DISCUSSION PLATFORM DOI 10.23859/2587-8352-2017-1-1-4 UDC 94(47) Marjatta Rahikainen Dr., Docent of Social History, University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland
[email protected] Helsinki (Helsingfors) in the mirror of imperial St Petersburg Abstract. This essay discusses three aspects related to the likeness between Helsinki and St Pe- tersburg. Firstly, the centre of early 19th-century Helsinki became to look like miniature St Peters- burg because its architect C.L. Engel admired the neoclassical architecture in St Petersburg. Se- condly, Helsinki (Helsingfors in Swedish) suited the role Bely gave it in ‘Petersburg’ novel (1916) as it had the name familiar to his readers, and in 1905 the name was more modern that St. Peters- burg. Thirdly, Cold War films with Helsinki as Petrograd/Leningrad and Moscow show that the line between the factual and fictional may get lost. Keywords: Carl Engel, Yakov Grot, Faddei Bulgarin, Elizabeth Rigby, Xavier Marmier, Louis Léouzon Le Duc, Andrei Bely, the Empire style, well-planned cities, travelogues City names are much more than just a name: they evoke memoirs, stir up emotions and serve as symbols; to some a city name may sound forbidding, to others inviting. What did imperial St Petersburg stand for? For its first two centuries, for many men and women within a long radius it indicated opportunities. However, this began to change towards the end of the 19th century when its role was challenged by Moscow. By the time Andrei Bely wrote his ‘Petersburg’ (1913), the city itself had become a symbol of petrified old order for him, or that was how I understood it when I read ‘Petersburg’ for the first time.