Description
Book Synopsis''This extraordinary book brings to life an astonishing place. Beautiful prose renders brutality vivid'' The Times - BOOK OF THE WEEK
From Peter the Great to Putin, this is the unforgettable story of St Petersburg one of the most magical, menacing and influential cities in the world.
St Petersburg has always felt like an impossible metropolis, risen from the freezing mists and flooded marshland of the River Neva on the western edge of Russia. It was a new capital in an old country. Established in 1703 by the sheer will of its charismatic founder, the homicidal megalomaniac Peter-the-Great, its dazzling yet unhinged reputation was quickly fashioned by the sadistic dominion of its early rulers.
This city, in its successive incarnations St Petersburg; Petrograd; Leningrad and, once again, St Petersburg has always been a place of perpetual contradiction. It was a window on to Europe and the Enlightenment, but so much of the glory of Russia
Trade Review
'This extraordinary book brings to life an astonishing place. Beautiful prose renders brutality vivid.' -- Gerard DeGroot * The Times - BOOK OF THE WEEK *
So fluent, so textured is Jonathan Miles’s ease with prose and argument that his vivid dissection of 300 years of St Petersburg’s history should be devoured in captive sittings... Investigating the artistic life of St Petersburg, he also explores the melodrama and blood on the streets and the effects of continuing political disarray and corruption on ordinary people. This is a storyteller entranced with his subject, who makes its brilliant portrayal look deliriously easy. -- Susan Sheahan * Guardian *
[A] lively and entertaining biography... full of sparkling storytelling and well drawn characters... a delight. -- Victor Sebestyen * The Sunday Times *
Jonathan Miles’s cinematic telling of the 300-year history of ... St Petersburg shows how the drama, the absurdity, the splendour and the squalor of the imperial capital all found their way into Russia’s finest s, operas and paintings... Miles peels back the layers of myth in which the city is swaddled, while never losing sight of its haunting grace. -- Daniel Beer * Observer *
Recently there has been a plethora of new books on Russian history in all its guises, … so why more? Jonathan Miles’ narrative is a lot of more, … His history has a substantial foundation, but what makes it special is the sheer inescapable momentum of Miles’s prose, powered by the captivating intensity of his attachment to his subject. This is a story told by a writer enthralled – and disillusioned, as he sees no redemption in sight... A dazzling history of a dazzling city. -- Marina Vaizey * The Arts Desk *
