This paper examines a remarkable episode in Russian cultural history: the intergenerational collaboration of Petr Dmitrievich Baranovskii, the most accomplished restorer in the annals of Russian cultural preservation, and Oleg Igorevich Zhurin, a prominent Moscow architect and Baranovskii mentee. In the 1920s, Baranovskii began a restoration of the storied Kazan’ Mother of God Cathedral on Red Square, a memorial to Russians’ great victory over foreign invaders in the Time of Troubles, hoping to reveal and restore its 17th century essence. Stalinist city planners halted his work and razed the cathedral, the nearby Resurrection Gates and Iverskaia Mother of God chapel. Through the difficult succeeding decades, Baranovskii kept alive the hope that the Kazan’ Cathedral might be brought back in some fashion. A young colleague, Oleg Igorevich Zhurin, picked up Baranovskii’s fallen standard just a few months before Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev came to power. He and like-minded cultural preservationists took advantage of rapidly changing attitudes towards history and culture in the late 1980s to bring about a remarkable resurrection of the 17th century on Red Square. Working from Baranovskii’s 1920s research, Zhurin brought both the Kazan’ Cathedral and the neighboring Resurrection Gates back to life. This was a true “generational restoration.”
