St. Petersburg: Madness, Murder, and Art on the Banks of the Neva

St. Petersburg: Madness, Murder, and Art on the Banks of the Neva by Jonathan Miles

St. Petersburg has always felt like an impossible metropolis, rising from the freezing mists and flooded marshland of the River Neva on the western edge of Russia. It was a new capital in an old country. Established in 1703 by the sheer will of its charismatic founder, the homicidal megalomaniac Peter the Great, its dazzling yet unhinged reputation was quickly cemented by the sadistic dominion of its early rulers. This city, in its successive incarnations -- St. Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad and, once again, St. Petersburg -- has been a place of perpetual contradiction.

The city was a window to Europe and the Enlightenment, but so much of Russia's unique glory was also created here: its literature, music, dance, and for a time, its political vision. It gave birth to the artistic genius of Pushkin and Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, Pavlova and Nureyev. Yet, for all its glittering palaces, fairy-tale balls, and enchanting gardens, the blood of thousands has been spilled on its snow-filled streets.

The city has been a hotbed of war and revolution, a place of siege and starvation, and the crucible for Lenin and Stalin's power-hungry brutality. In St. Petersburg, Jonathan Miles recreates the drama of three hundred years in this paradoxical and brilliant city, bringing the reader up to the present day, when its fate hangs in the balance once more.

This is an epic tale of murder, massacre, and madness played out against an unforgettable portrait of a city and its people.

Pegasus Books, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2018, 592 pages