A whole yacht race going on in front of the Winter Palace, with the Church of the Spilled Blood, built on the spot where Alexander II was murdered in 1881 (the year the Napier Commission on crofting was established in Scotland), in the background of this shot. Alexander II was the Tsar who emancipated the serfs of Russia in 1861. The church was built in the neo-traditional style of Russian architecture which became popular in the late-imperial age, mirroring the contemporaneous Gothic revival in Britain (also late-ish-imperial). In my opinion, it stands in relation to St Basil's in Red Square (see above) rather as St Pancras Station does in relation to King's College Chapel in Cambridge, only without the element of creative adaptation. But Russians seem to like it. It is thought that Alexander was murdered because he moderated the pace of reform from what he had set early in his reign. This did not please the pale, moping, "Dostoevsky"-style intelligentsia, few of whom had any stake in political stability. Their outsiderdom was partly a result of the way in which state had agglomerated all power to itself in the early modern era (after the Mongol conquest) and only grudgingly relinquished small aspects of that control in the modern era. The Crimean War (1853-6) showed just how weak an autocratic and therefore technologically-backward state was in comparison with the semi-liberal and rapidly-industrialising powers of western Europe. Alexander II decided to liberalise his Empire and try, thereby, to unlock its enormous potential. When this resulted in assasination, his son, Alexander III, reverted to reaction. This policy was continued by his son, Nicholas II, who was unable to prevent the drift to war, then revolution, in the early 20th century. He and his whole family were shot in the cellar of a house in Ekaterinburg in the Urals in July 1918 when White forces were approaching and threatening to liberate them. Their corpses were thrown down a mineshaft. King Knut's attempt to resist the ocean tide met with less tragic consequences than the Romanov crusade against their own people.
Saturday 9 June 2007
St Petersburg weekend
A whole yacht race going on in front of the Winter Palace, with the Church of the Spilled Blood, built on the spot where Alexander II was murdered in 1881 (the year the Napier Commission on crofting was established in Scotland), in the background of this shot. Alexander II was the Tsar who emancipated the serfs of Russia in 1861. The church was built in the neo-traditional style of Russian architecture which became popular in the late-imperial age, mirroring the contemporaneous Gothic revival in Britain (also late-ish-imperial). In my opinion, it stands in relation to St Basil's in Red Square (see above) rather as St Pancras Station does in relation to King's College Chapel in Cambridge, only without the element of creative adaptation. But Russians seem to like it. It is thought that Alexander was murdered because he moderated the pace of reform from what he had set early in his reign. This did not please the pale, moping, "Dostoevsky"-style intelligentsia, few of whom had any stake in political stability. Their outsiderdom was partly a result of the way in which state had agglomerated all power to itself in the early modern era (after the Mongol conquest) and only grudgingly relinquished small aspects of that control in the modern era. The Crimean War (1853-6) showed just how weak an autocratic and therefore technologically-backward state was in comparison with the semi-liberal and rapidly-industrialising powers of western Europe. Alexander II decided to liberalise his Empire and try, thereby, to unlock its enormous potential. When this resulted in assasination, his son, Alexander III, reverted to reaction. This policy was continued by his son, Nicholas II, who was unable to prevent the drift to war, then revolution, in the early 20th century. He and his whole family were shot in the cellar of a house in Ekaterinburg in the Urals in July 1918 when White forces were approaching and threatening to liberate them. Their corpses were thrown down a mineshaft. King Knut's attempt to resist the ocean tide met with less tragic consequences than the Romanov crusade against their own people.
