The Myth of St. Petersburg

FAIN: FA-10732-73

Sidney Monas
University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX 78712-0100)

In a number of the greatest works of Russian literature of the 19th and early 20th century, the city of St. Petersburg acts as a theme of such distinctive force as to allow one to speak of it as a myth, which becomes in its own right a shaping influence on the minds of writers and the expectations of their readers. The study consists of relating the myth to its literary as well as experiential-historical sources.