‘was built like the Moscow-Iaroslavl’ churches of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the most characteristic in Russian church architecture.’ [8]

At Alexander III’s command, the ‘Romanov’ (or Moscow-Iaroslavl’) style dominated throughout his reign: this reproduced the churches of Moscow and Iaroslavl’ from the seventeenth century, especially the rich décor covering the walls. The form and idea of church architecture in this period was mainly realised through the décor: churches were to be the quintessence of the national, of the Russian. The Moscow-Iaroslavl’ style of Russian architecture was embodied in Tallinn in this new cathedral and its patterned national décor: its closest analogue was the Nikolaevskii cathedral in Liepāja (Libau, architect V. A. Kosiakov).

The blessing of the building site took place on 30 August 1893: Bishop Agafangel (Preobrazhenskii) performed the opening ceremony on 30 April 1900 with Archpriest Ioann of Kronshtadt and the Reval clergy. The side altars were blessed in honour of St Vladimir (the south altar) and St Sergii Radonezh (the namesake of Prince Sergei Shakhovskoi; the north altar). The cathedral is a five-domed, cross-shaped edifice standing at 58 metres in height. It dominates the panorama of Tallinn’s Toompea. According to one modern researcher, ‘as a result of the completion of M. T. Preobrazhenskii’s project, a clearly discordant theme entered into the ensemble of Reval’s Toompea: however, it is impossible to deny that with the construction of the Aleksandr Nevskii cathedral, the town acquired an “exotic” landmark which continues to draw interest. The result obtained from an urban planning point of view is fully analogous to that created by the construction of the “Salvation on the Blood” cathedral in Petersburg.’[9] Emperor Nicholas II visited the Reval cathedral on 28 September 1910.[10] On 31 December 1917, Metropolitan Veniamin (Kazanskii) of Petrograd and Bishop Artemii (Il’inskii) of Luga consecrated Platon (Kulbusch) as the bishop of Reval: he was the first ever Estonian prelate.[11]   

The cathedral’s monumental bulk, its dominating position, and its characteristic national décor rendered it a target of nationalist criticism in independent Estonia. In 1922, a donation drive was opened to tear down the ‘church with the golden cupolas.’[12] Agu, a journal of literature, art, and culture, wrote in 1924: ‘the cathedral of Aleksandr Nevskii on Toompea was built in a surrogate neo-Russian style; over all of Tallinn and its surroundings, the gilded onion bulbs of the cupolas on its towers are stars of russification, a symbol of the policy of russification. A majestic political idea is rendered spiritual here, and the place for demonstrating its dominant position was well chosen. From here, this church dominates over all Tallinn with the lack of culture characteristic of Russia. This monument does not sit in harmony with the general look of the old town. As a symbol of arrogance and violence with its motley and clamorous look (as per the eastern style), it is a living monument of earlier slavery not only for the German barons, but also for our independence.’ Referring to Warsaw’s recent demolition of the ‘majestic cathedral [of St Aleksandr Nevskii] in the Byzantine style’ as a precedent, the author recommended rebuilding the Reval cathedral as a ‘pantheon of Estonian independence’ by removing the onion bulbs and all other ‘typical Russian ornaments’ from the towers.[13] However, the plan of the famous architect Karl Burman was not realised.[14] Aleksander (Paulus), the archbishop of Tallinn and all Estonia, pointed out that the ‘numerous German churches raised during the time of slavery…with symbols of German power’ were far more injurious to the Estonians, but for some reason no-one was gathering funds to destroy them. He protested against the ‘barbarous and malicious tone’ and the ‘extreme hatred’ adopted by the cathedral’s opponents.[15]

In October 1928, a legislative plan was introduced into Riigikogu [parliament] to destroy the cathedral on 1 May 1929. On 23 September of that year, Bishop Ioann (Bulin) of Pecher, together with pastors from the Lutheran Church of Estonia and believers, dispatched a request not to permit the demolition to the head of state and the chair of Riigikogu. The Baltic conference of the International Peace Union asked ‘that such a project be removed from the agenda’,[16] a request which was opposed by members from left-wing parties in parliament.

On 28 October 1936, the Synod of the Estonian Apostolic Church transferred the cathedral to an Estonian parish headed by Archpriest Nikolai Päts, brother of the Estonian president. From 12 December 1936 to 1940, the liturgy was performed in Estonian. The Russian parish moved the Simeonovskii church. By order of the authorities, the gold was taken from the cupolas and replaced with galvanised metal coating (after 1945, this was painted green). A Foucault pendulum was hung in the church. Repairs were conducted in 1937: equally, from spring 1943 to June 1944, intensive correspondence was held on the subject of further maintenance.[17]

From March 1945, Archbishop Pavel (Dmitrievskii) began to restore the cathedral: in May, the liturgy was renewed for a larger Russian parish. On the basement level, the Estonian Andreevskaia church was created, but this parish was liquidated in 1947.[18] On 3 September 1961, Aleksii (Ridiger), the future patriarch of Moscow, was consecrated as an archbishop in the cathedral. As the head clergyman of the temple, he managed to prevent its closure and transformation into a planetarium in 1962-63. However, the basement level, which had been a bomb shelter since the closure of the Estonian parish, was turned into a book depository of the State Library of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.[19] The basement was returned to the cathedral following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. On 16 March 1999, the cathedral’s parish regulations were registered with the Estonian Ministry of the Interior. The cathedral gained the status of a strauropegic institution, although it continues to hold the cathedra of the primate of the Estonian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).

The Reval cathedral was one of the most significant church edifices in the Baltic region and throughout the Russian Empire under Alexander III, not only because of its artistic importance, but also because of its ideological direction. In the 1880s and 1890s, church construction in Estland province became a unique example in the Baltic of the close connections between the central, local (in person of Prince Shakhovskoi), and church authorities: it was an important factor in uniting local residents with the Russian nation through Orthodoxy. The Aleksandr Nevskii cathedral in Tallinn, like a range of other churches in Estonia (the Pühtitsa convent, the Aleksandr Nevskii church in Lihula) associated with the policy of confirming Russian Orthodoxy, was a manifestation not only of the Orthodox faith but also the realisation of national and political ideas through architecture. The commonalities in church construction across the empire brought to mind the polity’s unity, and by this emphasised the role of the state church.

But it is important to note that in both Estland province and the Baltic in general, the declarative Russian style was perceived as an alternative to German, not Estonian, identity. As with the other ‘russifying reforms’, church construction was understood not as a project of assimilation but as one of the possible paths for integrating the region into the ‘state space’ of Russia. If we must pose the question of whom these reforms were directed against, then their obvious aim was the destruction of the German aristocracy’s monopoly on power: in the thinking of the reformers, the winners in this would be the central authorities and the local population, both Estonian and Russian. However, during the first Estonian Republic and its fears of Bolshevik expansion, relations with Soviet Russia were unwarrantedly fixed upon the cathedral, a pronouncedly Russian building in the heart of Tallinn’s old town.  

Notes

[1] S. I. Umanets, Vospominaniia o kniaze S. V. Skahovskom i Baltiiskie ocherki (St Petersburg, 1899), p. 18.

[2]. K. Tiisik, Revel’skii Aleksandro-Nevskii sobor na Vyshgorode (Reval, 1910), pp. 15-16.

[3] Translator's note: main hill in the centre of Tallinn. Henceforth referred to as Toompea.

[4] Umanets, Vospminaniia, p. 16.

[5] K. Tiisik, “Kniaz Shakhovskoi kak radetel’ pravoslaviia v Estliandii’ in Venok na mogilu (Revel, 1896), pp. 38-40 (second pagination).

[6] See A. Bertash, ‘Tserkovnyi zodchii M. T. Preobrazhenskii i ego raboty v Estliandskoi gubernii’ in Sed’mye Piukhtitskie chteniia (Kuremae, 2018), pp. 116-124; A. Bertash, ‘Arkhitektor Mikhail T. Preobrazhenskii i ego nasledie v stranakh Baltii i Vostochnoi Evropy’ in Sztuka Europy Wschodniej – Iskusstvo Vostochnoi Evropy. Vol. 6 (Warszawa–Toruń, 2018), pp. 61–76.

[7] ‘Svedeniia o deiatel’nosti vysochaishe utverzhdennogo komiteta po sboru pozhertvovanii na sooruzhenie pravoslavnogo sobornogo khrama v g. Revele…’ Rizhskie eparkhial’nye vedomosti (REV), no. 1 (1895), pp. 20-21.

[8] M. T. Preobrazhenskii, Revel’skii pravoslavnyi Aleksandro-Nevskoi sobor (St Petersburg, 1902), pp. 3-4.

[9] V. G. Ligovskii, ‘Natsional’nyi stil’ v arkhitekture Rossii (Moscow, 2000), pp. 208-209; V. G. Ligovskii, Arkhitektura Rossii XVIII – nachale XX veka. Poiski natsional’nogo stilia (Moscow, 2009), pp. 331-332.

[10] ‘Prebyvanie Preosviashchennogo Ioanna, episkopa Rizhskogo i Mitavskogo, v g. Revele, po sluchaiu 200-letnego iubileiia prisoedineniia Estliandii k Rossiiskoi imperii’, REV no. 20, pp. 620-621.  

[11] I. Paert, ‘Vosstanovlenie Revel’skogo vikariatstva v 1917 g. i vybory episkopa kak proiavlenie “tserkovnoi revoliutsii” v Rizhskoi eparkhii’, Pravoslavie v Baltii, no. 9 (18) (2020), pp. 59-72.

[12] See U. Kalmar (Meletios), ’Miks Tallinna Nevski katedraalist ei saanud Toompea panteoni?’ in Tallinna Linnamuuseumi aastaraamat 2008/2010 (Tallinna Linnamuuseum, 2010).

[13] Agu, no. 21 (1924), p. 688.

[14] G. Leo, Karl Burman (Tallinn, 1998), pp. 196-198.

[15] Aleksii (Ridiger), Pravoslaviie v Estonii (Moscow, 1999), pp. 393-394.

[16] Uus Elu, no. 10 (1928).

[17] TLA. 149-2-63.

[18] V. Berens, Istoriko-statisticheskoe opisanie tserkvei i prikhodov Severo-Zapadnykh eparkhii. Estonskaia eparkhiia (Tallinn, 1974) (manuscript copy, EAA).

[19] J. Plaat and A. Maasik Arne, Ṍigeusu kirikud, kloostrid ja kabelid Eestis (Tallinn, 2011), pp. 178-179.

Author

Archpriest Aleksandr Bertash

Translator

James M. White