After the victory of the Soviet people in the most terrible war unleashed by fascist Germany, memorial complexes and monuments reflecting the events of those years began to rise throughout the country. Oddly enough, but even after five decades, only a modest museum and several guns that survived after the battle replaced the monument on Prokhorovsky Field, where the battle that was crucial in that war took place.
The murmur of the public and the dumb reproach of the boundless field
In the early 90s, the question of opening a memorial complex on the Prokhorovsky field was raised by a group of public men from the Kursk and Belgorod regions, on the border of which there is a place where that famous tank battle took place. The reason for this was an article in Pravda by a prominent statesman Nikolai Ryzhkov , who was outraged by the fact that there was no monument worthy of this event in the area. At the site of the death of thousands of Soviet soldiers it was proposed to build an Orthodox church. To some extent, it was supposed to replace the monument to the Prokhorovsky Field, which was never erected by Soviet soldiers . The photo of the area where only fragments of shells hidden in the ground reminded of a glorious battle served as a weighty argument for the silent condemnation of descendants.
To the 50th anniversary of the Great Victory
Soon, fundraising for the construction of the temple was announced, and after a while, in November 1993, another article by Ryzhkov was published in which he compared the Prokhorov battle, the Battle of Kulikovo on September 16, 1380 and the victory of the Russian troops at Borodino on August 26, 1812 as three the most important events for Russian history. The thoughts expressed by the author of the article changed the plans of the public group for the erection of the temple: it was decided to build a real memorial complex in the field near Prokhorovka in memory of the battle.
The acting head of the administration of the Belgorod region, Yevgeny Savchenko , one of the initiators of the construction of the complex, turned to the Council of Ministers of the Russian Federation with a request to partially finance the project from the state treasury. The public men also did not refuse the idea to build a temple - it should be part of the complex. Savchenko’s request was heard, and construction money was allocated, and the monument on Prokhorovsky Field should have been elevated to the 50th anniversary of the Victory. The project was entrusted to the famous sculptor, a native of the Kursk region, Vyacheslav Klykov.
At that time, the list of successful works by Klykov already included about two hundred sculptural structures erected from his sketches. One of them is a monument to Marshal Zhukov, installed at the
Historical Museum in Moscow. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich at that time had been planning for several years to build a magnificent monument on the Prokhorovsky Field. The history of the Fatherland, according to the author, was to be reflected in it. For the Memorial complex, Klykov developed a unique Belfry project, which became both a monument to the great battle and a symbol of the three historical victories that Ryzhkov wrote about.
Opening of the Victory Monument on Prokhorovsky Field
Two kilometers from Prokhorovka, on a hill more than two hundred meters high, in memory of the battle that took place on July 12, 1943, the Zvornitsa Memorial Complex was erected. Its opening took place on May 3, 1995. The presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus personally attended the ceremony, thereby witnessing how valuable the feat of the Soviet soldiers and the monument they erected on the Prokhorovsky Field were for the three states. A description of this important event has appeared in many newspapers, and not only in Russia. The illumination of the Bell of Unity on the Belfry, the top of which is crowned with a gilded figure of the Virgin, was made by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II.
In front of the Memorial complex, a beautiful temple was built in a rather uncharacteristic style for Orthodoxy. All the walls in it, from floor to ceiling, are hung with signs that bear the names of soldiers who died in the
tank battle near Prokhorovka.Four pylons of the belfry
The author of the magnificent Belfry, Vyacheslav Klykov, considered her his best creation. It is difficult to disagree with his opinion. The monument on the Prokhorovsky Field - the same belfry - four pylons standing at some distance from each other, symbolizing four years of the war. The pylons in the upper part are connected by a gilded dome, on which stands the statue of the Virgin.
Pylons of the Belfry are decorated with 24 bas-reliefs. Among the many compositions that tell this or that story of the Russian State, one can find images of Prince Dmitry Donskoy, Field Marshal Kutuzov, and Marshal Zhukov - about 130 historical images in total.
The first pylon, which marks the beginning of the war, faces west, whence trouble came to Soviet land in 1941. The northern pylon is turned towards Kursk, where the Root Miracle-working Icon of the Mother of God is installed - the patroness of Russia from the XII century. For the 1942th, the turning point of the war, the protection of the forces of saints was of great importance.
The eastern pylon symbolizes liberation from enemies - it was from the East that the whole 1943th army of liberators went to the walls of the Reichstag. In the southern pylon, the meaning of the Victory itself is laid in the image of St. George, who adorned the upper part of the pylon.
Three epochs at Prokhorovka
As already mentioned, the idea of Ryzhkov to give the Prokhorovsky battle the significance of the third military field in the history of Russia was pleasant to the organizers of the memorial complex and was realized not only in the bas-reliefs of the Belfry. Under its dome, a three-and-a-half-ton alarm bell was hung, which rings every 20 minutes for an hour. The first ringing reminds of the fallen in the Battle of Kulikovo, the second - of those who died in the battle of Borodino. The third sounds in memory of those whose place of eternal rest was Prokhorovka.
In 2006, the sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov did not become, but his son Andrei continued the work of his father. In 2008, near the Belfry, he installed three busts of great commanders: Dmitry Donskoy, Mikhail Kutuzov and
George Zhukov. In the late 2000s, another monument was erected on the Prokhorovsky field - to Vyacheslav Klykov himself, by A Shishkov. He stands at the foot of the Belfry and as if admiring his best work.
The meaning of the battle of Prokhorovka
Many battles of the Great Patriotic War are worthy of the memory of grateful descendants, as well as the one that began on the second day of the war and lasted a whole week on the Brody-Rivne-Lutsk section in Western Ukraine. And only the defeat of our troops did not bring him decent glory. Held two years later, on July 12, 1943, the Battle of Kursk ended in our victory. In honor of her, a monument was erected on the Prokhorovsky field. Pictures with which pylons are painted The belfries seem to tell the true story of that tank battle and other significant events. They can be studied as a textbook on the history of the Russian State - they have all the military glory of the Fatherland.