Miron Ivanovich Merzhanov ( Migran Oganesovich Merzhanyants , Armenian Մերուժանյանց Միհրան Հովհաննեսի, September 23 , 1895 - December 13, 1975 ) was a Soviet architect . In 1934-1941, he was the personal architect of Joseph Stalin , the author of the projects for the dachas of Stalin and the top leaders of the USSR in Kuntsevo , Matsesta , Bocharov Ruchey .
In 1943-1954 he was repressed, worked in architectural " sharashkas " from Sochi to Komsomolsk-on-Amur . The author of the projects of the Golden Stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Hero of Socialist Labor (1938-1939) [2] .
Early years and early career
The architect was born in Nakhichevan-on-Don (today - within the boundaries of Rostov-on-Don) in a prosperous Armenian family. Father Hovhannes (Ivan) Mironovich Merzhanyants served as an official and manager at the factory of the merchant Unanyan in Slavyansk, and was a distant relative of Ivan Aivazovsky . Mother - Hripsime (Olga) Martynovna Mieserova, daughter of a Rostov merchant of the 1st guild [3] . All three of Ivan's sons became talented specialists, each in their own field. The middle son and younger brother of Miron Martyn became a well-known sports journalist who founded the weekly Futbol in 1960, the younger Yakov worked as a theater artist in Moscow, but died early. Before the First World WarMiron managed to finish the classical gymnasium and enter the St. Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineers . He worked as a draftsman in the workshop of Alexander Tamanyan , then he was drafted into the troops, but did not manage to get to the front.
After the October Revolution, he fled from hungry Petersburg home to Rostov. Trying to avoid being drafted into Denikin's troops of the first line, he voluntarily joined the engineering battalion of the White Army, and after its defeat he settled in Krasnodar . In 1920-1923 he continued his studies at the Kuban Polytechnic Institute , easily entered the circle of local professionals, in 1922 he married the daughter of a Kislovodsk architect, Elizaveta Emmanuilovna Khodzhaeva.
Merzhanov's first independent building was his own house in Kislovodsk (1925). He was followed
covered market in Essentuki
building of the State Bank in Pyatigorsk [4]
one of the buildings of the sanatorium "10 years of October" (now the "Pearl of the Caucasus") in Kislovodsk
In these buildings, formally belonging to constructivism , Merzhanov's style was manifested, which remained until the end of his days - the desire for spectacular monumentality of buildings, combined with romanticization, visual lightening of structures, as well as the architect's favorite detail - corner balconies and corner niches that tear the smooth walls of buildings . Later, Merzhanov called I. V. Zholtovsky and Frank Lloyd Wright his main teachers .
1930s
In 1929, Merzhanov won an open competition for the design of the RKKA sanatorium in Sochi , which was personally supervised by Kliment Voroshilov . The sanatorium, financed by a loan from the military, was opened on June 1, 1934, and in the same year it was named after Voroshilov. The architect and the people's commissar became personal friends; this friendship survived even after Voroshilov's resignation and Merzhanov's release. The sanatorium was built in a constructivist manner, but Merzhanov deliberately masked the most rigid constructivist elements, harmoniously combining simple geometric shapes with the mountainous relief of the coast. The image of the sanatorium and the cable car adjoining it was replicated by propaganda, and Merzhanov became one of the most sought-after Soviet architects.
In 1931, Merzhanov was summoned to Moscow and appointed chief architect of the economic administration of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR . Simultaneously with the completion of the Voroshilov sanatorium, on the instructions of the Central Executive Committee, Merzhanov built a complex of state dachas " Bocharov Ruchey ". He supervised the design of the Naval Academy in Leningrad , the design of buildings for the new city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur , together with Andrei Burov built the Moscow House of Architects . In the second half of the 1930s, Merzhanov built in Kislovodsktwo large sanatoriums - "Sanatorium-Hotel NKVD" (now "Kislovodsk") and "Red Stones". This is undoubtedly Stalinist architecture, and not limited in funds for high-quality stone finishing, and retaining the “southern” romanticism typical of an architect.
In 1933-1934, Merzhanov designed the first Stalinist dacha - the so-called. near dacha in Volynskoe . The original one-story house was built up to two floors in 1943 (according to other sources in 1948), when the architect was already imprisoned; the author of the perestroika project is unknown, but it is likely that the project of Merzhanov himself was used. In 1934, a satisfied customer called Merzhanov personally and set the task of designing a complex of state dachas in Matsesta , in 1935 - on the Cold River near Gagra . All these objects are designed in the style of modernized classics (see post-constructivism ), equidistant from both constructivism and the “Stalinist Empire style”, which gave some authors (D. Khmelnitsky ) to assert that Stalin's personal tastes differed significantly from what was actually planted in Soviet architecture. Also in 1934, he designed the NKVD sanatorium in the resort town of Kislovodsk. In post-Soviet times, the sanatorium of the KGB of the USSR "Kislovodsk" was transferred to the Russian Academy of Sciences and received the name "Academic". The building of the sanatorium fell into disrepair and was not used for 30 years.
In 1938, Merzhanov developed a number of projects for the Golden Star of a Hero of the Soviet Union (the first Heroes were only awarded the Order of Lenin ); the most concise option was chosen. In 1939, he proposed two versions of the Hammer and Sickle medal, this time the smallest one was chosen. The official approval of the Stars took place on August 1, 1939 and May 22, 1940.
Arrest and Sharashki
After the start of the Great Patriotic War, Merzhanov designed the civil defense facilities of Moscow, including the arrangement of the Mayakovskaya metro station in front of the historical meeting on November 6, 1941. After the evacuation of most Moscow architects to Chimkent , Merzhanov and Karo Alabyan remained in Moscow.
On August 12, 1943, Merzhanov, his wife and a close circle of employees were arrested. On March 8, 1944, Merzhanov was sentenced to 10 years in camps under article 58 , part 10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR [5] . Merzhanov's wife died in the camps in the mid-1940s, and the architect himself, transferred to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, which he knew well, was transferred from the general barracks by the camp authorities and again took up design. In Komsomolsk, according to his project, the city Palace of Culture and the House of Culture of the aircraft factory were built.
In 1948, Merzhanov was transferred to Moscow, where Viktor Abakumov personally set him the task of designing a sanatorium in Sochi for the MGB . The architect worked in the Sukhanovskaya prison and in a "sharashka" in Marfin , where he met Alexander Solzhenitsyn . In 1950, the project was approved by Abakumov, and Merzhanov set about building his largest and probably best work - the Dzerzhinsky sanatorium . However, shortly after the arrest of Abakumov at the end of 1951, Merzhanov was removed from construction and until March 1953 he was in the Irkutsk prison , then in the Krasnoyarsk transfer (the sanatorium was completed in 1954).
Liberation
Released from the camp in 1954 and sent into permanent exile, Miron Merzhanov settled in Krasnoyarsk . Since 1954, he headed the Krasnoyarskgrazhdanproekt (the chief architect of the city was also the exiled Armenian Gevorg Kochar ). According to the projects of Miron Merzhanov, the regional House of Soviets on Revolution Square, the Central District Committee of the CPSU, the Krasnoyarsk branch of the State Bank on Dubrovinsky Street, the main building of the medical institute, the Palace of Culture of the KrasMash plant were built in Krasnoyarsk - an attempt to return from Empire to constructivism, an extension to the cinema " Sovkino.
He was rehabilitated on May 30 , 1956 [6] . In 1960, M. I. Merzhanov left Krasnoyarsk for Moscow. Worked at Mosproekt-1 .
He died in 1975. Buried at the Armenian cemetery .
