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| Name | | Saint Petersburg at night |
| Price, USD | | 1800.00 |
| Status | | For sale, check |
| Seller | | Russian Art Gallery |
| Size, cm
| | 100.0 x 80.0 cm /switch |
| Artist | | Yuri Kozak |
| Year made | | 1988-01-01 |
| Edition | | Original |
| Style | |
Realism |
| Theme | |
History |
| Media | |
Oil on canvas |
| Collection | |
History of Russia |
| Description | |
The lands along the Neva River have belonged to the Ancient Russian state since at least the 9th century AD. However, throughout history these lands have harbored a mixed population of Slavs, Finns and other ethnic groups. From the 9th century onwards this area was part of the Principality of Novgorod. The ancient city of Novgorod was an important center of domestic and international trade and craftsmanship. Novgorod merchants traded with Western and Northern Europe and later with the towns of the Hanseatic League and used the Neva River and Lake Ladoga to transport their goods.
In 1240, whilst most of Southern and Central Russia was fighting the Mongol invasion, a Swedish invasion landed on the banks of the Neva River. The Novgorod troops of Prince Alexander went out to meet the foe and on July 15, 1240 fought the Battle of The Neva (Nevskaya Bitva). The Russians successfully launched a surprise attack on the Swedes and were victorious. This battle became a symbol of Russia's dramatic fight for independence and Prince Alexander was given the name Alexander Nevsky (i.e. Alexander of the Neva) and was later declared a Saint of the Russian Orthodox Church for his efforts to protect Russia and its Christian faith. Later, in the 18th century, he was also proclaimed the patron saint of St. Petersburg - Peter the Great's great European city built on the banks of the Neva.
In the 16th century the power and prosperity of Novgorod was subdued by Moscow and the lands along the Neva River became part of the centralized Russian state - Muscovite Russia. However, at the beginning of the 17th century serious unrest began to brew in Russia, after the last Tsar of the Riurik dynasty - Fiodor Ioanovich (the son of Ivan the Terrible), had died leaving no heirs to the throne. The new ruler, Vasily Shuisky, invited the Swedes to fight on his side. The Swedes realized how weak Russia was, and decided instead to occupy a significant portion of North-Western Russia. Even after the new Romanov dynasty was established in 1613, Russia had to admit some territorial losses. A new border between Russia and Sweden was established by the Stolbovo Treaty of 1617. For the remainder of the century the Neva River area became a part of Sweden, and the Swedes effectively cut off Russia from all Baltic trade routes.
By the end of the 17th century Peter the Great was determined to change the status quo, regain access to the Baltic Sea and establish stronger ties with the West. In thehope of achieving these goals he embarked on the Northern War with Sweden (1700-1721). In 1703 the Russians gained control over the Neva river and on May 16, 1703 (May 27 - by the modern calendar) he founded the city of St. Petersburg on teh banks of the river.
During the first few years of St. Petersburg's history, the the banks of the Neva saw an amazing transition from a swampy, scarcely populated area to a fine European capital. The first structure to be built in the new city was the Peter and Paul fortress. Althout it was originally designed to protect the area from possible attacks by the Swedish army and navy, the fort did not actually take part in any fighting. Just across the River Neva from the fortress Peter built the fortified Admiralty complex, where the most powerful ships of Russia's Baltic Fleet were built. Many of these vessels were to lead Russia to a great series of naval victories during the course of the Northern War. Many of St. Petersburg's street and district names still remind us today of Peter the Great's preparations for war and the great shipbuilding industry he instituted; Liteiny - meaning "the Foundry yard" and Smolny - "the Tar yard", which produced tar for the purposes of shipbuilding, for example).
Tsar Peter the Great's first residence in the city was a small hut, know now as the Cabin of Peter the Great. As the city developed the Tsar commissioned a Summer Palace to be built for him in 1714 and later a Winter Palace, just a little further down the river. Originally there were no bridges crossing the mighty Neva River and people had to be ferried between banks by boat, one of the reasons why St. Petersburg was given the epithet "the Venice of the North".
The heart of the city was originally intended to be the area between the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Cabin of Peter the Great, which later became known as Trinity Square ('Troitskaia Ploschad'). The focal point of this area was the city's first church - the Trinity Church, and around it houses for the local nobility, a Gostiny Dvor (a market for local and visiting merchants) and several inns and bars were built. Most of the city's prestigious social events (receptions, balls, etc.) took place either in the Summer Gardens or in the residence of the Governor General of St. Petersburg - the luxurious Menshikov Palace.
Unfortunately, very few of the city's buildings from the early 18th century have survived, many havign been torn down or remodeled. The university building of the "Twelve Colleges" and the Kikin House on Vasilievsky Island give visitors an approximate impression of what the original city looked like.
When Peter the Great died in 1725, his wife Catherine assumed power and the city experienced a short decline while various rulers fought over the throne. For a short period, in the late 1720s, the royal court was moved back to Moscow. Many of the nobility and merchants, forced by Peter the Great to move to St. Petersburg, now chose to leave the city. St. Petersburg was only fully revived when Peter's daughter Elizabeth became Empress in 1741. Elizabethan St. Petersburg became a lively European capital and its population reached 150,000 people.
During the reign of Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, St. Petersburg developed into a fine European capital to rival those of any in the West.
The Imperial splendor of St. Petersburg was best reflected in its suburban royal residences. Peter the Great's estate Peterhof was remodeled by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the Italian architect of the Winter Palace and Smolny Cathedral. The Grand Palace and Grand Cascade fountain at Peterhof were luxuriously adorned with gold, precious stones and statues and reflected Elizabeth's decadent tastes and her disregard for Imperial funds.
The Yekaterininsky (Catherine's) Palace in Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), which originally belonged to Peter the Great's wife Catherine, was turned into a magnificent royal residence with a vast and elaborate Baroque garden.
Elizabeth commissioned the lovely Smolny Convent and the Winter Palace, though she died before both buildings were completed. Ironically, during Elizabeth's reign the area near the palace, which was later named Palace Square, was used as a grazing land for the royal cows.
Elizabeth tried to adopt and adhere to many of her father's public policies. Unlike some of her predecessors, she preferred to appoint Russians and not foreigners to the highest positions in the country and being a patron of the arts and sciences, she established the Russian Academy of Arts. As well as a conscientious leader, Elizabeth was also a very lively and social personality and organised regular balls, receptions, masquerades and firework displays.
Elizabeth's nephew Peter III did not rule the country for long, but shortly after assuming power was overthrown by his wife, a German princess, who reigned the country as the famous Catherine the Great. Under her rule St. Petersburg was turned into a "Grand City".
This period in the city's history was both brilliant and troublesome. It all began with the splendid coronation of Nicholas II in Moscow, which resulted in the thousands of casualties of the Khodynka disaster, and ended with the cruelest of wars - WWI. However, in the early 1900s St. Petersburg was obsessed with celebration.
In 1902 bureaucratic St. Petersburg celebrated 100 years of the government reforms of Alexander I and his establishment of the ministries.
In May 1903 St Petersburg celebrated the city's 200th anniversary. The new Troitski (Trinity) Bridge was officially opened in the presence of the Emporer and a church service took place in Senatskaya Square next to the Bronze Horseman, to commemorate the founder of the city.
But trouble began to brew in January 1905, when a peaceful demonstration of workers was fired on by troops on Palace Square. This triggered public outrage and marked the start of the 1905-07 Revolution. The events of January 9 1905 rapidly became known as "Bloody Sunday". On October 17 1905 Nicholas II was forced to issue a manifesto proclaiming a number of civil rights and instituting a new parliament, consisting of the Duma and the reformed State Council.
The opening of the Duma in 1906 gave fresh grounds for hope to thousands of liberals in the intelligentsia. The district where the Duma was located soon became one of the most popular residential areas in the city. However, their hope was short lived. The government curtailed many of these freedoms and blocked many of the Duma's initiatives. Finally, worn down by the harships of WWI, the public's patience waned and the revolutionary events of 1917 were set in motion.
But before the onslaught of the 1917 Revolution, St. Petersburg enjoyed a cultural revival which became known as the "Silver Age" and involved many of the city's best known artists, musicians, composers, writers and poets.
With a population of 2 million people, the modern metropolis of St. Petersburg was to face many horrors in the coming war.
Shortly after the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin died, the city was renamed Leningrad (supposedly by public demand). During the years of the Revolution the population of the city had dropped dramatically and the city was slow to recover from the rigors and tragedies of the war.
In the late 1920s mass construction of cheap housing for workers became a very prominent feature of the Leningrad landscape. Many cultural centers, "palaces of culture", were built to provide the city's people with entertainment, clubs and other social activities. In terms of architecture most of what was built was rather modern and less than inspiring. The large apartments that had been constructed during St. Petersburg's Imperial era were turned into "communal" (shared) apartments, housing several families. Life was not easy in the socialist city of Leningrad, but the population was to suffer even greater hardships during WWII and the dramatic 900-day Siege of Leningrad.
This was undoubtedly the most tragic period in the history of the city, a period full of suffering and heroism. For everyone who lives in St. Petersburg the Blokada (the Siege) of Leningrad is an important part of the city's heritage and a painful memory for the population's older generations.
Less than two and a half months after the Soviet Union was attacked by Nazi Germany, German troops were already approaching Leningrad. The Red Army was outflanked and on September 8 1941 the Germans had fully encircled Leningrad and the siege began. The siege lasted for a total of 900 days, from September 8 1941 until January 27 1944. The city's almost 3 million civilians (including about 400,000 children) refused to surrender and endured rapidly increasing hardships in the encircled city. Food and fuel stocks were limited to a mere 1-2 month supply, public transport was not operational and by the winter of 1941-42 there was no heating, no water supply, almost no electricity and very little food. In January 1942 in the depths of an unusually cold winter, the city's food rations reached an all time low of only 125 grams (about 1/4 of a pound) of bread per person per day. In just two months, January and February of 1942, 200,000 people died in Leningrad of cold and starvation. Despite these tragic losses and the inhuman conditions the city's war industries still continued to work and the city did not surrender.
Several hundred thousand people were evacuated from the city across Lake Ladoga via the famous "Road of Life" ("Doroga Zhizni") - the only route that connected the besieged city with the mainland. During the warm season people were ferried to the mainland, and in winter - carried by trucks that drove across the frozen lake under constant enemy bombardment.
Meanwhile, the city lived on. The treasures of the Hermitage and the suburban palaces of Petrodvorets and Pushkin were hidden in the basements of the Hermitage and St Isaac's Cathedral. Many of the city's students continued their studies and even passed their finals exams. Dmitry Shostakovich wrote his Seventh "Leningrad" Symphony and it was performed in the besieged city.
In January 1943 the Siege was broken and a year later, on January 27 1944 it was fully lifted. At least 641,000 people had died in Leningrad during the Siege (some estimates put this figure closer to 800,000). Most of them were buried in mass graves in different cemeteries, with the majority in the Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery, resting place to over 500,000 people and a timeless reminder of the heroic deeds of the city.
The 1970s and the early 1980s were a period of stability for the Soviet Union and for Leningrad. Though political freedoms were greatly limited, most of the city's population enjoyed relative prosperity. When the government initiated the reforms known worldwide as Perestroika, stability rapidly disappeared and the population began experiencing economic hardship as the government quibbled over reforms. In 1991, after a city-wide referendum, the city of Leningrad returned to its original name - St. Petersburg.
Now, just after the turn of the new millenium St. Petersburg is still in a transition period, both economically and socially. While the city's industries is still in recession, services and retail sales are gradually improving and more and more foreign businesses are being attracted to the city;s new business climate. Although, still far behind Moscow in economic terms, St. Petersburg had become a modern, rapidly growing commercial city. On the social side, St. Petersburg's younger generations are coping admirably with the economic changes, but unemployment remains high and families and pensioners struggle desperately to make ends meet. |
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