St Petersburg

To be sure, the imperial theme was always strongly present in Petersburg culture, going back to the first panegyrists of Peter the Great. But bearing in mind Russia’s geographic situation, its size, its multiethnic populations, and its relations with its neighbors, such a circumstance is hardly surprising. Russia has always striven for imperial position. The question is whether this imperial principle is manifested through crude force or cultural influence. As Lev Gumilyov put it, “Every nation has the right to be itself.”133

Brodsky countered, “You can try to save yourself from imperial excesses only through culture, because culture alone transforms us into civilized men who subsequently give rise to the democratic system.” Bitov addressed the same issue: “Democracy is work and freedom is work. It is the work of everyone. Skepticism is the cheapest trick possible, especially for the intelligentsia.”134

The role of Petersburg and the Petersburg mythos in this process is potentially enormous. One of the city’s ambitions, which can again be spoken aloud, is its desire to be the spiritual capital or, at least, the cultural arbiter of the new Russia. The foundation for such an aspiration is the city’s brilliant past and its tragic mythological aura.

But the spiritual impulses of Petersburg, a city that appeared at a tyrant’s whim and developed haphazardly, are in the end unpredictable. Many Petersburgers would like to see it as the anchor of a Western-oriented Russia, but in certain circumstances, the city could easily become lost and bewildered, as it did in the tumultuous years of the revolution.

The search for the new may end in the loss of the past, in isolation from reality and civilization. Built on the line separating order from chaos, Petersburg has always been on the edge of the abyss. Any reader of the Petersburg texts is familiar with the view. The émigré philosopher Georgy Fedotov, who died in New York in 1951, proposed an original interpretation of one of the central images of The Bronze Horseman—the flood threatening to swallow Petersburg. Fedotov noted that Pushkin depicts the flood as almost a living force. He drew a parallel between the flood and the snake that Peter the Great’s horse tramples in the middle of the city. “The snake and the flood represent the irrational, the blind aspects of Russian life, that which was shackled by Apollo and was always ready to break out: into sects, nihilism, anti-Semitism, rebellion. Russian life and Russian statehood are constant and tortuous mastery of chaos through reason and will.”135

This confused and not always progressive movement to a distant goal cannot hope to succeed without drawing on the tradition of Petersburg culture, at least on that line whose principles were enumerated by Brodsky: “Sobriety of consciousness and sobriety of form; a desire for freedom inspired by the spirit of the place and the architecture of the place; aesthetic stoicism and the thought that order is more important than disorder, no matter how much the latter is congenial to our perception of the world …. This is a case where the sets determine the actor’s repertoire. The problem lies only in who the actor is and how prepared he is for those sets and, therefore, for his role.”136

Public opinion polls have consistently shown that up to 20 percent of the inhabitants of Petersburg are prepared to go to the West—either for work or permanent resettlement—showing that even such an unusual city can lose its attraction for a substantial number of its residents. The ostensibly victorious Petersburg mythos is still threatened.

First of all, the very physical existence of Petersburg is in danger, its fifteen thousand historic mansions and palaces falling apart. “Hundreds of old Petersburg buildings are dead … the colors are fading before your very eyes and the gilt is peeling,” sighs an observer.137 Decades of neglect have damaged the city’s beauty, its loveliness is wearing thin.

The authorities cannot afford major restoration work, and there is no certainty that the hoped-for investment from the West will go to preserve the city’s landmarks. Everyone is aware of crumbling Venice, but Petersburg probably faces a graver crisis, one worsened by economic and political instability.

No less troubling are the signs of spiritual malaise. The Petersburg mythos is no longer underground, but this very circumstance predictably is depriving it of its inner dynamic. Praising persecuted geniuses of the past and celebrating their posthumous anniversaries do not of themselves add vitality to modern Petersburg culture. Bitov admits that “we are now speaking the truth looking backwards. And as a result, we are standing in place.”138