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William Hastie in Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Miliza Korshunova  and
Larissa Haskell
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Extract

During the last quarter of the eighteenth century more buildings were erected in Russia than in any previous period of the country’s history. These ranged from palaces (both royal and private) and banks to country houses, churches and shops. On 23 August 1779 Catherine the Great wrote to her faithful correspondent and artistic adviser Baron Grimm: ‘Vous saurez en passant que la fureur de bâtir chez nous est plus forte que jamais et guère tremblement de terre n’a plus renversé de batiments que nous en elevons’.

Foreign architects were eagerly welcomed. Of varying talents and abilities to conform to the main stylistic currents, many of these have been overshadowed by the more distinguished personalities of the time and consequently have been forgotten by posterity. Such has been the fate of William Hastie, a Scotsman by origin, who played a considerable part in Russian architecture at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. There has not hitherto been any comprehensive study of him and we have to rely therefore on brief references scattered in various Russian publications on different aspects of the architecture of the period. It is not until 1967 that the first English reference to him is found in the discussion of the Bahchisarai Palace in the Crimea in the catalogue of the Cameron exhibition at Edinburgh.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 17 , 1974 , pp. 14 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1974

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References

Notes

1 Réau, Louis, Correspondence artistique de Grimm avec Catherine II (Paris 1932), p. 61.Google Scholar

2 The fullest account of William Hastie is to be found in an article by Chulkov, N. in (a) Pusski biograficheski slovar, Gerberski-Gogenloe (Moscow 1916), pp. 156–160.Google Scholar This is now out of date and contains many mistakes. The brief notice in (b) Thieme, U. & Becker, F., Allgemeines Lexicon der Bildenden Kunstler… (Leipzig 1923), p. 115 Google Scholar, also needs to be revised.

Hastie’s construction of metal bridges in St Petersburg is discussed in detail in (c) Blek, I. & Rotach, A., ‘Chugunnie arochnie mosti v Leningrade’, Architectumoe Nasledstvo vii (Leningrad 1955), pp. 143–156.Google Scholar Also in Punin, A. L., Povest o leningradskih mostah (Leningrad 1971).Google Scholar

Hastie’s role in early nineteenth-century town planning is discussed in (d) Pilavski, V. I., ‘Gradostroitelnie meropriatia i obraszovie proekti v Rossii v nachale XIX veka’, Sbornik nauchnih trudov Leningradskogo injenemo-stroitelnogo instituta vipusk 21 (Leningrad-Moscow 1958), pp. 75–108 Google Scholar; (e) Leiboshiz, N. J. & Pilavski, V. I., ‘Materiali k istorii planirovki Peterburga v pervoi polovine XIX veka. 1800–1840 godi’, Architectumoe nasledstvo vii (Leningrad 1955)Google Scholar; (f) Pilavski, V. I., Stasov architektor (Leningrad 1963)Google Scholar; (g) Budilina, M., ‘Planirovka i zastroika Moskvi posle pojara 1812 goda (1813–1814)’, Architectumoe nasledstvo (Moscow 1951), pp. 135–174 Google Scholar.

L. Chernozubova has written about Hastie as a town planner in (h) Belezkaya, E., Krascheninnikova, N., Chernozubova, L. & Ern, I., Obraszovie proekti v jiloi zastroike russkih gorodov XVIII-XIXvv (Moscow 1961), pp. 119–164.Google Scholar

3 Tait, A. A., ‘British Architects in the service of Catherine II’ in Charles Cameron c.1740–1812, exhibition catalogue (Edinburgh 1967), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

4 Taleporovsky, V. N., Charles Cameron (Moscow 1939), p. 25–1781 Google Scholar; U. Thieme & F. Becker, op. cit. (2b) and N. Chulkov, op. cit. (2a)- 1782-83; V. Pilavski op. cit. (2d)-1792.

5 Zentralni Gosudarstvenni Arhiv Drevnich Actov, Fond 14, Delo 52 (chast 3) list 256.

6 Tamara Talbot Rice, (a) ‘Charles Cameron, Catherine the Great’s British Architect’, The Connoisseur (August 1967), p. 245 Google Scholar; (b) Charles Cameron c. 1740–1812, exhibition catalogue (Edinburgh 1967), pp. 18–21.

7 Rae, Isobel, Charles Cameron Architect to the Court of Russia(London 1971), pp. 51–53.Google Scholar

8 Taleporovski, V. N., op. cit.(4), p. 25.Google Scholar

9 Rice, Tamara Talbot, op. cit.(6a), p. 245.Google Scholar

10 Loc. cit. (5), list 258 (verso).

11 Zentralni Gosudarstvenni Istoricheski Archiv SSSR, Fond 487, Opis 3, Delo 70, 1787.

12 Chulkov, N., op. cit. (2a), p. 159.Google Scholar

13 Zentralni Gosudarstvenni Istoricheski Archiv SSSR, Fond 1286, Opis 2, Delo 123, 1819, listi 8–10.

14 Pilavski, V. I., op. cit. (2d), pp. 75–108 Google Scholar, confuses the year 1792 when Hastie was taken into the Empress’s service for the year of his arrival to Russia.

15 Réau, Louis, op. cit. (1), p. 195.Google Scholar

16 Hermitage Museum, Department of Drawings, inv. Nos3125-3180.

17 The note was probably written by Catherine the Great’s secretary, V. S. Popov.

18 Hermitage Museum, Department of Drawings, inv. Nos 23295-23298.

19 Paine, James, Plans, Elevations and Sections of Noblemen and Gentlemens Houses… (London 1783), pls xliv–xlvi.Google Scholar

20 Zentralni Gosudarstvenni Istoricheski Archiv SSSR, Fond 1286, Opis 2, Delo 123, 1819, pp. 8–10.

21 ibid.

22 Gosudarstvennaya Publichnaya Biblioteka imeni Saltikova-Tsedrina, Department of Manuscripts, Fond 550, OCPK, P XIII No.6. To the same series belong some measured drawings in the State Architectural Museum of Tsussev: Nos 1220/1–11, 3801, 3803, 3806, 1711/1-4. This work of Hastie is described by V. Gerngross (Vsevolodski), ‘Khanski Dvoretz in Bahchisarai,’ Starie Godi(April 1912).

23 ’Memoires of Jiharev’, Russki Archiv (1891), kniga I.

24 See note 20.

25 Zentralni Gosudarstvenni Archiv Drevnich Actov, Fond XVII, Opis I, Delo 12 (supplement).

26 ibid. For Gascoyne see Cross, A. G., ‘The British in Russia’ in Garrard, J. G. (ed.), The Eighteenth Century in Russia (Oxford 1973), pp. 233–263.Google Scholar

27 Gosudarstvenni Musei Istorii Leningrada, Archiv Meyera, atlas VI, chast I, p. 2 d.3. It is entitled ‘Projected elevation and side view of the bridge made in 1807 and which served as a model for the bridges over Moika’.

28 Zentralni Gosudarstvenni Voenno-Istoricheski Archiv, Fond BYA No. 22513.

29 Blek, I. & Rotach, A., op. cit. (2c), pp. 143–156.Google Scholar

30 The project to transfer it to Marsovo Pole to replace a wooden bridge there was not carried out.

31 Musei Akademii Hudojestv SSSR, A-592, 591.

32 Inv. Nos 10760/1-40, p. 1, from Museum-Palace at Pavlovsk, 1966.

33 It was given the status of regional (’uesdni’) town.

34 Pilavsky, V. I., op. cit. (2f), 1963, pp. 81–82.Google Scholar

35 The full complex of projects (28 sheets mounted in an album) dated 1809 is now in the Musei Akademii Hudojestv SSSR, to which they were transferred from the public library in 1934. Separate sheets are also kept in the Zentralni Istoricheski Archiv SSSR and in the Ekaterininsky Palace in Tsarskoe Selo.

36 Vilchkovski, S. N., Tsarskoe Selo (St Petersburg 1911), p. 46.Google Scholar

37 Pilavski, V. I., op. cit. (2f), pp. 81–82.Google Scholar Stassov was in partial control of the works from 1810 and from 1817 was permanent director.

38 The house also has historical interest because the great Russian poetess Anna Achmatova lived there in her childhood and youth.

39 Apart from the general plan of the streets the height of the buildings determined by him is still maintained by law in some parts of Tsarskoe Selo.

40 Pilavski, V. I., op. cit. (2f), p. 26.Google Scholar

41 Budilina, M., op. cit. (2j), pp. 135–174.Google Scholar

42 Pilavski, V. I., op. cit. (2d), pp. 77–78.Google Scholar

43 Belezkaya, E., Krashenninikova, N., Chernozubova, L., & Ern, I., op. cit.(2h), pp. 122–123.Google Scholar

44 Leiboshiz, N. J. & Pilavski, V. I., op. cit. (2e), p. 41 Google Scholar; Pilavski, V. I., op. cit. (2d), p. 86.Google Scholar

45 Pilavski, V. I., op. cit. (2d), p. 87 Google Scholar, claims that the first part was Hastie’s work and the second Rusca’s.

46 Pilavski, V. I., op. cit. (2f), p.31.Google Scholar

48 Grand DukeMichailovich, Nikolai, Peterburgski Nekropol I (St Petersburg 1912), p. 59.Google Scholar