Editing Tikhvin Cemetery (section)

==Soviet necropolis==
During the early Soviet period a number of monuments were stolen or destroyed. The cemetery was officially closed for burials in 1927, though they continued until 1932, and it was decided to turn it into a necropolis museum, displaying historically and artistically significant graves.<ref name="lavra2"/><ref name="lavra"/> Alongside this was concept of gathering together the graves of the friends and contemporaries of [[Alexander Pushkin]] for the 1937 centenary commemorations of the poet's death.  The architectural and planning department of [[Lensovet]], the city administration, was tasked with creating a memorial park project.<ref name="lavra2"/> Plans were drawn up by architects E.N. Sandler and E.K. Reimers, with further input from the city's chief architect [[Lev Ilyin|L.A. Ilyin]].<ref name="lavra2"/> The Funeral Affair Trust was established to run the necropolis museum, including removing abandoned gravestones for sale as building materials.<ref name="CW"/>
[[File:Некрополь мастеров искусств 036.jpg|thumb|left|The grave of [[Vera Komissarzhevskaya]], one of many transferred to the Tikhvin Cemetery in the 1930s]]
The Funeral Affair Trust was authorised to acquire and transfer important graves and monuments from other cemeteries and churches across the city.<ref name="lavra2"/> Meanwhile, those existing graves in the cemetery that were not considered particularly artistic or historic were to be demolished to create space for those brought from other locations.<ref name="lavra2"/> A list of graves in the cemetery was compiled and work began in 1935, planned for completion on 15 August the following year. A 3 July 1935 resolution from the Presidium of Lensovet set out the vision for the future of the necropolis museums. <blockquote>the Tikhvin cemetery and the Literary Walk [in the [[Volkovo Cemetery]]] ... after the reconstruction will be turned into necropolis parks of a remarkable and revolutionary culture, with the appearance of parks. Freed from ordinary graves, they will not be of a graveyard nature at all, but will actually represent extensive, architecturally decorated green spaces, sometimes decorated with certain monuments standing on the graves above these wonderful people.<ref name="CW"/></blockquote> The short timeframe allowed for completion of the work led to the hasty and unsystematic demolition of a number of monuments, with the bulk of the work only being completed by August 1937, with remedial work continuing for many years afterwards.<ref name="lavra2"/>

The reconstruction radically altered the nature and appearance of the Tikhvin cemetery. With the intention being to create an "artists' necropolis", graves of those from other sections of society were removed. Fewer than a hundred of the original monuments were preserved.<ref name="lavra2"/> Some were transferred to the neighbouring "Necropolis of the XVIII century", the former Lazarevskoe Cemetery, while others, including those of [[Aleksandr Gradovsky]], [[Anatoly Koni]] and [[Viktor Pashutin]], were transferred to the other museum necropolis being established in the [[Volkov Cemetery]].<ref name="lavra2"/>  Meanwhile, the remains of prominent artists, sculptors, composers and musicians were reburied in the cemetery. Among them were personal friends of Pushkin, including [[Konstantin Danzas]], [[Anton Delvig]], and [[Fyodor Matyushkin]].<ref name="lavra2"/> Some remains came from cemeteries earmarked for demolition, such as the {{interlanguage link|Mitrofanievskoe Cemetery|ru|Митрофаниевское кладбище (Санкт-Петербург)|lt=Mitrofanievskoe}}, {{interlanguage link|Farforovskoe Cemetery|ru|Фарфоровское кладбище|lt=Farforovskoe}}, and {{interlanguage link|Vyborg Roman Catholic Cemetery|ru|Выборгское римско-католическое кладбище}}; and others from those that were intended to be kept open, such as the [[Smolensky Cemetery|Smolensky]], [[Volkovo Cemetery|Volkovo]], [[Novodevichy Cemetery (Saint Petersburg)|Novodevichy]], and [[Nikolskoe Cemetery|Nikolskoe cemeteries]].<ref name="lavra2"/> The necropolis was created during [[USSR anti-religious campaign (1928–1941)|an ongoing anti-religious campaign]], therefore monuments with religious symbols were often replaced by monuments made by the museum.<ref name="lavra2"/>

The cemetery reconstruction project concentrated the representatives of each type of art together, with even monuments that had been in the Tikhvin originally being moved to fit the new organisational scheme. Composers and musicians were reburied mainly on the "Composer's path", near the northern boundary of the cemetery.<ref name="lavra2"/> Painters and sculptors were placed in the western part, while those who in their lifetimes had been associated with Pushkin were placed close to the eastern section, near the cemetery entrance.<ref name="lavra2"/> Some of the older monuments from the removed graves were retained to serve as decorative ornaments, such as columns placed at the intersection of avenues.<ref name="lavra2"/> The decoration of the park-necropolis was to be enhanced by the construction of one large and four small fountains, and the installation of granite benches.<ref name="CW"/> The Tikhvin Church was slated for demolition to improve the access direct from Alexander Nevsky Square.<ref name="CW"/> The organisers were faced with the problem that despite designating the cemetery to be the artists' necropolis, historically the Tikhvin had primarily been the burial ground of statesmen, military leaders, scientists, and composers.<ref name="CW"/> There were relatively few graves of writers, who had tended to prefer the [[Smolensky Cemetery]]; or artists, who had traditionally chosen the [[Nikolskoe Cemetery|Nikolskoe]] or [[Novodevichy Cemetery (Saint Petersburg)|Novodevichy Cemetery]].<ref name="CW"/>  This necessitated the transfer of a large number of burials and monuments, which took place in two main periods, from 1936 to 1941 and from 1948 to 1952.<ref name="CW"/>
[[File:Могила Георгия Товстоногова.jpg|thumb|right|The grave of [[Georgy Tovstonogov]]. Buried in 1989, his is one of the very few interments to take place after the 1950s, and is the last person to be buried in the cemetery to date]]
During the [[Second World War]] and the [[siege of Leningrad]], the museum worked to provide protection and shelter for monuments. Only a single gravestone was damaged, that of the actress [[Varvara Asenkova]].<ref name="lavra2"/> The monument, designed by {{interlanguage link|Ivan Sosnytsky|ru|Сосницкий, Иван Иванович}}, consisted of a granite canopy over a pedestal with a verse epitaph and bronze bust of the actress by [[Ivan Vitali]] and had been transferred along with the actress's remains from the [[Smolensky Cemetery]] in 1936.<ref name ="Asenkova">{{cite web|url=http://lavraspb.ru/nekropol/view/item/id/168/catid/3|script-title=ru:Асенкова Варвара Николаевна|work=lavraspb.ru|access-date=26 April 2019|language=Russian}}</ref> It was destroyed by a direct hit from a bomb in 1943.<ref name ="Asenkova"/> In 1955 the museum installed a marble replica of the bust made by D.A. Sprishinym.<ref name ="Asenkova"/> Other monuments were stored in the Lavra's [[Annunciation Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra|Annunciation Church]].<ref name="CW"/>

Restoration work began immediately after the end of the war, with the necropolis-museum opening in August 1947.<ref name="CW"/> The programme of moving and installing monuments resumed after the war and continued until the mid-1950s. There were also several burials of prominent Soviet citizens, as the cemetery gained the status of an urban [[wikt:pantheon|pantheon]].<ref name="lavra2"/> Those buried here included the scientist [[Sergey Lebedev (chemist)|Sergey Lebedev]] in 1934, artist [[Mikhail Avilov]] in 1954, and actor [[Nikolay Cherkasov]] in 1966. In 1972 the remains of the composer [[Alexander Glazunov]] were transferred from Paris.<ref name="lavra2"/> In 1968 [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]]'s wife [[Anna Dostoevskaya]] was reburied next to her husband, while theatre director [[Georgy Tovstonogov]] was interred in the cemetery in 1989. So far Tovstonogov's has been the last burial to take place in the cemetery.<ref name="lavra2"/><ref name="CW"/>