The Building of St Petersburg

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2009

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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

Transcript

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0:46.6	the program. Hello when he visited St. Petersburg in Russia in 1739 the Venetian art connoisseur Francesco Algarotti made an unflattering observation.
0:58.8	He said that were the ground less marshy, the building materials of better quality, and the inhabitants more pleasant,
1:05.9	St. Petersburg, he said, would be surely one of the finest towns in the world.
1:10.8	That St. Petersburg now is among the finest towns in the world indeed that it even exists
1:15.5	is testament to the unbending will of Peter the Great and its Tsari's successes especially
1:20.4	Catherine the Great. But St. Petersburg's also a testament to ideas
1:24.5	of the Baroque and the neoclassical, of enlightened progress and above all of the belief
1:28.4	that Russia having faced East for so long must turn its face towards the West. Indeed, Agorotti also called
1:35.2	St Petersburg a window through which Russia looks on Europe. With me to discuss
1:40.1	St. Petersburg at Tony Cross, a Maritus professor of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge, Janet Hartley,
1:47.0	Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Simon
1:52.0	Dixon, Sir Bernard Pce Professor of Russian History at
1:55.1	University College London. Simon Dixon, St Petersburg was founded by
1:59.4	Peter the Great, he came to Seoul power in Russia in 1696 when he was 24. Can you explain what his
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