St. Petersburg / Leningrad:
Narration – History – Present

In the project urban studies, interdisciplinary in their own right, are integrated with the approaches to the city applied in literary studies, semiotics, history studies, visual arts, music, sociology and popular culture. The starting point is the present, which is examined in the context of the tradition.

Cultural phenomena produced by the city of St. Petersburg have traditionally been investigated from the point of view of the St. Petersburg Myth and the so-called
Petersburg Text. The Petersburg Text is a notion introduced by the structuralist movement during the second half of the 20th century, which relies to a great degree on the 19th century Russian literary tradition from Pushkin to Dostoevsky. The image and myth of St. Petersburg represented in the Petersburg Text is conceived of as a whole, a single text comprised of a corpus of independent texts, which in various aspects defines the way St. Petersburg / Leningrad is perceived and remythologised in 20th century Russian literature. According to the Petersburg Text, St. Petersburg is a dualistic, demonic city in which the fate of the city reflects not only the fate of its individual citizen, but also that of Russia, Europe and the world at large.

The aim of the St. Petersburg / Leningrad Project is to elucidate the relationship between the classical interpretations of the city as conveyed in the Petersburg Text along with its mythological constructions, and contemporary St. Petersburg culture with the focus on the ways the present city generates new texts. In order to achieve such an aim it is necessary that literary studies and cultural studies be in constant dialogue with multidisciplinary urban studies, sociology and semiotics. This dialogue is a means to problematise in a new way the appropriateness of the application of the St. Petersburg Myth and Text in the study of contemporary culture. On the other hand, the approach guarantees that the meaning of historical tradition, essential for examining contemporary culture, is not ignored.

When examining the special features of St. Petersburg culture, one must investigate it in its relation to Moscow and Muscovite culture. The latter is traditionally conceived of as the embodiment of “authentic” Russian culture, whereas St. Petersburg is regarded as an intersection where Western and Eastern cultural traditions meet. St. Petersburg as the West is a truism, whose manifold manifestations have found their way into contemporary culture. However, it is a truism, whose content needs to be questioned. The notion of “otherness” is crucial in comprehending St. Petersburg culture, because St. Petersburg has always been defined as “the other” in the Russian context in its relationship to Moscow. As “the alien in our own midst” it has become the place for cultural communication par excellence. In contemporary culture ”otherness” is actualised in the alternative, marginal and avant-garde nature of the cultural life of the city. Moreover, the same characteristics are indicative of the city’s capacity to give rise to new texts as well as translate “alien” texts.

Concerning cultural evolution, the issue of centre and periphery is always apt. The Moscow – St. Petersburg axis has been dominated by the struggle for the position of the centre since the foundation of the city of St. Petersburg. Several aspects have been significant in the struggle: economics, prestige, connections to the East and West, as well as cultural individuality. Phenomena which have not been approved by the official culture have been marginalized within the culture. Under new circumstances rejected and persecuted phenomena have re-emerged from the periphery and appeared in the centre of the culture. The history of Russian culture can be seen as consisting of a series of revolutions, of explosions. Such a post-structuralist view on cultural studies provides the main methodological tool for the studies included in the project.

The phenomena, which have been located on the boundary between the centre and periphery, have a significant role to play in the project. The St. Petersburg / Leningrad andegraund, (the corresponding Muscovite phenomena is called underground) its history and different forms of manifestation together with the question how there are perceived from the present-day perspective are of special interest in the studies. The issues concerning the underground culture of today, the prerequisite of its existence and nature constitute an interesting field which has not been studied comprehensively to date. The underground culture of Leningrad in the 1950’s – 1970’s was a dynamic periphery where new texts were actively produced as well as “alien” texts translated, but the very same peripheral position amounted to its weak structural coherence.

The speciality of St. Petersburg culture – rock lyrics of a literary nature – emanates from the underground culture. The examination of St. Petersburg popular culture focuses on this genre, which encompasses both modernist and postmodernist tradition at the same time as it reflects the present moment. Rock lyrics form an essential part in the depictions of the transformations that take place in everyday life. The idiosyncratic history of Russian rock from the 1970’s is a reflection of the history of transition in present-day Russia.

Underground culture is investigated in its relation to “otherness” within a culture. Various cultural minorities, such as the culture of sexual minorities are analysed both as being opposed to the mainstream culture and as an independent entity of its own. The project is concerned with homosexual culture in the context of modernism and the present day by analysing literary texts and elucidating the ways in which culture generates new texts.

The culture of “otherness” is also considered from the point of view of gender studies. The analyses of literary texts focus on Russian women writers, both on their prose works and poetry. The gender issue is not viewed solely from the feminine perspective, but attention is paid to comparative manifestations of gender in contemporary literature. The texts to be studied embrace the most recent St. Petersburg literature, though the relationship of the present to tradition is not forgotten. The latter aspect manifests itself, for example, in the examination of wartime lyric works from the vantage point of the present moment, which provides a new perspective to the most mythologized and painful periods in the history of the city. Contemporary literature deconstructs the old myths. The process of deconstruction as well as the new mythologies, which appear in this process, are central issues in the studies devoted to contemporary literature.

Inasmuch as one of the main aims of the project is to pose questions concerning the meaning and position of the Petersburg Text in Russian culture in a new light, emphasis will be placed on intersemiosis, the interactive nature of different arts. The research project will broaden its scope by proceeding from the concept of intertextuality – the Petersburg Text being central here – to the examination of interaction between different forms of arts. The mutual relationships between literature and visual art, literature and music, high and popular culture, are issues that will be treated with a special focus on the border between them, i.e. the very point where the translation of texts from one cultural language to another takes place.

Both high as well as popular culture are viewed as texts with a language of their own and with their own connections to tradition. Different forms of culture are explored through dialogue with each other. St. Petersburg contemporary art, literature as well as the variety of forms of popular culture are analysed both as constituents of the St. Petersburg mainstream culture as well as marginal phenomena as regards Russianness and Europeanness at large. The dualism inherent in the St. Petersburg myth is manifested in a concrete way in the still persisting dichotomy “classical St. Petersburg vs. Soviet Leningrad”, as well as in the conflict between public and private space. The most recent proof of this dualism is the controversy over the celebration of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, which is examined through the polemics it provoked in the Russian press.

The everyday life and its connection to the Soviet period is investigated by means of the Russian “kommunalka” (communal apartment), its history and the texts which owe their appearance to this peculiarly Russian phenomena. This issue is approached from both the sociological and the literary point of view. Since the leading St. Petersburg scholars contribute to the study of “kommunalka”, the approach will include semiotic elements, too.

The main objects of study of the project can be summarised as follows:

• The Petersburg Text of Russian literature from Bitov and Brodsky
  to the most recent texts in St. Petersburg literature
• St. Petersburg andegraund in literature and the visual arts
• St. Petersburg rock texts
• St. Petersburg cultural press – both official and unofficial
• St. Petersburg cultural minorities, manifestations of gay culture
  in particular from the turn of the 20th century to the present day
  (literature, visual arts, press, and clubs)
• “Narratives” of history about St. Petersburg / Leningrad and their
  transformations in different times from the vantage point of the present
  – a comparative analysis of literary texts, memoirs and historiography
• St. Petersburg housing culture – “kommunalka” past and present
• St. Petersburg semiotics of city culture
• 300th Anniversary of St. Petersburg as a Petersburg Text
  (plans, realisations, critics)

The methodological approaches in this interdisciplinary project range from the analysis of a literary text to approaches applied in the studies of cultural history and sociology. What is common to the studies carried out within the project is that they all tend to link a historical approach to text analysis in the broad sense of the word. The notion of the Petersburg Text serves as a starting point in many of the studies – it forms the theoretical basis and also functions as a notion whose relevance is questioned and tested in new contexts. The semiotic approach is neither the defining nor the dominating factor, notwithstanding its apparent presence in most of the individual studies in the project and the fact that the overall approach of the project is to examine the transformation of St. Petersburg culture and everyday life through analysing signs and symbols.

The purpose of the project is to produce studies as concrete results of the international cooperation between younger and senior scholars from different fields, studies that elucidate the present St. Petersburg culture and everyday life in the context of their traditions. Tradition is investigated from the perspective of new interpretations: literary, visual, musical as well as texts from everyday life are seen as interpreting texts. The emphasis will be on the present as well as on the relationship of the past to the present, covering the Soviet period and its cultural heritage in particular. Adopting and interpreting Western culture constitutes an essential part of St. Petersburg cultural identity. The relationship of what is one’s “own” and what is “alien”, and the adoption of what is extraneous so that it becomes one’s “own” forms the core approach of the project.

The stereotypical images invoked by St. Petersburg engage a whole range of paradoxes which are connected to the “other” and “alien” nature of the city in its relation to Russian culture in its entirety. This also applies to definitions of St. Petersburg from within the city boundaries. The project tries to clarify how the definition of St. Petersburg as a city is dependent on the texts that it generates. The aim of the project is to illustrate the cultural self-understanding of the city by challenging the St. Petersburg Myth and the Petersburg Text. The reinterpretations will be the result of a multidisciplinary approach to the arts and their interaction with the surrounding society.

In 2004–2007 the project is funded by The Academy of Finland within a multidisciplinary research programme "Russia in flux". For further information, see www.aka.fi.