Petersburg Petersburg: Novel and City, 1900-1921

365 Pages·2010·2.6 MB·English

by  Olga Matich

Petersburg/Petersburg

Petersburg/Petersburg
Novel and City, 1900–1921
Edited by
 
The University of Wisconsin Press
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1 3 5 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Matich, Olga.
Petersburg/Petersburg : novel and city, 1900–1921 / Olga Matich.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-299-23604-5 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-299-23603-8 (e-book)
1. Bely, Andrey, 1880–1934. Peterburg.
2. Saint Petersburg (Russia)—In literature.
3. Saint Petersburg (Russia)—History—20th century.
I. Title.
DK552.M38 2010
947´.21083—dc22
2010011538
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Preface ix
Introduction 3
 
Part One: Petersburg, the Novel
1 Backs, Suddenlys, and Surveillance 31
 
2 Poetics of Disgust: To Eat and Die in Petersburg 55
 
3 Bely, Kandinsky, and Avant-Garde Aesthetics 83
 
Part Two: Petersburg, the City
4 “The Streetcar Prattle of Life”: Reading and
Riding St. Petersburg’s Trams 123
 
5 How Terrorists Learned to Map: Plotting
in Petersburg and Boris Savinkov’s Recollections
of a Terroristand The Pale Horse 149
   
and
6 The Enchanted Masquerade: Alexander Blok’s
The Puppet Showfrom the Stage to the Streets 174
 
v
vi Contents
7 Panoramas from Above and Street from Below:
The Petersburg of Vyacheslav Ivanov and
Mikhail Kuzmin 194
 
8 The Button and the Barricade: Bridges in Paris and
Petersburg 217
 
9 28 Nevsky Prospect: The Sewing Machine,
the Seamstress, and Narrative 238
 
10 Meat in Russia’s Modernist Imagination 262
 
11 The Fluid Margins: Flâneurs of the Karpovka River 283
 
12 The Voices of Silence: The Death and Funeral
of Alexander Blok 305
 -
Concluding Remarks 327
 
Postscript. St. Petersburg: New Architecture and
Old Mythology 332
 
Contributors 343
Index 345
Illustrations
Cover of inaugural issue of Voron 40
Olga Rozanova, cover of Vzorval’ 41
Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son 58
Francesco Cabianca, Saturn 60
Edvard Munch, The Scream 71
Andrey Bely, Nikolay Apollonovich Ableukhov 72
Cover of Shtyk 89
Wassily Kandinsky, The Last Judgment 91
Andrey Bely, Angel 92
Wassily Kandinsky, Diagonal Tensions and Countertensions with a Point 98
Mikhail Dobuzhinsky, October Idyll 102
Wassily Kandinsky, Moscow 104
Wassily Kandinsky, Lady in Moscow 105
Vague Selfish Affection 106
Mikhail Dobuzhinsky, Barbershop Window 108
Mikhail Dobuzhinsky, City Types 109
Wassily Kandinsky, Black Spot 110
Map of St. Petersburg’s tram network 126
Cover of Osip Mandelshtam’s Dva tramvaia 138
Nicholas II 182
Masquerade ball at the home of Countess Kleinmikhel 183
Tauride Palace and Tauride Gardens 201
Rotating drawbridge of Trinity Bridge 219
Alexander III Bridge 221
Advertisement for the Singer sewing machine 243
Russian Singer Girl 244
vii
viii Illustrations
Karl Bulla, photograph of woman in Russian national costume 245
Cover of Singer Family Calendar 247
Butchers at work at Aux Gourmets, St. Petersburg 264
Still shot from Dziga Vertov, Kino-glaz 278
Grenadier regiment barracks on Karpovka Embankment 290
Dmitry Mitrokhin, On Karpovka 299
Eric Owen Moss Architects, design for Mariinsky Theater 335
RMJM Group, design for Gazprom Tower 339
Preface
My interest in Andrey Bely’s Petersburg is longstanding. I have taught the
premier novel of Russian modernism throughout my academic career, but
only recently have I ventured to subject it to serious examination. The initial
impetus for this work was Russian Modernism and Its International Legacy, the very
ambitious and beautifully designed Web site by Scott Mahoy that is being
constructed at the University of Southern California by the Labyrinth Project,
which is directed by noted film and new media scholar Marsha Kinder. I was
one of the members of the original team, consisting of Marsha, the art historian
John Bowlt, and film scholar Yuri Tsivian, that conceptualized the multimedia
digital teaching resource. Inspired by new ways of thinking about narrative and
by the possibilities of the digital medium, I started an informal graduate semi-
nar at Berkeley on the relationship of the novel Petersburgand the coeval capital
of late imperial Russia. From it emerged the Web site Mapping Petersburg, which
the authors of this volume created together with Web designers Chris Palma-
tier of the Berkeley Language Center and Irina Kuzes, an independent de-
signer. I invite you to visit the Web site at any point while reading “Petersburg”/
Petersburg: Novel and City, 1900–1921.1
One of the unusual aspects of the Petersburg project is not that a novel
gaverisetoaWebsite,butthattheWebsiteengenderedthescholarlybook
thatyouareabouttoread.Thereversewouldhavebeenthemorecommonse-
quence.Theprintedbookandelectronicsitewhilecloselyrelatedcanberead
andusedwithoutreferencetotheother,althoughintandemtheyofferanew,
richerintellectualexperience.Pleaseseetheintroductionforthedescriptionof
“Petersburg”/PetersburgandtheconcludingremarksforadiscussionofMapping
Petersburg.WehopethatthevolumecumWebsitewillbeofinterestnotonly
ix