The stories behind the building of a famous Russian monument

The Bronze Horseman: Falconet's Monument to Peter the Great

Sometimes I don’t understand publishing strategy. The Bronze Horseman: Falconet’s Monument to Peter the Great, by Alexander M. Schenker, is in the same vein as the national bestseller Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, by Ross King (published by Penguin) or The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914 by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster), and yet with The Bronze Horseman Yale University Press is snubbing the wider market. At the same time, while the price and subject suggest a lavish print job and presentation, the copy I'm getting ready to put out for sale has flat-finish, rather tan paper for both text and black and white illustrations (no color). The book measures roughly 9 ½ by 6 ¼ inches - no coffee table tome this. Go figure.

It's Yale's book and of course they have the right to market and price it however they like. But if you know any publishers, please drop them a hint that I'd like to see somebody used to dealing with us peons get their hands on reprint rights. Right now you're lucky if you can grab a used copy for less than $50. That's a shame.

It’s a serious historical work, more than 400 pages long including 50 pages of notes, 15 of bibliography, etc., but the sections that I've read read well: smooth, interesting, thick with facts without being bogged down in facts – a nice job. The book covers the political intrigues, personalities, feuds, friendships, engineering, technology, art vogues, and more, related to the building of the famous equestrian statue of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg.

The story of the statue's base, the Thunder Rock (aka Thunder-Stone), is a wild story all by itself. Once this boulder was found in the Karelian forest, a road had to be built just for dealing with it. Building a road was the easy part. Even the sculptor expected the boulder to be cut up in the forest, and reassembled in Senate Square. But no. Catherine the Great decided that she wanted to bring the boulder to the city in one piece. Quoting from page 136:

“Was it an extravagant gift to a sculptor whom she admired and liked, or a wish to have him work on the pedestal under her watchful gaze? Most probably neither. Catherine the Great was a political animal through and through, and it was her political intuition that prompted her to stake money and reputation on an undertaking which she knew was adventurous, but whose potential political benefits were of such an order as to justify the risk. Later events proved the correctness of her gambling instincts. The incredible saga of the search for a natural stone for the pedestal and of its transportation to St. Petersburg caught the fancy of the world and brought Catherine’s rule almost as much acclaim as the first sputnik brought to the Khrushchev regime.”

The title link is to a meaty March 20, 2004, Washington Times book review by Priscilla S. Taylor. The headline on the review is "How a French artist created great Russian monument."