Biography of St. Petersburg

Try the literature selection service. You can always turn off the advertisement. Antsiferov “Soul of St. Petersburg”, G. G. The first researcher who approached the study of the history of St. Petersburg as a manifestation of alive, having the soul of individuality, in Russian philology was an outstanding philologist and historian Nikolai Pavlovich Antsiferov, a student of I.

Grevs and the successor of his historical method of studying cities. It was N. Antsiferov in the first decades of the twentieth century. Antsiferov wrote: “The city of Peter turned out to be an organism with a pronounced personality, which has a complex and thin soul, living in its mysterious life, full of tragedy” 5, p. We also give another statement by the researcher regarding the history of the city and its perception by the consciousness of people: “The image of the city has its own fate.

Fate is understood here as the organic development of a single phenomenon. The concept of fate is applied only to the personality, as the bearer of the individual principle. Fate is the historical identification of personality. The faceless process cannot be determined by fate. Thus, the idea of ​​the individuality of the image of a city that has its fate is affirmed here.

He lives his life, like the city itself, independent of the impressions of its individual inhabitants ”5, p. In the approach of N. Antsiferov, two ideas are traced to the subject of the study. On the one hand, this is the idea of ​​St. Petersburg as a living individual, about personality - that gives the right to talk about the history of the city as a biography of an individual1.

On the other hand, the idea of ​​the connection of this biography history with culture through the concept of “image of the city”. This image over time developed in Russian culture in a special St. Petersburg myth, which is embodied in various iconic art systems and cultural codes. The St. Petersburg myth, the elements of which are analyzed in this review, is precisely a cultural myth.

In the understanding of this term, we focus on the definition of the famous philologist A. Penkovsky, revealing the following semantic and formal parameters of this concept: - a cultural myth is a complex cultural and linguistic complex, which connects the images, plot motifs and names; - Cultural myth draws its content both from the texts of literature and art, and from life; 1 One of the evidence that the city is seen by a cultural consciousness as an individuality is an emotional and evaluative attitude that it causes to himself.

In the case of great cities that play a large role in the history of their country or the whole world and give rise to their own mythology, this attitude can fluctuate from enthusiastic to sharply negative. This phenomenon is noted by researchers, for example, the French historian B. Udan, on the example of London as one of the metropolises, “B Uan also writes that art and literature necessarily reflect these contradictions.

Among the English poets inspired by London, W. Dunbar of the 16th century In contrast to him, W. Blake, who was born in London and spent all his life in this city, wrote about the "streets of the harlots near the banks of the harlot of the Thames" cit.

Shelley belongs to the following aphorism: “Hell is a place reminiscent of London, this densely populated and mired city in a soot” in the same place. In these statements, it is important that the city appears as an object of assessment, which indicates its entry into the value system of culture. Another biographer of London, P. Akraid, writes about this city as a person, emphasizing his bodily beginning and animation, the ability to influence events 1; The estimates of St.

Petersburg in the St. Petersburg myth are also antagonistic - from admiration to hatred. A number of researchers note that in the framework of this myth and the texts representing it, a special “text of hatred for St. Petersburg” can be distinguished by 5; It should be noted that in the history of humanitarian research N. Antsiferov was not the first to develop the topic of the city as a living person, and St.

Petersburg, in turn, is not the only city studied as a living organism and individual. Among the previous works, the authors of which are trying not only to describe the city as “beautiful flesh”, but also “to smell it, as a deep, living soul” in the same place, p. Grevs and N. Antsiferov call the “images of Italy” by P. Herzen “Venezia La Bella” that St. Petersburg from the very moment of its foundation turned out to be an extremely mythogenic phenomenon, many researchers note.

The causes of this phenomenon are indicated in essence, however, they are interpreted in different paradigms of humanitarian knowledge and with different evaluative signs. Ivanov, defining the myth “as memories of a mystical event, about the cosmic mystery” cit. Penkovsky on the material of the study “Myth of Nina”, which has developed in Russian literature of the first third of the XIX century.

It will appear as a result of refracting with the myth-making consciousness of new phenomena based on any ancient myth. In order for him to originate, emergency events should have occurred that would shock the soul of a whole people. For the myth cannot be the creation of a single consciousness ”in the same place.This shock was expressed in the special refraction of the phenomenon of St.

Petersburg with the consciousness of the people and, as a result, in the creation of Russian culture of the St. Petersburg myth. With his independence and integrity, it can be argued that it arose as a new myth. At the same time, many archetypes of old, ancient mythologies found a reflection in it. Undoubtedly, the circumstances of its foundation and its special character play a large role in the understanding of this city as a very special phenomenon for Russia.

Petersburg belongs to the type of cities that arose due to the complex needs of the developing state, in the situation of already established cultural traditions. Such cities usually carry a set of certain features, namely: they are not developing spontaneously, but according to plan; By virtue of this, they are more correct in the layout than the spontaneously arising cities, noticeable "artificiality"; They also bear the seal of the personality of their creator and the goal he pursued by him 5.

However, in addition to the typical features characteristic of many “planned” cities, St. Petersburg has a number of individual characteristics that distinguish it. This is a city that arose “on the edge” of the country, on the border of its culture, and if you mean geographical conditions, “on the edge” of the Earth and on the northern “edge”, on the border with the water “abyss”.

This situation always appears as a conflict, as a life-giving duel between the demiurge and its enemy, however, at the same time St. Petersburg arose, as it seemed to human consciousness primarily to the Russian cultural consciousness, also “contrary to”: not only contrary to nature, but also contrary to the will of God. It was also founded and first developed contrary to the previous cultural experience of the vast majority of the people - its worldview, faith and desires.

He was too different from the rest of Russia and therefore saw as a foreign, “alien”, which means - as a wicked creation of “dark forces”. All the named characteristics of St. Petersburg found metaphysical rethinking in individual mythological motives, in particular, in the myth of the founder of the city, in the eschatological myth of St. Petersburg and in the myth of a germageric city that generates phantasmagoria; 15; These features also determined internal conflict, antagonism of the St.

Petersburg myth. Lotman, analyzing the culture and its objects as iconic semiotic systems, notes the special role of the city in the system of semiotic signs developed by culture: “The city, as a complex semiotic mechanism, the cultural generator can perform this function only because it is a boiler of texts and codes, multi -built and heterogeneous, belonging to different languages ​​and different levels” 15, p.

The exceptional mythogenicity of St. Petersburg Yu. Therefore, the history of St. Petersburg is inseparable from St. Petersburg mythology: “Long before Russian literature of the XIX century. If we do not identify the history of the city with an official-extension of the history that is reflected in bureaucratic correspondence, but to perceive it in connection with the life of the population, then a huge role of rumors, oral stories about extraordinary incidents, a specific urban folklore, which plays an exceptional role in the life of the Northern Palmyra from the moment of its founding, p.

The internal conflict of the St. Petersburg myth within the framework of the semiotic approach is interpreted as an expression of the eternal struggle of the elements and culture, which is realized primarily as an antithesis of water and stone. However, in the system of ideas of this myth, water and stone change roles: water is seen as an eternal beginning, destroying stone and threatening death; The stone, losing signs of stability, the ability to withstand the pressure of water and wind, is endowed with the properties of moving and becomes vulnerable, which does not have a reliable support artifact.

Spivaka 21; See thus, the ratio of natural elements of water and stone gives here the “inverted” perversion image of the world 15, p. On the one hand, the Kamen city, devoid of reliable support, is also erected on the border of the cultural space, “on the edge of the earth”, concentrates elements of eschatological expectations around itself. Indeed, the idea of ​​doom and predictions of imminent death is inseparable from urban mythology from the very beginning of St.

Petersburg history and are reflected in the St. Petersburg text of Russian literature. As a rule, the city is predicted by death from the “water abyss”, i.e., on the other hand, the likening of St. Petersburg to the “eternal city” of Rome is an association formulated back in Peter's times and by the beginning of the XIX century. Thus, the understanding of the city’s prospects in the St.

Petersburg myth also turns out to be an oxymorone: it is both the city and the eternal and doomed to death is a large role of rumors in the urban folklore of St. Petersburg, O. Ageeva is noted, which emphasizes that rumors have become an integral feature of the city’s self -awareness from the very beginning of its construction and existence 2. Some of these urban rumors formed their mythologists, which became of which they became.

A steady feature of St. Petersburg mythology.This, for example, is the motive for the unusity of St. Petersburg land to life by a stereotypical idea of ​​the construction of the city “in a deadly place” and the belief that the city was built “on the bones” of the first builders. To date, there are disputes between the researchers about how similar rumors corresponded to reality or, on the contrary, were a hypertrophied reaction to the hardships and conflict of the situation of the city of SR.

The awareness of the city as an “artificial”, created contrary to the divine will and the elements, was also transformed in the St. Petersburg myth in semantic Oxymoron. The city, conceived as the implementation of rationalistic utopia, created according to the “regular” plan according to the rational human will1, the generi- 1, in any case, was the “official version”. Of course, in reality, especially at the initial stage of the construction of St.

Petersburg, he gave the mythology of the phantasmagoric space. Petersburg is represented in culture as a ghost city, a city, the essence of which is different from the planning and architecture, or as a city-decoration. The motive of secrets became, according to V. Toporov, one of the main topics of the St. Petersburg text of Russian literature, which is closely connected with other motives, as a phenomenon that has a mystical nature and, in principle, is insoluble, is considered as unifying the foundation of the entire Petersburg poetics and the main driving mechanism of its plot of Bachinin, contrasting the phenomenal and nousal, that is, which is available contemplation of ub.

Lotman draws attention to a special genre of St. Petersburg folklore - an oral story in which the idea of ​​the ghost of the city and the fantasticity of the events often develops. This genre is represented, in particular, in the salon folklore of the first third of the XIX century. Pushkin of Petersburg writers of the 10ths. One of these legends, stylized under Finnish folklore, is contained in the story of V.

Odoevsky Salamander: the character of the story, old Finn, talks about how Tsar Peter lifted the cliff from the water, forged the city in the air and only then lowered it to the ground. The mysterious “St. Petersburg” story was cultivated by a friend of A. Pushkin, the poet A. The death of A. Delvig gave rise to a whole cycle of mystical legends, and contemporaries, including rationalistically, recognized that in life there was a lot of fantastic ones.