first of all, I urge you to read through the short story by Gogol.
Secondly, It is unimaginable not to know and try to understand the great city of St. Petersburg, though I know it might not be the focus of our last lecture.
In fact there is a hermitage museum across the street in my residence in A'dam, and one day I visited it and since then i promised myself to visit St. Petersburg one day--it is because there was an exhibition on the last Czar and the entourage at that time, and actually the hermitage in A'dam was established to preserve the one in Russia. Later on , we have the splendid film by Sukorov Russian Ark.
[from WIKIPEDIA]
St. Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it “The most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of St. Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The themes of water and the conflict between water and stone, interpreted as the conflict between nature and the artificial, and also the theme of theatricality, in which St. Petersburg's building facades and massive boulevards create a stage designed for spectators became important themes for these writers. The effect of life in St. Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early St. Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to St. Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of St. Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from St. Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Andrey Bely, Yevgeny Zamyatin with his apprentices Serapion Brothers created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights in the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem, focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from St. Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in St. Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as “A Guide to a Renamed City” and the nostalgic, "In a Room and a Half"October 25th Prospekt.
Post-revolutionary name for Nevsky Avenue or Nevsky Prospekt, the main thoroughfare in the heart of St. Petersburg. The term "prospect" is roughly synonymous with avenue, but also meant to suggest something expansive and scenic. The "prospect" is a figment of architecture as much as a transportation route. "October 25th Prospekt" is one of many name changes ushered in by the revolution, this one referring to the date when the Bolsheviks took power , according to the old calendar. A section of the avenue is shown, right, with one of the four equestrian sculptures at the Anichkov Bridge.
further reading on the city[a "novel" by another writer]:
http://www.nnnonline.org/vaginov/satyrnotes.htm
[Follow that nose Director John Fulljames went to St Petersburg in search of Shostakovich's Nose. What he found instead was neon, giant chocolate bears, and traffic cops ]
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1787523,00.html
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