How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself: The Russian Idea of Kraevedenie

by Emily D. Johnson, Izabella Zaharyaeva (Translator)

Overview

How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself: The Russian Idea of Kraevedenie considers the origins and evolutions of kraevedenie, looking specifically at the role that movements and institutions that emerged in early twentieth-century St. Petersburg played in the formation of this discipline. Based on extensive work in archives in St. Petersburg, it looks at the historical preservation movement that was spearheaded by participants in the World of Art circle and contributors to the journal Starye gody. It considers the pedagogical excursion movement and specifically the influence of Ivans Grevs and Nikolai Antsiferov. It also discusses the operations and role of the Central Bureau of Kraevedenie in the 1920s.The original English-language edition of this book (Penn State UniversityPress, 2006) received both the South Central MLA book award and the Nikolai Antsiferov Prize for the best work on St. Petersburg by a foreign author.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798887190457
Publisher:	Academic Studies Press
Publication date:	10/04/2022
Pages:	402
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.00(d)
Language:	Russian

About the Author

Emily D. Johnson is the Brian and Sandra O’ Brien Professor of Russian at the University of Oklahoma. She earned a Ph.D. in Russian Literature from Columbia University. Along with Julie Buckler, she coedited the volume Rites of Place: Public Commemoration in Russia and Eastern Europe (Northwestern UniversityPress, 2013). She also served as the editor and translator for Arsenii Formakov, Gulag Letters (Yale UniversityPress, 2017). She is co-editor, along with Alan Barenberg, of the volume Rethinking the Gulag: Identities, Sources, Legacies (Indiana UniversityPress, 2022). She works on St. Petersburg in Russian history and literature, the history of the Soviet labor camp system, and also on contemporary Russian popular culture.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface and Acknowledgments

A Note on Transliteration and Translations

List of Abbreviations

Introduction Ways of Knowing: Russian Local Studies as an Identity Discipline

1. The Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Tradition

2. The Art Journals of the Silver Age, St. Petersburg Preservationism, and the Guidebook

3. Old Petersburg After the Revolution

4. The Excursion Movement and Excursion Methodology

5. Excursion Primers and Literary Tours

6. Kraevedenie in St. Petersburg

7. Literary Kraevedenie

Conclusion

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

Johnson’s book provides a fascinating view of the cultural movements that developed in the early part of the twentieth century in St. Petersburg. As such, it is an important contribution to the growing number of recent works on the city.”

—Steven Maddox, Canadian Journal of History


“Emily Johnson’s book is cogently written and very well researched; it deserves a wide readership not only in Russian studies but in comparative European studies as well. Her broad intellectual curiosity, focused through the lens of St. Petersburg’s cultural history, is both impressive and exemplary. This interdisciplinary study will have a wide resonance among those interested in local history, literary and cultural studies, and the history of nontraditional education.”

—James T. Andrews, Journal of Modern History


“Johnson's scholarship is meticulous, and, in emphasizing the literary foundations of kraevedenie, her monograph will appeal to scholars of Russian literature and culture, as well as those interested in the complex and tortuous evolution of Russian civil society.”

—Michael F. Hamm, The Russian Review

From the Publisher