“We all Merge into a Single Soul...”: Patriotic War of 1812 in the Medals of Olenin and His Contemporaries
25 December 2012 - 7 April 2013
Rotunda, Winter Palace

On 26 December 2012 at the Rotunda of the Winter Palace an exhibition was opened entitled “We all Merge into a Single Soul...”: Patriotic War of 1812 in the Medals of Olenin and His Contemporaries. The exhibition title uses a line from the reverse side of one of the anniversary memorial medals. The opening was timed for the 200th anniversary of the war of 1812. On 25 December 1812 in the city of Vilno (now Vilnius) the Russian Emperor Alexander I published the Manifesto Offering thanks to God for the liberation of Russia from the invasion of the enemy and concluding the Patriotic War. The emperor ordered an annual celebration to be held on Christmas Day (Gregorian calendar) in memory of the victory over Napoleon. This tradition existed until 1917.

The exhibition comprising 144 exponents was formed from the collections at the State Hermitage Museum, State Archives of the Russian Federation and with the assistance of the Pavlovsk State Museum Reserve, Priyutino Museum Mansion, Pushkin House, Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Scientific Library of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts.

The main theme for the exhibition is the armies and people who carried out the foreign campaigns in the Patriotic War during 1813 and 1814. The projects of the president of the Academy of Fine Arts and director of the Imperial Public Library Alexey Nikolaevich Olenin (1763-1843) are a main feature. These have been brought together under the special name “Collection of medal drawings for the significant events of 1812, 1813 and 1814”. Olenin dedicated his work to Emperor Alexander I, who graciously accepted the manuscript presented to him, but was not fulfilled during his lifetime. It is two centuries later that the full 13 medals have been have been minted according to A.N. Olenin’s drawings along with A.A. Arkhipov’s models at the St. Petersburg Mint and brought to the State Hermitage Museum as a gift by Ivan Vadimovich Emanuel for Maecenas and Benefactor Day on 13 April 2012.

At the “We all Merge into a Single Soul...” exhibition Olenin’s projects are for the first housed in their historical environment: surrounded by the works of Fedor Petrovich Tolstoy, Ivan Alexeevich Shilov, Karl Alexandrovich Leberekht and Empress Maria Feodorovna (widow of Paul I).

The exhibition is not only a tribute to “the sacred memory of 1812” but also a tribute to the merits of an outstanding figure in Russian culture, A.N Olenin who was born 250 years ago.

An illustrated catalogue (St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Publishing House, 2012) has been prepared for the exhibition. It was written by the head of the New Acquisitions Department of the State Hermitage, Doctor in Culturology, Viktor Mikhailovich Faibisovich. The exhibition curator is a researcher in the Numismatics Department Nikolay Georgievich Vvedensky.