Dostoevsky left St Petersburg for his first trip to Europe on 7th June 1862. He spent most of his time in France and Italy, but also visited London for 8 days – his only trip to Britain – arriving on 9th July (Dryzhakov, p. 328). Like many other writers, one of his chief aims was [...]
All posts tagged St Petersburg
Russians in London: Dostoevsky
Posted by Sarah Young on December 19, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/12/19/russians-in-london-dostoevsky/
Russians in London: Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin, anarchist and revolutionary, already had a reputation in England before his arrival in London in 1861. The story of his alleged links with the Russian state reached the press in the form of an article in the Morning Advertiser, ‘Was Bakunin a Russian Agent or Not?’ (23 August, 1853), written by the conservative [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on December 12, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/12/12/russians-in-london-mikhail-bakunin/
Russians in London: Peter the Great
For such a famous visit, Peter the Great’s stay in London in 1698 seems to be surrounded by confusion and apocryphal tales (this article from the Torygraph retails its fair share of them), from the misplaced plaque that once adorned 15 Buckingham Street, several streets away from where he actually stayed on his arrival, to [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on November 23, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/11/23/russians-in-london-peter-the-great/
Chto delat? at the ICA
Chto delat? (What is to be Done?) is a collective of artists, theorists and political activists from Moscow, Petersburg and Novgorod, formed in 2003. In general I’m more au fait with their political work, via their Russian blog, where I’ve been reading intermittently about the activities and persecution (both official and unofficial) of anti-fascist, ecological and [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on October 5, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/10/05/chto-delat-at-the-ica/
Vavilov and the Pavlovsk Experimental Station
My knowledge of science in Russia is pretty limited. Like most students of Russian literature, I know that Dmitry Mendeleev, of periodic table fame, was the father-in-law of the poet Alexander Blok. Shalamov, in his story Courses, tells the tale of having to pass an oral exam in Chemistry, his weakest subject, in order to [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on September 20, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/09/20/vavilov-and-the-pavlovsk-experimental-station/
Four short links: old Russian photos
I’ve been interested in old photos of Russia since visiting a fabulous exhibition at the Manezh in St Petersburg in late 2004. I still have vivid memories of pictures of the elderly Tolstoy riding his horse with his beard streaming, and a fascinating set of photos of the first trams in Petersburg. My love of [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on August 26, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/08/26/four-short-links-old-russian-photos/
Siberian prison and exile: two studies
I’m currently working on revisions to an article on nineteenth-century narratives of prison and exile (see my previous posts on an earlier stage of work on this and on the conference where I presented it), and in the process of completing my reading, two works have stood out in different ways: Sergei Maksimov’s Sibir’ i [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 26, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/26/siberian-prison-and-exile-two-studies/
Re-reading Crime and Punishment: Dostoevsky’s spaces
The process of re-reading a novel is simultaneously frustrating and interesting. It’s frustrating because there are too many books out there, and too little time to read them, so returning to ones you’ve already read is always accompanied by a depressing awareness that you’re getting further away from others you’d like to read — I [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 6, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/06/rereading-crime-and-punishment-dostoevskys-spaces/
The Crocodile and the Crystal Palace: a whimsy
Some of the best ideas are destined never to make it into print. They’re usually the ‘wouldn’t it be great if…’ ideas, that you know probably aren’t true, and even if they are, there’s no way you’re ever going to prove them. At the same time you don’t want to let them go altogether. And [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on June 5, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/06/05/the-crocodile-and-the-crystal-palace-a-whimsy/
Imagining St Petersburg
I’ve finally got round to reading Solomon Volkov’s St Petersburg: A Cultural History (Simon & Schuster, 1995). I’ve felt a bit ashamed that I haven’t managed to read it before, but since I reached the half-way point I’ve changed my mind about how important it is, for me at least. It mainly deals with twentieth-century [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on May 20, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/05/20/imagining-st-petersburg/
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