Capitals and capitalness: institutional and symbolic dimensions (comparative analysis of Russian and Italian cases)*
igor okunev
Capital city is seen as a key element of a 1. Institutional idea of a capital city state’s political and territorial structure. But it is more than merely headquarters for Political geographers first started studying central government bodies or a centre that the geographic location of capitals back in keeps control over sovereignty; it is also a the 19th century. For instance, in 1874 Jo- key element that shapes, reproduces and hann Kohl studies the location of Europe- transforms statehood, affecting primarily an capitals by analyzing the aggregation of its administrative and territorial structure, communities along capital-linked transport the relations between the centre and oth- routes1. T. Raimov studied the functions er regions, and a nation’s regional policy. of capitals in Central Asia, while M. Yani- The nomination of a capital is the process shevsky developed a typology of capitals. of self-discovery of a nation, the essence According to French geographer Jean of the people’s idea of their past, as well as Gottman, a capital is first of all the head- geopolitical positioning and the vision for a quarters for central government bodies2. desired future. Capital city can be viewed as In other words, writes his Russian col- a centre and the most typical institutional league Sergey Tarkhov, the main charac- manifestation of the functions of a political teristics that sets the capital apart from any centre as distinct from periphery. The ar- other major economic or cultural hub is the ticle seeks to sum up the institutional and control over a nation’s territory and popu- symbolic approaches to the idea of a capital lation. city. A general definition implies that capital is the municipality used as a seat of gov- ernment, save for a few exceptions3. Some more important definitions of the capital giornale di storia costituzionale / journal of constitutional history 33 / I 2017 155 Itinerari city include those by A. Treivish: capital is into a powerful singular or sometimes du- an important administration and control alistic mythological narrative infused with centre of a mostly national or regional lev- focused sacral energy that underpins the el4; and one more: capital is a city that occu- power discourse7. pies a key or leading position in articulating To prove this idea, a number of facts actions and implementing specific powers and arguments can be cited. First, the at a global or lower level. name of a capital often coincides with the Alexander Ovsiannikov defines capi- name of the country. In the ancient world, talness as an attribute of a city that hosts states used to emerge and grow around cit- national executive, legislative, judiciary ies (take the Kingdom of Babylon, the Ro- bodies, and the presidential residence. Ac- man Empire and others), with the name of cording to the researcher, any city has the the metropolis projected to the rest of the potential to acquire capitalness, should the country. However, in the 20th century, es- above mentioned state bodies be moved pecially during decolonization, new capital there. He also mentions capitalness as a cities were named after states, embodying constructed image based on a city’s unique the ideal image of a nation. Brasilia, for in- qualities and characteristics that distin- stance, was built as part of the new Brazil. guish it from others5. Hitler had a plan to build Germania, capi- An abstract definition of capital city (see tal of the world. Henry Picker wrote that in Treivish) implies the presence of capital 1942 Hitler was inspired by the idea to re- features or qualities in a city or region. In name the renewed Berlin into Germania, a broader sense (see Treivish) capital is as- for the city to become the heart of the global sociated with functional leadership in pol- Germanic Reich: itics, which is compulsory for any capital Just as in his own time Bismarck would time after city, as well as in economy and culture. time push Bavarians, Prussians and others to the Germanic idea, one has to consistently guide the Germanic peoples of continental Europe to the Germanic idea. He even considered it a good idea to give this activity a strong impetus by renaming 2. Symbolic definition of a capital city the imperial capital of Berlin into Germania. In spite of the major territorial distance from the Vadim Rossman notes that capitals are not capital, given its new representative image the only headquarters for government bodies name “Germania” can cause the feeling of be- longing in everyone who is part of the German but also involve «representation of a nation racial core8. to itself and the world around. Capitals are idealized images of the nation and nation- Mexico City, Algeria (Algiers), Tunisia, al history, they are nations in miniature of Belize (after the demolition of Belize Bel- sorts»6. Dmitry Zamyatin defines capital- mopan became the new capital), Guatema- ness as an ontological attribute that chang- la, San-Salvador (Salvador), Kuwait City, es and transforms external, physical and Monaco all bear the same names as their geographical features (hollows, plateaus, respective countries. endless plains, islands, foothills, riverbeds Secondly, gaining control over the cap- or confluences of rivers, seashores etc.) ital is often likened to victory in an inter-
156 Okunev national war. German military historian theatre, national archives, which reaffirms Friedrich von Bernhardi wrote: «Time and its symbolic importance for the nation. again war history shows us in its numerous Finally, this trend can also be illustrat- examples the importance of capitals in war- ed by diplomatic jargon, where the name fare. The inability of Hannibal to take over of a country is replaced by the name of its Rome took away his glory of a victor. Napo- capital, e.g. “Moscow stated”, “Washington leon would almost always choose capitals as retorted” etc. targets for his strategic assaults and crush To summarize this area of research, one the enemy by taking over them»9. Indeed, can say that a capital plays three roles at a in most recent military conflicts we often time. First, it is a sociopolitical forum serv- follow the situation in the capital (Baghdad, ing as a power tool for social education, with Tripoli, Damascus) to understand the state the citizens participating in shaping the of affairs in the country. Historical events public discourse. Secondly, it is a hub where that mark the demise of states and their production and distribution of public goods capitals (destruction, decline or simply a and services takes place, which is the initial loss of status), or radical state and political raison d’être for capitals in nation states. transformations that also include the trans- Thirdly, it is a configuration of symbolic re- fer of a capital prove to be a phenomenal sources, which is recognized by the citizens “engine” which helps to shape and develop and reflects their customs and values. The the vibrant historiography of the capitals. above mentioned categories seldom come Third, since ancient times capital cities together in one capital city, which means have been traditionally linked to rituals of that capitals are more than just the product sacralization of the space of power as a cen- of targeted modeling by certain forces. tre. According to Zamyatin, Jacques Paquet states that the impor- tance of the symbolic resource is most ev- capital is an image and an idea upheld by the on- ident in the “special life of the capitals”, a tological status of the state and statehood. But in cultural artifact in itself. It can be the re- a slightly broader context, one can definitely spe- sult of a number of agreements and deals, ak of multiple versions of the centre of the world phenomenology. This also implies, inter alia, intentional and unintentional actions of addressing the cosmogonic aspects of the archet- local forces that were, in turn, shaped by ypal myth about the foundation of the capital. In transnational flows. The capital as a sys- one way or another, the capital city myth is an tem of symbols lives a life of its own, one ontological frontier that connects and simulta- that corresponds to public peace between neously disconnects the phenomenon of divine locals, citizens and inhabitants of the rest will and instruction from the noumenon of goal- setting and decision-making10. of the world. The capital city dwellers gain because of the central location of the capi- Such sacralization is especially visible tal and material resources redistributed to in the case of former capitals, which have a their benefit. The population of the coun- unique image of past glory of the nation, its try consumes the symbolic resource that second reflection (compare, for instance, binds the nation together, whereas the in- Russia’s Moscow and St. Petersburg). A habitants of the rest of the world who satisfy capital city also hosts the national museum, their need for travel in unusual places bear
157 Itinerari some of the tax burden of the two previous taining the vitality of a capital. Cummings groups. and Price emphasize the influence of sep- In this non-zero-sum game each player arate individuals, practical policies, polit- seeks to maintain the illusion that he is the ical willpower and pluralistic geographical only winner but conceals his acquisitions basis, as well as the use of specific cultural from the others. The locals will complain and educational institutions as the driving about national and transnational limita- forces. However, they do not describe the tions that curb the development of their mechanism of shifting from short-sighted city, while having at the same time tangi- market forces to political and bureaucratic ble benefits, such as a high living stand- planning and back. ard. The citizens of the state will criticize As a result, one may conclude that the the incredible costs that go along with na- institution of a capital in a state has both tional holidays; but once they leave their institutional and symbolical dimensions country, they start demonstrating national and is shaped as a result of a certain model pride. Foreigners will complain about the of interaction between objective and sub- narrow-minded inhabitants of the capi- jective factors of development. tal city and the detrimental exploitation in the capitals, while indulging in all kinds of entertainment in Ottawa or Paris. This disharmony of voices makes Paquet call 3. Using the symbolic potential of a capital capitals the places of least sincerity, but for regional consolidation and positioning: the this insincerity is stipulated by the need to cases of Russian cities satisfy very diverse needs while covering up the flaws, which turns capitals into a para- The symbolic significance of the capital that dise for all sorts of planners and designers. prevails over the institutional one opens Whereas it may seem their main instru- prospects for the use of this capital by local ments are material, they actually have lev- communities located far from the head- erage in self-representation and symbolic quarters of government bodies. We identify resources. Consequently, they do not work the following types of using the capitalness for locals, but rather for the entire world, narrative in shaping local identities. which accounts for the low manifestation of First, there is the narrative of a former national features in capitals. capital. In the Russian case, this is not only In this respect, co-evolutionary devel- the textbook example of St. Petersburg, but opment of capitals is an interdependent also the more complex cases of Novgorod socio-material and symbolic evolution in and Vladimir, which can hardly be de- order to ensure balance between the capital scribed as erstwhile capitals of the Russian and the state, given the existing limitations. state. Another city is Staraya Ladoga, which This is a coherent process that determines had given shelter to Rurik before a cen- whether the individual or the collective will tralized Slavic state came into being, but prevail, but there is always the risk that ei- has been using this brand since Peter the ther of them might want to dominate, so this Great’s times to legitimate the shift of the is where bureaucracy comes at play, sus- core of Russian statehood to the northwest
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Kremlin Landscape, painting by Petr Vereshchagin, 1879
border of Russia. Some more examples was a de facto “capital” of the Russian Em- would include capitals of states that became pire from September till November 1825, part of Russia (Bilyar, Kasimov, Kazan, As- while Emperor Alexander I was living in the trakhan and others), as well as Alexandrov city. In 1918-1919 it hosted the headquar- under Ivan the Terrible, Omsk at the times ters for Anton Denikin, who headed the of Kolchak, Stalin’s Kuibyshev and others. White Movement in the south of Russia. Fi- This narrative is related to the ideas of the nally, Taganrog was initially considered as a golden age of the city in the local discourse Russian capital by Peter the Great, but due and activates historical memory of the cit- to military losses he had to reject this idea izens. and opt for St. Petersburg instead. Even an unknown narrative may be in- Secondly, one can speak of regional terpreted by the citizens in this manner. For capitals of the Urals, Siberia, Volga Region instance, from October 21, 1654 to February and others. In this case, there is an attempt 10, 1655 the city of Vyazma was the de fac- to transfer the centre-periphery pattern of to capital of Russia, as Tsar Alexis moved it the state structure to a regional level and from the plague-stricken Moscow. Or take build the internal dichotomy of develop- Yaroslavl that effectively became the capital ment within a smaller region inside the of the country during the Polish occupation country. In this respect one interesting case of Moscow at the Time of Troubles. The city is the regional race for the status of a local became home to the interim government capital between Perm, Yekaterinburg and (also known as the Land Council) and its Chelyabinsk, Stavropol and Pyatigorsk, So- armed forces (the Popular Militia). chi and Krasnodar, Novosibirsk, Omsk and Yet another example of a capital’s Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. “phantom memory” is Taganrog. The city There was even a special contest organized
159 Itinerari to identify the official third capital of Rus- communities devoid of access to state ad- sia, with Kazan finishing slightly ahead of ministration functions to incorporate the Nizhny Novgorod. Such positioning helps concept into their narratives. This provides to build an hierarchic spatial structure, them with the opportunity to strengthen organize and subordinate the spatial units their local identities and, provided that and their local brands. their potential is used effectively, to engage Last but not least, the idea of capital- in their own professional branding. ness can be transferred to the narrative of exclusivity. From this perspective, almost every city positions itself as the capital of Russian gingerbread, cucumbers, aircraft 4. Use of symbolic potential of capitalness for engineering etc. Here is a list of important regional consolidation and positioning: the Russian capitals in this particular under- cases of Italian cities standing of the word: Abrau-Dyurso - Champagne City The entire concept of capitalness is no less Alexeyevka - Sunflower Oil City complex on the Italian soil. It took a long Balabanovo - Match City time before Rome, the true civilization- Verkhnyaya Salda - Titanium City al centre of the Italian nation, became its Lukhovitsy - Cucumber City capital. Besides, being the centre of the Kamyshin - Watermelon City Kotlas - Logging and Paper City Papal States, the Eternal City inadvertently Kungur - Tea City impeded centralization of the Italian state. Rostov the Great - Enamel City Rome was excluded from the unification of Rybinsk - Barge Hauler City Italy and even opposed to it. At that time, the Saransk - Lamp City true centres of the country were Turin, Mi- Suyda - Potato City lan and Florence. During World War II, the Syzran - Tomato City capital city was Brindisi, followed by Saler- Uryupinsk - Peripheral City no. Even after Rome had joined the Italian Some more examples would include Republic and gained an official capital sta- Veliky Ustyug as home to Father Frost or tus in 1871, the Vatican issue long prevented Gorokhovets, domain of Tsar Pea, a fiction- the city from fully perceiving itself as the al character in Russian folklore. symbolic core of the Apennine Peninsula. In all of the above cases the concept of While Rome has always been and will con- capitals does not create centre-periphery tinue to be part of Italy, the city exceeds its relations, but rather allows local commu- symbolic content. Formerly the centre of nities to activate synchronized mental op- the Roman Empire, these days it is the hub positions in certain identity clusters, which of Catholicism, an international city, and is required to stand out from the rest of the uniquely enough, the capital of three states crowd. at a time (Italy, Vatican, and the Sovereign To summarize, it is obvious that the Military Order of Malta). As a consequence, presence of symbolic capital in the idea of the symbolic meaning of Rome overlaps, capitalness makes it possible even for local but is not reduced to, the semantic signif-
160 Okunev icance of Italy: Rome is bigger than Italy. complex symbolic configuration. While Rome is anti-Italy and yet, Rome is Italy. the key cities in both countries, i.e. Mos- This complex symbolic content, in the cow and Rome, are bigger than the seman- case of Rome, naturally found its manifes- tic meaning of capitalness, in a certain way tation in the aspirations of other cities to they are also opposed to it. Moscow does not become capitals. Many Italian cities were equal Russia, just as Rome does not equal not only the capitals of sovereign states Italy, which engenders a plethora of capital (and have accordingly retained the memory city narratives at both the regional and lo- of their capitalness), but they were also the cal levels in both countries. However, this centres of states that in territorial, political, semantic configuration of capitalness ap- economic and cultural terms transcended parently serves to strengthen the cultural the borders of Italy. Some of the examples potential of both states. may include the Republics of Venice and Genoa, the Kingdom of Two Sicilies as co- lonial proto-empires, or the Tuscan city- states as leaders of the European Renais- References sance. Another graphic example would be the Free City of Trieste. Andreas Hillgruber: Henry Picker, HitlersTischge- An additional phenomenon that com- sprächeimFührerhauptquartier 1941-1942, München plicates the configuration of capitalness in 1968. Berngardi F., Sovremennaja vojna, SPb., 1912 (in Rus- Italy is the infamous disproportion of so- sian). cial and economic development between its Gottman Zh., Stolichnyegoroda, Logos. 2013. № 4(94) regions. The dominance of the North over (in Russian). the South in both parts of the country leads Ovsjannikov A.A., Sociologijastolichnosti: smyslyistra- to stronger regional identity, which pushes tegii, Vestnik MGIMO-Universiteta. 2009. №5 (in Russian). the development of the narrative of region- Perenos stolicy: Istoricheskij opyt geopoliticheskogo al capitals. Milan and Napoli can be cited proektirovanija. Materialy konferencii 28-29 oktjabrja here as two vivid examples. 2013 g., Otv. red. I.G. Konovalova. — M.: Institut Finally, there are the Italian capitals vseobshhej istorii RAN; Akvilon, 2013 (in Russian). outside of Italy. These include the San Ma- Rossman V., Stolicy: ihmnogoobrazie, zakonomernosti- razvitijaiperemeshhenija, M. Izd-vo Instituta Gajda- rino castello, Bellinzona, capital of the Ital- ra, 2013 (in Russian). ian-speaking region of Ticino in Switzer- Tarhov S.A., Stolicy. Geografija. – 2007. –№ 3 (in Rus- land, and Little Italy in New York City. sian). As a result, the multiple statehood in the Treivish A.I., Zotova M.V., Savchuk I.G., Types of Cities Apennine Peninsula (these days as well as in Russia and Across the Globe. Regional Research of Russia, 2014, Vol. 4, No. 2. pp. 90-91. the past in particular) has multiplied the Zamjatin D.N., Fenomen / noumenstolicy: Istoricheska- symbolic capital of capitalness in many jageografijaiontologicheskiemodelivoobrazhenija // Pe- Italian cities and, ironically, has slightly renosstolicy: Istoricheskijopytgeopoliticheskogoproek- complicated the symbolic connotation of tirovanija. Materialykonferencii 28-29 oktjabrja 2013 g. / Otv. red. I.G. Konovalova. M.: Institutvseobshhe- Rome as the core of the Italian nation. jistorii RAN; Akvilon, 2013 (in Russian). One can conclude that capitalness in both Russia and Italy is characterized by
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* Research made with the Russian Foundation for Humanities grant №15-33-01206 support. 1 S.A. Tarhov, Stolicy, in «Geografija», n. 3, 2007 (in Rus- sian), at
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