Currently Reading: Petersburg by Andrei Bely
St Petersburg, 1905. An impressionable young university student, Nikolai, becomes involved with a revolutionary terror organization, which plans to assassinate a high government official with a time bomb. But the official is Nikolai’s cold, unyielding father, Apollon, and in twenty-four hours the bomb will explode. Petersburg is a story of suspense, family dysfunction, patricide, conspiracy and revolution. it is also an impressionistic, exhilarating panorama of the city itself, watched over by the bronze statue of Peter The Great, as it tears itself apart. History, culture and politics are blended and juxtaposed; weather reports, current news, fashions and psychology jostle together with people from Petersburg society in an exhilarating search for the identity of a city and, ultimately, Russia itself. Considered by writers such as Vladimir Nabokov to be one of the greatest masterpieces of the twentieth century, Bely’s richly textured, darkly comic and symbolic novel pulled apart the traditional techniques of storytelling and presaged the dawn of a new form of literature.
“The one novel that sums up the whole of Russia” — Anthony Burgess
BBC's In Our Time: The Building of St Petersburg
Podcast (45 minutes): Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the building of St Petersburg, Peter the Great’s showcase city for a modern, European Russia. It is a city of ideas. of progress and the Baroque, of Russian identity and Tsarist power. The building of St Petersburg is a testament to Tsarist power but it is also a city of ideas; of progress, of the Baroque and Russian identity. Beset by fire and flood, the city was founded by Peter the Great in 1703 to symbolise a new Russia, one that faced away from the Slavic East and towards the European West.
To this end Peter and his heirs imported European architects, craftsmen and merchants to fashion his new capital.The result is a grandiose European city set amidst the freezing swamps of the Baltic coast; a Venice or Rome of the North. Indeed, the Venetian art connoisseur, Francesco Algarotti called St Petersburg ‘a window through which Russia looks on Europe’. It is a city of beauty built upon the cruelty of a tyrant and to this day encapsulates many of the contradictions of Russia.
With Simon Dixon, Sir Bernard Pares Professor of Russian History at University College London; Janet Hartley, Professor of International History at the London School of Economics; Anthony Cross, Emeritus Professor of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge
Peter the Great Interrogating the Tsarevich Alexey Petrovich at Peterhof.
Painting by Nikolai Ge. 1871. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.Tsarevich Alexey (1690-1718) son of Emperor Peter the Great by his first wife Evdokiya Lopukhina (1669-1731). Their marriage was arranged by Peter’s mother without his consent. This led to immediate disagreement between Peter and Evdokiya. Alexey was brought up by his mother and her supporters, who were against Peter’s reforms, Alexey hated his father and his revolutionary activities. Gradually he became a leader and the hope of reactionary forces, who plotted against Peter. On June 26, 1718 the Supreme Court sentenced the prince to death for treason.
Currently Reading:
One of the finest satires ever written, Voltaire’s Candide savagely skewers this very “optimistic” approach to life as a shamefully inadequate response to human suffering. The swift and lively tale follows the absurdly melodramatic adventures of the youthful Candide, who is forced into the army, flogged, shipwrecked, betrayed, robbed, separated from his beloved Cunégonde, and tortured by the Inquisition. As Candide experiences and witnesses calamity upon calamity, he begins to discover that—contrary to the teachings of his tutor, Dr. Pangloss—all is not always for the best. After many trials, travails, and incredible reversals of fortune, Candide and his friends finally retire together to a small farm, where they discover that the secret of happiness is simply “to cultivate one’s garden,” a philosophy that rejects excessive optimism and metaphysical speculation in favor of the most basic pragmatism. Filled with wit, intelligence, and an abundance of dark humor, Candide is relentless and unsparing in its attacks upon corruption and hypocrisy—in religion, government, philosophy, science, and even romance. Ultimately, this celebrated work teaches us that it is possible to challenge blind optimism without losing the will to live and pursue a happy life.
Peter The Great by Robert K. Massie
Against the monumental canvas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and Russia unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great, crowned co-tsar at the age of ten. Robert K. Massie delves deep into the life of this captivating historical figure, chronicling the pivotal events that shaped a boy into a legend—including his “incognito” travels in Europe, his unquenchable curiosity about Western ways, his obsession with the sea and establishment of the stupendous Russian navy, his creation of an unbeatable army, his transformation of Russia, and his relationships with those he loved most: Catherine, the robust yet gentle peasant, his loving mistress, wife, and successor; and Menshikov, the charming, bold, unscrupulous prince who rose to wealth and power through Peter’s friendship. Impetuous and stubborn, generous and cruel, tender and unforgiving, a man of enormous energy and complexity, Peter the Great is brought fully to life.
St. Petersburg: Paris of the North or City of Bones?
St. Petersburg was built as monument to the might of Imperial Russia - and the glory of the Tsar whose name it bears. Now Peter the Great’s ‘Window on the West’ plays host to this week’s G8 summit - and his vision is complete at last.
When G8 leaders sit down in St Petersburg next weekend, the ground beneath them will silently groan with the weight of the dead. Known as “the city built on bones”, St Petersburg’s foundations sit above the skeletons of the press-ganged slave labourers who toiled to erect it. Historians believe the remains of some 100,000 18th-century serfs are buried beneath its wide Parisian-style avenues and grand Italianate palaces.
Drawn from the length and breadth of the then Russian Empire, they expired from cold, from hunger, from disease, or if they were really unlucky, from the wolves. They gave their lives for the glory of then Imperial Russia and what they created, St Petersburg, stands as a monument to the single-mindedness of the Russian state.
When G8 leaders feast on caviar and quaff champagne, perhaps after discussing debt in the developing world, they are unlikely to spare a thought for the unfortunate slave labourers who built St Petersburg.
They should, for if they want to understand Russia and its complexities, once described by Sir Winston Churchill as “a riddle wrapped in an enigma”, they need look no further than St Petersburg’s incredible history. Its elegant palaces reek of European refinement and were deliberately built in a Western style in an attempt to bring Russia closer to Europe.
But more than three centuries later, it is an odyssey Russia has yet to complete, and St Petersburg is a testament to how difficult that journey has been.
Hello. I'm Kevin. I'm French and I currently live in Montreal where I study Business and Environmental Science at Concordia University. You'll find here some of the things that I read and find interesting. 
