Much of Russian literature is St. Petersburg literature: set in the
city, about the city, or written by writers who lived there. For each of
the fifteen profiled writers, there is a biographical sketch focusing on
his or her relationship to the city and a sense of his or her work,
along with a list of St. Petersburg sites associated with the writer and
the literary works.
Travelers can wander through the museum where a teenage Vladimir Nabokov
romanced his girlfriend and see the prison where Anna Akhmatova was
inspired to write her poem about the Great Terror. They can find the
statue that comes to life in Pushkin's poem The Bronze Horseman and
visit the square where Crime and Punishment's murderer/hero kneels to
ask God's forgiveness.
The images included are particularly striking: a photo taken in the
courtroom where the young Joseph Brodsky made his electrifying defense
of his credentials as a poet; a portrait of Akhmatova, a symbol of
artistic integrity in the face of the most severe persecution; and
documentary photographs spanning the upheavals of twentieth century
Russia.
Authors included are: Anna Akhmatova, Andrei Bely, Aleksandr Blok,
Joseph Brodsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Daniil Kharms,
Vladimir Mayakovsky, Osip Mandelstam, Vladimir Nabokov, Alexander
Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Mikhail
Zoshchenko.
