THE BRONTE SISTERS

                                   Bronte History
                                        

                Most people know that Yorkshire, England was the home of the Bronte sisters whose books are set in the Yorkshire moors. We visited the Bronte Parsonage where an informative exhibit gave us a lot of information.

            Their father, Patrick Bronte, came from a poor family.  He taught himself to read, and at age 16 was a schoolmaster.  Later he attended St. John’s College in Cambridge and changed his name from Prurty or Brunty to Bronte.

            In 1809 he moved to Yorkshire as curator at Dewsbury, then Hartshead. In 1815 he became vicar of Thorton where daughters Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and son Bramwell were born. Daughters Maria and Elizabeth were born prior to this move.

Statue of sisters outside home

      Mrs. Bronte was the daughter of a prosperous merchant. She and Patrick were married in 1812. She died of cancer in 1821. Her sister went to Haworth to care for the children. In1824 the girls were sent away to Clergy Daughters’ School.  Conditions were very poor and the children were not properly feed and became malnourished. Heating was also a problem. Maria and Elizabeth became ill and returned home. Elizabeth and Maria died within a month of each other. Patrick withdrew the other girls from the school.

      Bramwell became a struggling artist but never realized success. He took to drinking and died in 1848 at age 31 of TB complicated by alcoholism.

        Emily died in 1848 at home on the sofa still in the home. Anne died at 28 in 1849.

          Charlotte was the only one to marry. She fell in love with Rev. Arthur Nicholls who had come to the vicarage to assist her dad. Patrick Bronte did not approve of his daughter’s marriage and did not attend the wedding. Charlotte died nine months later from complications of pregnancy. Arthur survived another 51 years and did eventually remarry.

            All the Bronte girls were artistically talented. A self published book of  selected poems only sold two copies, but this did not deter the girls from writing and all went on to write several novels, perhaps the best known are Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte’s Jane Eyre.

            The girls all played on the moors. It is speculated, as was the custom in those days, that they had been  told family stories over  the years,  and that is where they got much of the information and imagination for their stories. None of the children lived to see 40.

            Patrick Bronte lived to 84, but was ill and nearly blind in his later years. A large type book and a huge thick magnifying glass sit on a table in his study. Dying in 1861, he outlived his wife and all six of his children.

            We all agreed that the Bronte family history was a very sad one indeed.

RED SQUARE

                                           Red Square

As promised here are brief descriptions of some of the important buildings in Red Square behind the Kremlin wall.

            The Armory Palace, Moscow’s most fascinating and richest museum, flanks one side of The Kremlin at Red Square. Created in 1806, it is Moscow’s oldest museum. It opened to the public in 1911. The crown jewels, Catherine the Great’s coronation crown with its 5000 diamonds, religious icons, priceless artifacts, and fabulous world famous Faberge egg collection are housed in the Armory. Gold and silver shine everywhere in bowls, goblets, chalices, and jewelry.  Also included are carriages, royal vestments, robes, and headdresses as well as the 189-carat Orlov diamond.

            We spent a long time walking the many rooms of the Armory while our guide explained different displays as everything was written in Russian. No English subtitles here! At times the glitter was overwhelming. Thousands of pearls decorated gowns, crowns, book covers and more.

            We were all agape at the tiny waists of past female czars as we viewed some of their garments. My thigh was bigger than those waists!  I was fascinated with the bronze floor to ceiling gate that protected one room. It displayed the coat of arms of each Russian state/district. It was truly a beautiful work of art. It was a mind boggling visit.

Six churches are located within and all are Russian Orthodox. 

Cathedral Square. The white limestone Assumption Cathedral’s exterior dates to 1475. Five gilded cupolas glitter atop narrow drums. The cathedral has stood for centuries as a Russian national shrine. Patriarchs have been anointed and czars have been crowned before her altar.  Ivan the Terrible’s custom-made coronation throne is housed within. Napoleon used the cathedral as a horse stable and its icons for firewood in 1812. The bell tower holding 23 bells towers 264-feet in the air.

Archangel Michael Cathedral with its five domes was built 1505-08. Sarcophagi dominate the interior. The remains of every Russian czar up to Peter the Great rest here.

At the nine-domed Annunciation Church we learned a lot about the Russian Orthodox Church. People attending church services stand, with the exception of the ‘royal’ or ‘patron’ box, there are no chairs, benches or pews. Frescos, telling the story of the bible for the illiterate, cover the walls, ceiling and columns in the church. The frescos in this church date to the 15^th century and were restored in the 17th century.

   The altar is hidden behind an iconostasis, which covers the entire front wall of the sanctuary. Icons are religious paintings that are usually painted on wood, sometimes on canvas. In the center of the iconostasis is an ornate door that opens to the altar. The second icon to the right of the door is of the saint from whom the church derives its name. The rows of icons are always an uneven number with five being the most common. Each of the icons is ‘framed’ with ornate gold molding making for a glittering wall. Russian Orthodox churches normally do not have statuary, angels etc as they are considered pagan. From what we could gather music is sung without the benefit of instrumentation.  I stood in the middle of the sanctuary admiring the crystal chandeliers and looking around I could not find a square inch of wall or ceiling space that was not painted.

  By then we’d been pretty well churched out so we left for other areas of Red Square. It is a huge area and several buildings are office and government buildings not open to the public.

The Gum department store and the Russian artillery are described in earlier blog posts, 6/10 and 4/13 respectively.