St. Petersburg and the Russian Court, 1703-1761

The foundation and sociocultural development of St. Petersburg reflected the cardinal features of the history of Russia of the XVIII century. Petersburg is seen by the author as a conscious attempt to create a training ground for the social and cultural transformations of Russia. The new residence of the yard functioned as a scene in which the innovations tried in practice and were demonstrated. The book is a description of different aspects of imperial court culture and daily life in the city, which was designed to become not only the capital of the empire, but also the “window to Europe”. A valuable feature of the study is a comparison of the life of St. Petersburg with other European capitals, which allows the author to show what was the originality of the Russian capital, and in what it followed the common fashion. The author concludes that the appearance of St. Petersburg, his institutions, his public and cultural life - everything was related to other then courts and cities of Europe, but at the same time had a distinct Russian flavor. Paul Kinan teaches world history at the London School of Economics (Great Britain)