Прочие
Автор Kent Neil

Описание:
St Petersburg is one of the world's most beautiful cities. Most of its baroque and neoclassical palaces and churches are modelled on those of Italy and France, in turn inspired by the temples of classical Greek and Rome. Yet it is situated on a swamp, a location so insalubrious that it took the lives of the thousands who built the city. Founded by Peter the Great on land seized from Sweden in 1703, the Tsar made it into his new capital and Russia's gateway to Europe. Guarded by the Kronstadt Fortress, it was never conquered and under his successors the city achieved a splendour and cultural richness that vied with other European capitals. After the Golden Age of the 1830s when Pushkin and Lermontov wrote some of Russia's greatest literature, famine and war would undermine political and cultural life, and the Revolution led to calamity. Nonetheless, in the dying embers of the old regime, music, art and theatre all thrived, creating a Silver Age which brought the city renewed renown. During the Soviet period, the city, renamed Leningrad, fell into a Cinderella-like slumber, with Moscow taking primacy.Yet it survived both wars to enjoy a revival after the fall of the Soviet Union under its old name. Neil Kent considers the extraordinary history of St Petersburg along with its political, religious, cultural and social dimensions, rich in stories and anecdotes from its various periods. Its musical heritage is unrivalled: Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov are all associated with the city. A walk today through the streets and courtyards evokes the world of Dostoyevsky who immortalized its violent underbelly in his 1865 novel Crime and Punishment. He turned to Orthodoxy for inspiration, as does the modern city today. This revival has been multifaceted, its pictorial glories on display in the Russian Museum and Hermitage Gallery. As Kent stresses, St Petersburg remains a city of paradox, full of tragedy but also of breathtaking beauty and endurance.

Описание:
In 2014 Crimea shapes the headlines much as it did some 160 years ago, when the Crimean War pitted Britain, France and Turkey against Russia. Yet few books have been published on the history of the peninsula. For many readers, Crimea seems as remote today as it was when colonized by the ancient Greeks. Neil Kent's book recounts the history of the Crimea over three millennia. A crossroads between Europe and Asia, ships sailed to and from Crimean ports, forming a bridge that carried merchandise and transmitted ideas and innovations. Greeks, Scythians, Tartars, Russians, Armenians and Genoese are among those who settled the peninsula since antiquity, a demographic patchwork that reflects it's geography. The religious beliefs of it's inhabitants are almost as numerous: the Hebraicized beliefs of the Karaim Tartars, Islam, Judaisim, Russian and Greek Orthodoxy, as well as Roman Catholicism. This mosaic is also reflected in places of worship and the palaces which still adorn Crimea: imperial Romanov Massandra, the "noble nest" of Prince Voronzov at Alupca or the Palace of Bakhchisaray built for the Tartar Khan. For some two centuries balmy Yalta and it's environs were a veritable Black Sea Riviera, where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met at the end of the Second World War.