Tainyi kod stolichnykh kladbishch - Volkov Aleksandr Vladimirovich

The book is dedicated to mysterious signs and figures, imprinted in ancient necropolises and reinterpreted on the graves of the Soviet and Russian eras. The author set out to track the evolution of many tombstone symbols - from skull and snake to angel and weekeepers from the era of classicism to the present day. The material for the study was 1,800 monuments of 35 cemeteries in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The type of tombstone was determined by the way of life and personality of the buried, tastes of his relatives and fulfilled the order of the master. The author tries to understand whether the views of our compatriots have changed in three hundred years and whether the opinion about the conservative nature of tombstone sculpture is fair. In addition, the book describes the influence of Masonic societies on the formation of memorial symbols.