Enlightened Metropolis: Constructing Imperial Moscow, 1762-1855 (Oxford Studies in Medieval European History) - Hardcover

Martin, Alexander M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199605785 ISBN 13: 9780199605781

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Imperial Russia, is was said, had two capital cities because it had two identities: St. Petersburg was Russia's "window to Europe," whereas Moscow preserved the nation's proud historical traditions. Enlightened Metropolis challenges this myth by exploring how the tsarist regime actually tried to turn Moscow into a bridgehead of Europe in the heartland of Russia.

Moscow in the eighteenth century was widely scorned as backward and "Asiatic." The tsars thought it a benighted place that endangered their state's internal security and their effort to make Russia European. Beginning with Catherine the Great, they sought to construct a new Moscow, with European buildings and institutions, a Westernized "middle estate", and a new cultural image as an enlightened metropolis. Drawing on the methodologies of urban, social, institutional, cultural, and intellectual history, Enlightened Metropolis asks: How was the urban environment - buildings, institutions, streets, smells - transformed in the nine decades from Catherine's accession to the death of Nicholas I? How were the lives of the inhabitants changed? Did a "middle estate" come into being? How similar was Moscow's modernization to that of Western cities, and how was it affected by the disastrous occupation by Napoleon? Lastly, how were Moscow and its people imagined by writers, artists, and social commentators in Russia and the West from the Enlightenment to the mid-nineteenth century?

About this title

About the Author

Alexander M. Martin is a member of the history department at the University of Notre Dame.

Review

"Enlightened Metropolis is well-written and meticulously researched...His chapters are rich...in detail...[T]his book adds significantly to our understanding of the history of Moscow, and in particular, how the city was imagined and portrayed by writers and other contemporary commentators."--The Russian Review

"Bringing to bear a vast variety of sources in four languages...Martin masterfully brings to life the empire's second capital as a city in constant flux and teeming with a shifting, diverse population...Martin deftly blends intellectual, social, and cultural history, drawing on his rich variety of source material in order to address scholarly literatures on a wide range of topics...[T]he book offers scholars rich detail on material culture, everyday life, urban personal narratives, the development of Russian urban ethnography, and memory and nostalgia. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the history of imperial Russia."--Ab Imperio

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0199605785
• ISBN 13: 9780199605781
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 360