An edition of St. Petersburg--a cultural history (1995)

St. Petersburg--a cultural history

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Last edited by MARC Bot
July 18, 2024 | History
An edition of St. Petersburg--a cultural history (1995)

St. Petersburg--a cultural history

  • 1 Currently reading

Long considered to be the mad dream of an imperious autocrat - the "Venice of the North," conceived in a setting of malarial swamps - St. Petersburg was built in 1703 by Peter the Great as Russia's gateway to the West. For almost 300 years this splendid city has survived the most extreme attempts of man and nature to extinguish it, from flood, famine, and disease to civil war, Stalinist purges, and the epic 900-day siege by Hitler's armies. It has even been renamed twice, and became St.

Petersburg again only in 1991. Yet not only has it retained its special, almost mystical identity as the schizophrenic soul of modern Russia, but it remains one of the most beautiful and alluring cities in the world.

  1. Every great city creates its own image in literature and art, and Petersburg is no exception. For Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky, Petersburg was a spectral city that symbolized the near-apocalyptic conflicts of imperial Russia. As the monarchy declined, allowing intellectuals and artists to flourish, Petersburg became a center of avant-garde experiment and flamboyant bohemian challenge to the dominating power of the state, first czarist and then communist.

The names of the Russian modern masters who found expression in St. Petersburg still resonate powerfully in every field of art: in music, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich; in literature, Akhmatova, Blok, Mandelstam, Nabokov, and Brodsky; in dance, Diaghilev, Nijinsky, and Balanchine; in theater, Meyerhold; in painting, Chagall and Malevich; and many others, whose works are now part of the permanent fabric of Western civilization.

Yet no comprehensive portrait of this thriving distinctive, and highly influential cosmopolitan culture, and the city that inspired it, has previously been attempted. Now Solomon Volkov, a Russian emigre and acclaimed cultural historian, has written the definitive cultural biography of this city and its transcendent artistic and spiritual legacy.

Publish Date
Publisher
Free Press
Language
English
Pages
598

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Edition Availability
Cover of: Istorii︠a︡ kulʹtury Sankt-Peterburga s osnovanii︠a︡ do nashikh dneĭ
Cover of: Istorii͡a︡ kulʹtury Sankt-Peterburga s osnovanii͡a︡ do nashikh dneĭ
Istorii͡a︡ kulʹtury Sankt-Peterburga s osnovanii͡a︡ do nashikh dneĭ
2001, Izd-vo Nezavisimai͡a︡ gazeta
in Russian
Cover of: St. Petersburg--a cultural history
St. Petersburg--a cultural history
1995, Free Press
in English

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. 551-577) and index.

Published in
New York
Other Titles
Saint Petersburg--a cultural history

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
947/.453
Library of Congress
DK557 .V65 1995

The Physical Object

Pagination
xxiv, 598 p. :
Number of pages
598

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL791586M
Internet Archive
stpetersburgacul008800
ISBN 10
0028740521
LCCN
95024116
OCLC/WorldCat
32703508
Library Thing
13707
Goodreads
2419585

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History

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July 18, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
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