EU shipping is temporarily suspended

Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia's Silver Age

John E. Bowlt

Out of stock

£24.95

'Excellent ... an A-Z of Tsarism’s last, magnificent flowering of the arts’ Independent on Sunday

See Inside

Overview

This book focuses on the visual and material culture of St Petersburg and Moscow at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The twilight of Imperial Russia witnessed a sudden renaissance that left a profound imprint on the visual, literary and performing arts: here was a Silver Age as luminous perhaps as the Golden Age of Russian literature many decades before.

Advancing in roughly chronological sequence, 'Moscow and St Petersburg' in Russia’s Silver Age highlights the essential social and political developments of this turbulent era, which painting, poetry, music and dance both reflected and affected. A dazzling array of artists, writers, composers, actors, singers, dancers and designers are presented in context, including Tolstoy, Pasternak, Gorky, Akhmatova, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Nijinsky, Scriabin, Karsavina, Meyerhold, Chaliapin, Stanislavsky, Diaghilev, Roerich, Repin, Serov, Somov, Vrubel, Bakst, Kandinsky, Malevich, Mayakovsky and many more. The book carries a rich repertoire of artistic images and vintage documentary photographs, many of which have not been published before. With a clear narrative and comprehensive bibliography, this volume will appeal both to the specialist and to the general student of Russian history and culture.

Read More

Reviews

'‘Sumptuous, unforgettable and revelatory’'
Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times

'‘A superbly chosen and reproduced selection of poignant, evocative archive photographs of long-disappeared people, places, events, streetscapes and interiors, and a dazzling array of drawings, designs and paintings’'
Irish Times

'Authoritatively written … rich with imagery'
World of Interiors

Read More

Product Information

Book Details

Format: Paperback

Size: 23.8 x 16.1 cm

Extent: 396 pp

Illustrations: 650

Publication date: 23 January 2020

ISBN: 9780500295649

Contents List

Note to the Reader • Preamble • 1. A Double-Headed Eagle • 2. Celestial Heavens, Sapphire Depths • 3. The Shock of the New • 4. The Style Moderne • 5. The World of Art • 6. Flowers, Flowers to Cover the Tomb! • 7. Body Art • 8. Aesthetes and Barbarians 9. The Year 1913 • 10. Apocalypse Now • Epilogue

About the Author


John E. Bowlt is Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Southern California, and Director of its Institute of Modern Russian Culture.