Jonathan Miles - St. Petersburg: Madness, Murder, and Art on the Banks of the Neva (Art, Desire, and Murder on the Banks of the Neva)

As usual, my greatest debt is to Katiu, whose loving contribution has been of an incredible calibre. Marjotte, my daughter, has been most sensitive her enthusiasm and intelligence are treasures.

I should like to thank my previous agent, John Saddler, for his help on St Petersburg in its earliest stages; also George Lucas at InkWell in New York for a similar contribution. Great thanks are due to my agent, Julian Alexander, for judiciously placing the book with Hutchinson, whose staff I thank heartily for their tremendously warm response to the project. Particularly I would like to mention the avid, supremely sensitive and truly collaborative editor Sarah Rigby. I should also like to thank the eagle-eyed Mandy Greenfield, who copy-edited and made some astute suggestions; Melissa Four, who produced a dazzling jacket; Lindsay Nash for her elegant book design; and Najma Finlay for her energetic publicity push.

Many influences stand behind this work. A significant debt is owed to the late Marshall Berman, whose All Thats Solid Melts Into Air provides moving and provocative insights on the subject of the city and modernism. But there are so many people the scholarship on Petersburg that has been achieved in recent years has been voluminous and penetrating, augmenting a rich record provided by the multitude of wonderful eyes on the ground. The scholars who have excoriated often obscure aspects of the citys past are too numerous to mention but they are to be found in the bibliography.

I would like to thank Karen Hewitt and the Oxford Russia Fund, the wonderful staff of that superlative library, the Bibliothque Nationale in Paris, the very helpful staff of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, as well as the staff of museums, palaces and theatres in St Petersburg, Moscow, both Novgorods, and other Russian cities, including Perm, where the children at the lyce gave me a tour of what was once Sergei Diaghilevs natal house and is now their school. Also, a big thank you to the very giving Russians I have met both in their country and abroad, among them dancers at what was then the Kirov, academics from all over Russia, as well as Nadia Boudris and her family, Olga Kolatina, Lyudmila Kadzhaya, Marina Koreneva and Anatoli Fetisov. Thanks also to Vladimir Malakoff, Virginie Aubry at the Cinmathque de la Danse in Paris for obtaining rare footage of Pavlova, Ulanova and Nureyev, and to Laurence and Chadi Chabert for their help and thoughtfulness and for the magical Bret. Also, much gratitude to a whole host of understanding friends, to the very supportive Amlie Louveau, and to my patient, kind and ever lovely mama, Claire.

ALSO BY JONATHAN MILES

The Nine Lives of Otto Katz

Medusa The Shipwreck, The Scandal, The Masterpiece

Backgrounds to David Jones

Eric Gill and David Jones at Capel-y-Ffin

The Maker Unmade

Cultural historian Jonathan Miles has a personal engagement with St Petersburg and its people that dates back to the Soviet era. Born in a trunk, Jonathan has been travelling ever since and currently lives in Paris. Having taken a first from University College, London, he received his doctorate from Jesus College, Oxford. Early books include studies of British artists Eric Gill and David Jones. Most recently, Medusa: The Shipwreck, the Scandal and the Masterpiece, a voyage through the artistic, political and moral clashes of Restoration France, and The Nine Lives of Otto Katz, the tale of a flamboyant Soviet spy, were both published to international acclaim.

www.jonathanmiles.net

ST. PETERSBURG

Pegasus Books, Ltd.
148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2018 by Jonathan Miles

First Pegasus Books hardcover edition March 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without
written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts
in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may
any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
other, without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-68177-676-7

ISBN: 978-1-68177-716-0 (e-book)

Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc

for Katiu

Stories circulate about about a man born in St Petersburg, who grew up in Petrograd, who grew old in Leningrad and was asked where hed like to die.

He replied, St Petersburg.

ST. PETERSBURG

Art, Desire, and Murder on the Banks of the Neva

JONATHAN MILES

PEGASUS BOOKS

NEW YORK LONDON

ST. PETERSBURG

The Menshikov Palace in 1717.

Map of St Petersburg, c. 171820. The gridding of Vasilevksy Island was, at that stage, a mere projection.

The evolution from the residual influences of a highly decorative baroque architecture through the early, vigorous phase of neoclassicism and on into more sophisticated variations on the style.

St. John the Baptist Church at Chesme now absorbed by southern St Petersburg; the stark Tuscan Doric columns of New Holland Arch; the tower over the central arch of the Admiralty; the Palace of Pavlovsk; the Mikhailovsky Palaces main staircase.

The Bronze Horseman in Senate Square, unveiled in 1782. A print by K. Ludwig after Benjamin Paterssen.

A fair in St Petersburg, c. 1803, from A Picturesque Representation of the Manners, Customs and Amusements of the Russians in One Hundred Coloured Plates by John Atkinson and James Walker.

The Nevsky Prospekts Police Bridge over the Moika with Wolff & Branger caf on the left.