Kadriorg Palace (Estonian: Kadrioru loss, German: Schloss Katharinental) is a Petrine Baroque palace built for Catherine I of Russia by Peter the Great in Tallinn, Estonia. Both the Estonian and the German name for the palace means "Catherine's valley". It was built after the Great Northern War for Nicola Michetti's designs by Gaetano Chiaveri and Mikhail Zemtsov. The palace currently houses the Kadriorg Art Museum, a branch of the Art Museum of Estonia, displaying foreign art from the 16th to 20th centuries.[1] The KUMU branch of the museum, showing Estonian art from the 18th century onwards is located nearby in the park.
After the successful siege of Tallinn during the final phase of the Great Northern War in 1710 czar Peter the Great of Russia bought a small Dutch-style manor house at Lasnamäe for his wife Catherine. The house today is the result of a drastic renovation ordered by Nicholas I of Russia in 1827.[2][3]
However, plans for a larger palace in the area soon developed and construction of a new palace, Kadriorg, was started on 25 July 1718. Peter and Catherine visited the unfinished residence on several occasions, but after the emperor's death in 1725 Catherine showed no interest in the seaside property. The great hall with Catherine's initials and profuse stucco decor (attributed to Heinrich von Bergen) survives, while many other interiors have been altered.
The gardener Ilya Surmin was responsible for the flower garden with two fountains and the so-called mirage garden on several levels. The layout of the park shares similarities with that of Strelna.
After the death of Peter the Great, the palace received little attention from the Russian royal family. It was sporadically visited, by the empress Elisabeth and Catherine the Great. In 1828-1830 extensive restoration works of the palace and grounds took place. Between 1741 and 1917, the palace also housed the civilian governor of the Governorate of Estonia.[5]
After the declaration of independence of Estonia in 1919, the palace became state property. For a time, one of the wings housed the studio of sculptor August Weizenberg while the palace was used for art exhibitions. Between 1921 and 1928 the palace housed what would eventually develop into the Art Museum of Estonia (see below), but in connection with a state visit by the Swedish king Gustaf V of Sweden, the palace was turned into a summer residence for the head of state.[5] In 1934 the palace became the official residence of the first President of Estonia, Konstantin Päts who embarked on extensive and controversial restoration works with the aim of transforming the park and the palace into his private domain. From this era, the library in elaborate so-called Danzig baroque style, completed by architect Olev Siinmaa in 1939 is worth mentioning.[6] A purpose-built presidential palace on the grounds (1938) was designed by Alar Kotli.
The palace became the main site for the Art Museum of Estonia in 1921. The museum was re-housed in temporary locations from 1929 while the palace was being converted into the Estonian president's residence. During the German occupation of Estonia during World War II, the palace was the residence of the civilian governor of occupied Estonia, Karl-Siegmund Litzmann. After 1944, during the Soviet occupation of Estonia, the palace once more served as the main venue for the Art Museum of Estonia although the buildings were neglected and by the time of the restoration of Estonia's independence in 1991, completely run down. Restoration works, supported by the government of Sweden, began in 1991 and the palace re-opened in 2000.[5] It was also decided that a new building would be established nearby for the section of the museum devoted to Estonian art. From 1993 until 2005 a part of the collection could be visited at the Estonian Knighthood House in Tallinn’s city centre.
The restored palace was reopened in the summer of 2000, but it no longer serves as the main building of the museum, but as a branch displaying the museum's collection of foreign art.[7] This art museum has paintings by Bartholomeus van der Helst, Gillis van Valckenborch ("Burning of Troy"), Jacob Jordaens ("Holy Family"), Lambert de Hondt the Elder, Adriaen Cornelisz Beeldemaker ("Hunter on Horseback"), Maria Dorothea Wagner, Julie Wilhelmine Hagen-Schwarz, Bernardo Strozzi, Pietro Liberi, Anton Graff, Angelica Kauffman, Francesco Fontebasso, Cornelis Schut, Mikhail Clodt[citation needed], and Ilya Repin ("Soldier's Tale").
Het Kadriorgpaleis (Estisch: Kadrioru loss; Duits: Catherinethal of Catherinenthal) is een paleis in barokstijl in de wijk Kadriorg in de Estische hoofdstad Tallinn. Het is gebouwd door tsaar Peter de Grote voor zijn tweede vrouw, tsarina Catharina. Sinds 2006 doet het paleis dienst als museum. Het is een dependance van Kunstmuseum van Estland.
In 1710 veroverde het Keizerrijk Rusland onder tsaar Peter de Grote Zweeds Estland op Zweden. In 1714 kocht de tsaar in een dal nabij Reval (de toenmalige naam voor Tallinn) een eenvoudige driekamerwoning, waar hij verbleef als hij Reval bezocht. Dit Peter de Grotehuis bestaat nog steeds en is tegenwoordig een museum gewijd aan het leven van de tsaar. In de zomer van 1718 begonnen de bouwwerkzaamheden voor een paleis met een bijbehorend park. De tsaar doopte het dal, dat lag tussen het kalksteenplateau van Lasnamäe en de Finse Golf, Catherinethal naar zijn tweede vrouw, tsarina Catharina. In het Estisch werd die naam vertaald in Kadriorg.
De architect van het paleis was de Italiaan Niccolò Michetti (1675–1758), die later ook betrokken was bij de bouw van het Paleizencomplex in Peterhof. Het omringende park, 1 km² groot, is ontworpen door Ilja Soermin. In 1722 werden in het park 550 bomen geplant. Bij de dood van de tsaar in 1725 was het gebouw nog niet af. Zijn weduwe Catharina I toonde ook weinig interesse in het gebouw.
Pas in de jaren 1827-1830 liet tsaar Nicolaas I het Kadriorgpaleis afbouwen en tegelijk het al bestaande gedeelte restaureren. Sindsdien verbleef de familie van de tsaar er af en toe. Tussen 1741 en 1917 was het paleis ook de residentie van de gouverneur van het goebernija Estland.
Toen Estland in 1918 onafhankelijk was geworden, werd het paleis staatseigendom. Het werd gebruikt voor kunsttentoonstellingen, terwijl de beeldhouwer August Weizenberg een vleugel mocht gebruiken als atelier. Tussen 1921 en 1928 was het paleis tentoonstellingsruimte voor wat later zou uitgroeien tot de collectie van het Estisch Kunstmuseum, maar in 1929 werd besloten van het paleis het zomerverblijf van het Estische staatshoofd te maken.
In 1934 werd het Kadriorgpaleis de officiële ambtswoning van de toenmalige staatsoudste en latere eerste president van Estland, Konstantin Päts. Päts liet het paleis verbouwen, waarbij een banketzaal en een bibliotheek ontstonden. Verdere plannen om van het paleis en het omringende park privébezit te maken, strandden op massale protesten van de bevolking. Tsaar Peter had bepaald dat het park openbaar toegankelijk diende te blijven; dat Päts daaraan een eind wilde maken, viel niet in goede aarde. In de late jaren dertig werd op een steenworp afstand een nieuw presidentieel paleis gebouwd, ontworpen door de architect Alar Kotli. President Päts woonde daar tussen 1938 en zijn deportatie tijdens de Sovjetbezetting in 1940.
Tallinn (/ˈtɑːlɪn, ˈtælɪn/;[4][5][6] Estonian: [ˈtɑlʲˑinˑ]; names in other languages) is the capital, primate and the most populous city of Estonia. Located in the northern part of the country, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of 434,562.[1] Administratively a part of Harju maakond (county), Tallinn is a major financial, industrial, cultural, educational and research centre of Estonia. Tallinn is located 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of Helsinki, Finland, 320 kilometres (200 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia, and 380 kilometres (240 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden. It has close historical ties with these three cities. From the 13th century until the first half of the 20th century Tallinn was known in most of the world by its historical German name Reval.
Tallinn, first mentioned in 1219, received city rights in 1248,[7] but the earliest human settlements date back 5,000 years.[8] The first recorded claim over the land was laid by Denmark in 1219, after a successful raid of Lyndanisse led by king Valdemar II, followed by a period of alternating Scandinavian and Teutonic rulers. Due to its strategic location, the city became a major trade hub, especially from the 14th to the 16th century, when it grew in importance as part of the Hanseatic League. Tallinn's Old Town is one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[9]
Tallinn has the highest number of start-ups per person among European countries[10] and is a birthplace of many international high technology companies, including Skype and Transferwise.[11] The city is to house the headquarters of the European Union's IT agency.[12] Providing to the global cybersecurity it is the home to the NATO Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. Tallinn is ranked as a global city and has been listed among the top ten digital cities in the world.[13] The city was a European Capital of Culture for 2011, along with Turku in Finland.
Estonia (Estonian: Eesti [ˈeːsʲti] (listen)), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a country on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland with Finland on the other side, to the west by the Baltic Sea with Sweden on the other side, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia (338.6 km).[11] The territory of Estonia consists of a mainland and 2,222 islands in the Baltic Sea,[12] covering a total area of 45,227 km2 (17,462 sq mi), water 2,839 km2 (1,096 sq mi), land area 42,388 km2 (16,366 sq mi), and is influenced by a humid continental climate. The official language of the country, Estonian, is the second-most-spoken Finnic language.
The territory of Estonia has been inhabited since at least 9,000 B.C. Ancient Estonians were some of the last European pagans to be Christianized, following the Livonian Crusade in the 13th century. After centuries of successive rule by Germans, Danes, Swedes, Poles and Russians, a distinct Estonian national identity began to emerge in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This culminated in independence from Russia in 1920 after a brief War of Independence at the end of World War I. Initially democratic, subsequent to the Great Depression, Estonia was governed by authoritarian rule since 1934 during the Era of Silence. During World War II (1939–1945), Estonia was repeatedly contested and occupied by the Soviet Union and Germany, ultimately being incorporated into the former. After the loss of its de facto independence, Estonia's de jure state continuity was preserved by diplomatic representatives and the government-in-exile. In 1987 the peaceful Singing Revolution began against Soviet rule, resulting in the restoration of de facto independence on 20 August 1991.
The sovereign state of Estonia is a democratic unitary parliamentary republic divided into fifteen counties. Its capital and largest city is Tallinn. With a population of 1.3 million, it is one of the least populous members of the European Union, the Eurozone, OECD, the Schengen Area, NATO, and from 2020, the United Nations Security Council.[13]
Estonia is a developed country with an advanced, high-income economy that has been among the fastest-growing in the EU.[14] The country ranks very high in the Human Development Index,[7] and performs favourably in measurements of economic freedom, civil liberties, education,[15] and press freedom (third in the world in 2012 and 2007).[16] Estonian citizens are provided with universal health care,[17] free education,[18] and the longest-paid maternity leave in the OECD.[19] One of the world's most digitally advanced societies,[20] in 2005, Estonia became the first state to hold elections over the Internet, and in 2014, the first state to provide e-residency.
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