The River Neva and the Imperial Facade: Culture and Environment in Nineteenth Century St. Petersburg Russia

"Chapter 1 explores the patterns of river use in the water network of the city, demonstrating the reasons why the river and waterways of the city reveal social, political, and cultural relationships of groups in the capital. Chapter 2, ""The Mountain Came to Us: St. Petersburg and the Flood of 1824"" serves as a case study of the November 7, 1824 flood that became seared in the memory of Petersburgers. The chapter considers not only the tumultuous events of that day, but the aftermath in which the government sought to redefine its notions of what Petersburg was and the contested memories that resulted. Chapter 3 examines the interaction between the state and key non-state groups at one particular site, the settlement at Galernaia Harbor near south end of Vasilevskii Island as the government sought to relocate the village after the 1824 flood. Chapter 4 follows a new professional class of engineers that maintained a lived city by engaging the saturation of water, and how they helped the state to define the river. These engineers were agents of the state, yet saw themselves as apart from the state at the same time, as they built the infrastructure that made the city functional and supported imperial claims of grandeur. Chapter 5 is the story of the haphazard, convulsive history of sanitation, piping, and water delivery in the city as professional and private initiative came into conflict with state interests in defining the needs for water and sanitation networks in the city. Public disputes show engineers engaged in a fragile civil society and actively participating in defining what was modern, moral, and clean."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Dills, Randall

Contributors dc:contributor

• Randolph, John W.

• History, Russian and Soviet

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3455659

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/84713