Current Literature

Two Canadian scholars, the former a specialist on St. Petersburg's evolution and urban fabric, explore linkages between population change, housing availability, and business development in central-city St. Petersburg during the late 1990s. These phenomena are viewed within the context of the St. Petersburg Strategic Plan, adopted in late 1997 as a guide to the city's post-Soviet development, and in light of the findings of a sample survey of central St. Petersburg's citizens designed to elicit information on social class structure and quality-of-life concerns. Results of the latter are compared with those from a similar survey in central Moscow. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 131, R14, R21. 3 figures, 5 tables, 15 references.     

Ambassador George Buchanan and the July Crisis

During the July Crisis, the United Kingdom was put under strong pressure from Russia and the latter's ally, France, to declare it would fight alongside them. Britain had made the entente cordiale with France in 1904 and a Convention with Russia in 1907. The British Ambassador to St. Petersburg, George Buchanan, was the key figure in diplomatic communication between Britain and Russia at this time and his performance has drawn diverse comments over the decades. Some analysts believe he genuinely sought to restrain Russia from war, but was undermined by his own government, who too easily accepted St. Petersburg must mobilise its army. But others feel Buchanan's reports of Russian mobilisation were ill-informed and unhelpful to the government in London. This article examines Buchanan's performance, arguing that he attempted to preserve peace for a time and does not deserve some of the criticisms levelled at him. Nonetheless, the preservation of the Triple Entente was a priority for him and, after about 28 July, once it became clear that European war could not be avoided, he became tardy in reporting Russia's war preparations, appearing more interested in defending his hosts’ behaviour than in providing an accurate analysis of events.     

The history of neurology in St. Petersburg

This article expounds the history of the formation and development of neurology in St. Petersburg and emphasizes the original character of St. Petersburg school of neurology. The authors state that many prominent neurologists of St. Petersburg dedicated their work to the development of neurological concepts and have made an important contribution to different areas of neurology, including vascular and demyelinating diseases, diseases of the peripheral nervous system, neuroinfections, epilepsy, etc.     

Die Frau Metta Catharina von Flensburg: a Danish brigantine wrecked in 1786 in Plymouth Sound,England

The Danish brigantine Die Frau Metta Catharina von Flensburg, outward bound from St Petersburg to Genoa, was wrecked in Plymouth Sound in 1786. With the consent of the wreck's owner, HRH The Prince of Wales, sports divers carried out a 30‐year‐long project to excavate and display material from the site. Aspects of shipboard life aboard this 18th‐century Baltic trader, together with an insight into her remarkable cargo of ‘Russia’ leather, have been presented to audiences in the UK and abroad. This paper presents a summary of the project upon its completion in 2006. © 2010 The Author     

Challenges to Western Participation in Shaping the Urban Landscape of Post-Socialist St. Petersburg: The Failure of International Competitions for Iconic Architectural Projects

The paper, based on a series of interviews in St. Petersburg conducted in 2009 and 2010 by an American geographer, discusses the failure of major iconic architectural projects awarded to Western firms through international architectural competitions. The projects, sought by Russian government and business leaders to enhance the city's re-emerging global status, are viewed as likely examples of diminished Western participation in the shaping of St. Petersburg's iconic urban landscape. The author attributes the failure to financial setbacks, and primarily also to a recalcitrant bureaucracy, red tape, overly strict building codes and regulations, corruption as well as negative reaction by local residents and media outlets.     

Emerging Chinese Role in Shaping St. Petersburg's Urban Landscape: Interscalar Investment Strategies in the Development of a Residential Megaproject

The paper, by an American geographer, discusses the origin and development of a Chinese-financed residential megaproject (Baltic Pearl) located southwest of St. Petersburg's historical district. Viewing Baltic Pearl as reportedly the largest investment project undertaken outside China by a government-sponsored Chinese consortium, the author places it in the context of state-level Sino-Russian relations and Russian unease over the influx of Chinese migrants and culture. Reflecting the author's extensive field work in St. Petersburg and Shanghai, the focus of the paper is on the way the consortium was forced to adopt interscalar (i.e., both state and municipal/urban) strategies responsive to local conditions, providing a potentially useful precedent and model for Chinese and other investors seeking to penetrate Russia's urban markets.     

State-Building in Eighteenth-Century Russia

HUGH RAGSDALE, ed. and trans., and VALERII NIKOLAEVICH PONOMAREV, asst. ed. Imperial Russian Foreign Policy. New York and Cambridge: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xvi, 457. $59–95 (US);

E. V. ANISIMOV. Rossiia bez Petra, 1725–1740. St Petersburg: Lenizdat, 1994. Pp. 496. No Price Available;

IA. A. GORDIN. Mezh rabstvom i svobodoi: 19 ianvaria-25 fevralia 1730 goda. St Petersburg: Lenizdat, 1994. Pp. 379. No Price Available;

CAROL S. LEONARD. Reform and Regicide: The Reign of Peter III of Russia. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993. Pp. vii, 232. $35.00 (US);

A. S. MYL'NIKOV. Ikushenie chudom: ‘Russkii prints’, ego prototipy i dvoiniki-samozvantsy. Leningrad: ‘Nauka’, Leningradskoe otdelenie, 1991. Pp. 268. No Price Available.     

Ein Katalog chinesischer Bücher aus dem Jahre 1804, zum Verkauf angeboten durch Antonio Montucci

In this bibliographical note, the author presents the first European, i.e., 1804 sales catalogue of Chinese books, provided that we do not count the booksellers catalogues of scholars’ private libraries in which Chinese language material consisted of few items only. The owner remained anonymous, but the agent was Antonio Montucci (1762–1829) – an early Sinologist who described the collection in a letter to the editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1804. The books were acquired by the Duke of Devonshire. Their present location, however, has not been established. Montucci, who planned on editing a major Chinese dictionary for Europeans and had thousands of wooden types cut for this purpose at his own cost, was not given a chance neither in Paris nor in St. Petersburg where such projects were in preparation. His own Chinese library was sold to the Holy See before his death.     

From charting to mapping: Russian military mapping of Corfu in the early nineteenth century

Abstract

This paper concludes the overview of the Russian Navy's chart making published in Imago Mundi, Volume 52 (2000). In the present paper attention is drawn to the way the emphasis shifted in the early years of the nineteenth century from charting by naval surveyors to land mapping by the Army. The need for specialized military topographical education had led to the founding of the Map Depot in 1797 in St Petersburg. The first major survey undertaken by the Depot was of the island of Corfu (1804–1806), in anticipation of further Russo‐Turkish hostilities (the Third Russo‐Turkish war, 1806–1812).     

The Natural Environment of the Shipwreck Vrouw Maria (1771) in the Northern Baltic Sea: an assessment of her state of preservation

Vrouw Maria, a merchant vessel sailing from Amsterdam to St Petersburg in 1771, ran aground in the northern Baltic Sea. Her cargo included Dutch works of art bought by Catherine the Great. The wreck was located in 1999, 41 m deep. This study aims to understand environmental factors and physical stresses affecting the wreck, using three different approaches—studying the wreck as an artificial reef; describing the conditions inside the wreck; and measuring the physical stresses caused by currents. The methods applied were biological, archaeological, hydrological, geological and physical. The data will be a basis for further monitoring. © 2010 The Authors     

Pressures on Urban Water Resources in Russia: The Case of St. Petersburg

An American geographer evaluates the process of water resources planning and management in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia, based on regional government documents, interviews with local water management officials, and follow-up field observations in 2007. St. Petersburg is a microcosm for challenges to assessing and managing water resources in urban environments in transition economies more broadly, and thus the present study yields insights into obstacles confronting water planners in many large cities in the post-Soviet realm, and augments the body of empirical data on the impacts of economic transition on environmental management. 3 figures, 46 references.     

A Life in Maps: Leo Bagrow,Imago Mundi,and the History of Cartography in the Early Twentieth Century

ABSTRACT:

This essay provides a critical commentary on the life of Leo Bagrow (1881–1957), the founding editor of Imago Mundi, drawing on previously unused correspondence from the journal’s archive, recently catalogued by the British Library in London. Bagrow’s experiences in the three European cities in which he lived and worked (St Petersburg, Berlin and Stockholm) are examined afresh and new insights are provided about the complex intellectual and sometimes political objectives and motivations of Bagrow and his fellow map dealers, map collectors and map historians. Particular attention is paid to the productive but often strained relationships between Bagrow and the expanding global network of map historians with whom he collaborated while establishing and editing Imago Mundi between 1935 and his death. This network was divided into four distinct and to some extent rival constituencies (university academics, map librarians, map collectors and map dealers). The essay examines how Imago Mundi, under Bagrow’s often confrontational editorship, emerged as the central co-ordinating forum through which these constituencies communicated with each other and within which the foundations for the modern discipline of map history were established.     

New books

Mongolia and the Mongols. Results of a Journey in Mongolia performed in the Years 1892–1893. By A. Pozdnieëf. Tome 2. (In Russian.) St. Petersburg: Press of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1898. Pp. xxix+ 517.

Dans la Grande Forêt de l'Afrique Centrale. By Franz Thonner. Translated from the German. Pp. x +115. With 86 Plates and 3 Maps.

The New Pacific. By Hubert Howe Bancroft. New York: 1900.

The Real Malay. By Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham, K.C.M.G. London and New York : John Lane, 1900. Price 6s.

Rajah Brooke. By Sir Spenser St. John, G.O.M.G. ("Builders of Greater Britain Series.”) London : T. Fisher Unwin, Paternoster Square, 1899. Price 5s.

A New Ride to Khiva. By Robert L. Jefferson, F.R.G.S. London : Methuen and Co., 1899. Price 6s.

Quaint Corners of Ancient Empires—Southern India, Burma, and Manila. By M. M. Shoemaker. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1899. Pp. 212. Price 10s. 6d. net.

Fifteen Years’ Sport and Life in the Hunting‐Grounds of Western America and British Columbia. By W. A. Baillie‐Grohman. London : Horace Cox, 1900. Pp. 403. Price 15s. net.

Narrative of a Journey in Western China. By G. E. Grum‐Grzhimailo. Vol. II.—Across the Pei‐Shan and Nan‐Shan to the Valley of the Yellow River. (In Russian.) St. Petersburg : The Imperial Russian Geographical Society, 1899. Pp. 445.

Guide to Queensland. Compiled from Official and Private Records, with the recognition of the Hon. Sir Horace Tozer, K.C.M.G. By Charles S. Rutlidge; Map and Illustrations. London : Dean and Son, 1899. Pp. 16V.

Western Australia; its Position and Prospects. By Grant Chambers. Map and Illustrations. Perth : by authority : R. Pether, Government Printer, 1899. Pp. 151.     

Drinking Diplomacy: The St. Petersburg ‘Ordre des Antisobres’ and Fraternal Culture among European Envoys in Early Imperial Russia

Abstract

Early in 1728, in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Duke of Liria—a Spanish diplomat, prominent Jacobite, and an illegitimate grandson of James II—sought to establish a curiously-titled fraternity called the ‘Order of the Anti-Sober’. Using the surviving charter of the proposed fraternal order as a point of departure, this article reconstructs the context and the meaning of Liria’s initiative. While drinking has traditionally been associated with Russia and in particular with the mores of Peter I’s court, this microstudy helps us to see it as a part of European sociable and diplomatic practices of the era. This episode sheds light not only on the broader evolution of fraternal societies in the early eighteenth century, but also on the mechanisms that drove the spread of such forms of associational life across the continent.     

The Russian navy as Chartmaker in the eighteenth century

Abstract

The modern period of chart making in Russia began in the reign of Peter the Great. Peter created the country's navy, which became the main focus for cartography in the eighteenth century. In this paper the multi‐faceted duties of naval officers in the charting and mapping of seas, rivers, forest resources and other features important for ship building and the development of navigation, and essential to Russia's geo‐political interests, are considered. The history of the early stages of specialized naval education and the training of surveyors at the Moscow Mathematical‐Navigational School (from 1701) and the St Petersburg Naval Academy (from 1715) are outlined, and the first surveys in the Baltic and Caspian seas are described. Finally, special attention is paid to the hydrographical surveys and charting of the Aegean Sea during the Russian‐Turkish war of 1768–1774, the sources and methods involved, and the little‐known Atlas of the Archipelago (1788) which was created from the surveys.     

Ivane Tarkhnishvili (Tarchanoff): A Major Georgian Figure from the Russian Physiological School

This article is dedicated to one of the outstanding scientists of the nineteenth century: Ivane Tarkhnishvili (Tarchanoff), a Russian physiologist of Georgian origin who graduated from the St. Petersburg Medico-Surgical Academy and worked under the supervision of the founder of Russian physiology, Ivan Sechenov. Among his numerous contributions was the discovery of the skin galvanic reflex; however, Tarkhnishvili's most significant contribution was the discovery of the influence of X-rays on the central nervous system, animal behavior, the heart and circulation, and embryonic development. Indeed, these works have given rise to a new field in science (radiobiology).     

Mirrors of the Nation: The Construction of National Character and Difference in the Historical Writings of E. G. Geijer

This article suggests that marriageable young upper-class women can be taken as indicators of the longue durée of the ancien régime mentality and the stepwise advancement of the bourgeois mentality. This is so because of factors that made such women particularly prone not to break with established conventions. Source materials in this analysis are taken from contemporary non-fiction texts in which 19th-century St Petersburg and Helsinki serve as the scenes and in which marriageable young women feature as the protagonists or objects of appraising gazes. It is suggested that the differences emerging around the mid-19th century between the two societies with regards to the habitus and education of upper-class girls and marriageable women can at least in part be explained by different institutional settings vis-à-vis land, labour and the status of the bourgeoisie.     

Ivane Beritashvili: Founder of Physiology and Neuroscience in Georgia

This paper is dedicated to one of the outstanding scientists of the twentieth century—Ivane Beritashvili. He was a Georgian physiologist who graduated from St. Petersburg University and worked under the supervision of N. Wedensky. He founded the Department of Physiology and the Institute of Physiology at the University of Tbilisi, Georgia. Among his numerous contributions was the discovery of the rhythmical course of reciprocal inhibition in spinal reflexes, the first demonstration of the excitatory and inhibitory reactions in the brain stem neuropil. But Beritashvili's most significant contribution was the discovery of the mediation of animal psychoneural behavior by image-driven memory.