Historical Biography - Royalty & Nobility, Imperial Russia - 1689-1762, Saint Petersburg - History, Imperial Russian History - General & Miscellaneous, Russia - Kings & Rulers - Biography

Sunlight at Midnight

Name: Sunlight at Midnight
Author: Bruce Lincoln
ISBN: 9780465083237

by Bruce Lincoln

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Overview

For Russians, St. Petersburg has embodied power, heroism, and fortitude. It has encompassed all the things that the Russians are and that they hope to become. Opulence and artistic brilliance blended with images of suffering on a monumental scale make up the historic persona of the late W. Brice Lincoln's lavish "biography" of this mysterious, complex city.

Climate and comfort were not what Tsar Peter the Great had in mind when, in the spring of 1703, he decided to build a new capital in the muddy marshes of the Neva Ricer delta. Located 500 miles below the Arctic Circle, this area, with its foul weather, bad water, and soil, was so unattractive that only a handful of Finnish fisherman had ever settled there. Bathed in sunlight at midnight in the summer, it brooded in darkness at noon in the winter, and its canals froze solid at least five months out of every year. Yet to the Tsar, the place he named Sankt Peiter Burkh had the makings of a "paradise." His vision was soon borne out: though St. Petersburg was closer to London, Paris, and Vienna than to Russia's far-off eastern lands, it quickly became the political, cultural, and economic center of an empire that stretched across more than a dozen time zones and over three continents.

In this book, revolutionaries and laborers brush shoulders with tsars, and builders, soldiers, and statesmen share pride of place with poets. For only the entire historical experience of this magnificent and mysterious city can reveal the wealth of human and natural forces that shaped the modern history of it and the nation it represents.

About the Author:
W. Bruce Lincoln was Distinguished Professor of Russian History at Northern Illinois University. He was the author of Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of a Thousand Years of Artistic Life in Russia and almost a dozen other books. W. Bruce Lincoln died on April 9,2000, at the age of sixty-one.

About the Author, Bruce Lincoln

W. Bruce Lincoln was the Distinguished Professor of Russian History at Northern Illinois University. He was the author of Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of a Thousand Years of Artistic Life in Russia and almost a dozen other books. W. Bruce Lincoln died on April 9, 2000 at the age of 61.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

Lincoln Bruce calls his fascinating chronicle a biography of St. Petersburg. Surely, few cities have more deserved such lavish attention. Called "Russia's only door to Europe," the throbbing metropolis has reminded visitors of Venice, Amsterdam, Paris, even London. Indeed, some wag joked that St. Petersburg was unlike any other city because it resembled all of them. But the city Osip Mandelstam called "transparent" possesses a cultural complexity, a history so gnarled and deep that one can advance no theory about it without accepting its opposite. Bruce's story captures the city at its extremes: its imperial opulence and its starving children frozen in the snow. An epic introduction to one of the world's premier cities.

Booklist

Russophiles will be engrossed.

Gary Hamburg

Written with [his] usual grace and astonishing erudition. Sunlight at Midnight is eloquent testimony to Lincoln's status as master historian..

Richard Robbins

A splendid work, at once erudite and accessible.

Richard Stites

Sunlight at Midnight is gloriously written and will give hours of pleasure to both the scholar and the general reader.

Robert C. Tucker

In this parting gift to everyone interested in Russia's past and fate, the late W. Bruce Lincoln has given us a brilliant biography of St. Petersburg.

Stephen F. Cohen

Sunlight at Midnight is so full of the majesty and misfortune of St. Petersburg that only [Lincoln] could have written it.

William H. McNeill

An impressive panorama of the physical and human landscape of St. Petersburg.

Library Journal

Over the past 25 years, Lincoln has published a dozen books on Russia, most recently Between Heaven and Hell: 1000 Years of Artistic Life in Russia. Their cumulative effect establishes him at the forefront of Western historians of 19th- and 20th-century Russia. In this new work, Lincoln offers a survey of Russia's glittering (and sordid) former imperial capital, later the second city of the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. He traces the story of its beginnings as the product of one man's titanic will, then lovingly depicts the glorious buildings of 18th-century empresses, followed by the rise of industrial slums, disaffection, violence, intellectual ferment, and revolution. The agonies and heroism of the city's 900 days under siege in World War II still provoke awe. One may doubt that the "rise of modern Russia" can be told in terms of one city, but Lincoln's concern to depict the pulls of the West and Russian history in terms of St Petersburg's life comes out clearly and convincingly. For public and academic libraries. Robert H. Johnston, McMaster Univ., Hamilton, Ont. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

Lincoln's history of St. Petersburg, published posthumously, sees the city as standing "at the center of a centuries-long conversation that the Russians have carried on among themselves about what their nation is and what it needs to become. In the past, this conversation has been about Russia and Europe. Russia and Asia, Russia and the empire, Russia and salvation, Russia's suffering as a key to its redemption, Russia and apocalypse, and Russia and revolution. Recently, its focus has shifted back to where it was in the time of Peter the Great<-->to what St. Petersburg means in the context of where Russia is headed." Lincoln, who taught at Northern Illinois U., also wrote books on the Romanovs, Russian artistic life, and other topics in Russian history. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)