Mikhailovskaya Battery: A Casemated Coastal Fortification and Museum in Sevastopol
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Russia
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Russian
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fort
On this page11 sections
History
Mikhailovskaya Battery is a casemated coastal fortification and museum complex in Sevastopol, Ukraine, built by the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century as part of the city’s defenses on the Black Sea. Its construction belonged to a major strengthening of Sevastopol Fortress, and the completed fort was intended to protect the military port from attack by sea.
Imperial Construction
In 1834, Emperor Nicholas I approved a plan to reinforce Sevastopol Fortress because of its strategic importance. Mikhailovskaya Battery received engineering project number 2. Engineer-Colonel Karl Ivanovich Byurno prepared the design, which was probably supplemented later by Engineer-Colonel Gustav von Fölkersam. The Military Ministry’s Engineering Department completed the plans in 1841, and the approved drawings arrived that December.
Construction took place from 1841 to 1847 on the site of an earlier earthen artillery battery. When the work was completed, the fort was named after Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich, Nicholas I’s son, in 1847. It formed one of ten fortifications established along the coast of Sevastopol.
The Crimean War
During the Crimean War, fought from 1853 to 1856 between Russia and an alliance that included the Ottoman Empire, Britain, France, and Sardinia-Piedmont, the battery was commanded by Captain-Lieutenant Nikolai Andreyev. On 5/17 October 1854, an Allied fleet attacked Sevastopol from the sea. Mikhailovskaya Battery opened fire at first, but its guns soon ceased because their position made the fire ineffective. The casemates were later adapted for use as a hospital.
Military Use in the Twentieth Century
After the war, the fort served first as storage space and later as barracks for the artillery of Sevastopol Fortress. Changes in weaponry had ended its defensive importance by the beginning of the twentieth century, although the site continued as a restricted military-naval facility.
In 1920, the Government of South Russia established artillery courses in the casemates. Before the Second World War, support units of the Black Sea Fleet’s 77th aviation park occupied the battery. During the second defense of Sevastopol in the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet-German front of the Second World War, it became one of four northern strongpoints during the third assault on the city. The attack began on the morning of 21 June 1942. After three days of fighting, defenders withdrew to the southern side on the night of 24 June under orders from the Sevastopol Defense Area command.
After the war, the casemates housed a store for ship-supply equipment. Under the Russian-Ukrainian agreements of 28 May 1997 concerning the division of the Black Sea Fleet, Store No. 2977 became part of the Naval Forces of Ukraine.
Creation of the Museum
The decision to establish a historical museum complex at the battery was made in August 2009. Reconstruction of the fort and adjoining territory included preparatory work that brought to light numerous finds connected with both the Crimean War and the Soviet-German War.
The complex opened on 4 July 2010 under Ukrainian administration as a branch of Ukraine’s National Military History Museum and Naval Museum. Its first permanent exhibition, Heroic Sevastopol, drew on the private collection of Oleksiy Sheremetiev and focused substantially on the Crimean War.
In 2014, following the annexation of Crimea, the museum passed under Russian jurisdiction and became the northern exhibition site of the Military-Historical Museum of Fortifications of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Its installations and artifacts present Sevastopol’s history as a fortified city from its foundation through the modern period.
Remains
Overall Form
The battery stands on the northern shore of Sevastopol Bay as a two-level, U-shaped fort. Its central building and side wings meet at an angle of 100 degrees. The frontage measures 108 meters, while the full length, including the flanks, is 205 meters. Limestone from the quarries of Kilen-Balka forms the fort, and its exterior walls reach up to 1.8 meters in thickness.
Defensive Arrangements
An inner defensive wall and ditch once ran along the rear of the battery, with only a fragment of the wall surviving near the northern barbette, a raised gun platform or tower. The interior angles originally ended in two barbette towers, one of which remains. The fort contains 58 casemates, meaning enclosed fortified chambers for troops, storage, or artillery, together with an upper platform. These positions could accommodate as many as 115 guns; on the eve of the Crimean War, 77 were installed, including 68 directed toward the roadstead.
Casemates beside one another on both levels are linked by a corridor, while the personnel rooms form an enfilade, a linear sequence of connected rooms. The frontal section and the right flank of Konstantinovskaya Battery were arranged to create crossfire across the entrance to Sevastopol Bay. The northern wing and rear defensive works guarded the landward side, while the guns of the left wing covered the inner roadstead.
Museum Interiors and Collections
The museum reproduces the interior of a mid-nineteenth-century fortification. Its main exhibition occupies the second level and extends through 30 halls covering more than 2,500 square meters. More than 10,000 exhibits address Sevastopol, the Black Sea Fleet, the Crimean War, the two world wars, the revolutionary and Civil War periods, the evacuation of the White Army from Crimea, and the first years of Soviet power.
The collections include handwritten engineering drawings by Engineer-General Eduard Totleben, Admiral Mikhail Lazarev’s personal seal, Lieutenant-General Anton Denikin’s diplomatic passport, and a radio message from Mikhail Frunze to Pyotr Wrangel demanding the surrender of arms. Documents concerning the second defense of Sevastopol are displayed alongside military uniforms dating from the mid-nineteenth century onward, edged weapons, firearms, and heavy Vickers, Schwarzlose, and Maxim machine guns.
Battle Diorama
Danil Berzhitsky’s diorama, The Battle of Balaklava, The Charge of the Light Brigade, depicts the battle of 13/25 October 1854. The scene shows the British light cavalry attack on a Don Cossack artillery battery during the Crimean War.
Related Northern Fortification
A northern fortification dating from the same period as Mikhailovskaya Battery is also situated on the northern side of Sevastopol.
