The Icon and the Axe

Finally, a cult of classical antiquity began to emerge on Russian soil. Taken over first from Poland and then from Italian and French visitors was the idea that classical forms of art and life might serve as a supplement (if not an alternative) to Christian forms. The belief subtly grew that classical antiquity could-unaided by Christian revelation-answer many of the pressing problems of life. The first work of classical antiquity translated into Russian in the eighteenth century was Aesop's Fables; and the first ensemble in the new medium of sculpture to be displayed in St. Petersburg was a series of statues by the older Rastrelli, illustrating the morals of these fables. The new poets and writers that emerged under Elizabeth's reign in the 1740's all used classical forms of exposition: odes, elegies, and tonic verse rather than the syllabic verse of the late seventeenth century. The new operas, plays, and ballets of the Elizabethan era were built around classical more often than scriptural subjects-in marked contrast to the theater of Alexis' time. Peter the Great had himself sculpted in the guise of a Roman

emperor; and Latin became the scholarly language of the new Academy of Sciences.

This summoning up of classical images in a land so remote from the classical world points to the underlying unreality of early post-Petrine culture. The turquoise blue with which buildings were painted lent an unreal coloration to the great edifices of the new capital. The endless proliferation of three-dimensional decorative effects-artificial pilasters, statuary, and garden pavilions-reflects the general desire of baroque art to achieve mastery over its material and, in the last analysis, over nature itself.68 This effort seemed particularly presumptuous and unreal for such an untutored people in such an inhospitable natural environment.

Perhaps there was an unconscious realization of this unreality in Elizabeth's almost compulsive fondness for masquerades. Things were not what they seemed to be in either the decor or the dances of the Elizabethan court. Cryptic maxims, fables, and acrostics had already established themselves at the Tsar's court;64 and ever since 1735 there had been a special chair of allegory in the Academy of Sciences. Elizabeth's coronation in 1740 had been celebrated by two examples of allegorical ballet, her favorite form of theatrical entertainment. Increasingly during her reign, she sponsored not only masked balls of various sorts but a particular type known as a "metamorphosis," wherein men came disguised as women and vice versa. A laboratory for making artificial fireworks and a wooden "theatre of illuminations" jutting out into the Neva across from the Academy of Sciences were other forms of artifice initiated by Elizabeth. The greatest Russian scientist of the day, Michael Lomonosov, seems to have relished his assignment as official chronicler of these illuminations. He describes one in which a giant colossus looks toward the sea, holding up a torch and the initials of Elizabeth.

Far o'er the restless sea its beam would pour And lead the periled vessels safe to shore . . ,65

St. Petersburg, at the eastern extremity of the Baltic, was such a colossus, but it did not rest on firm foundations. It had been built over a swampy region which the Finns and Swedes had used only for forts and fisheries. It was constantly menaced by floods. Pushkin, Gogol, and other writers of the late imperial period were fascinated with the defiance of nature inherent in the creation of the new capital. The history of European culture in this city is rather like that of the extraordinary palm tree in a story by Vsevelod Garshin. Artificially transplanted from more sunlit southern regions to the greenhouse of a northern city, the plant restlessly seeks to bring the expansive freedom of its former habitat to all the docile native

plants confined in the greenhouse. Its brilliant growth upward toward the elusive sun attracts the fascinated attention of all, but leads ultimately to a shattering of the enclosure and a killing exposure to the real climate of the surrounding region.66

By the end of Elizabeth's reign St. Petersburg had a population about equal to that of Moscow and a culture similar to that of the leading capitals of Europe. It was already