Petersburg text of Russian literature
The concept of “Petersburg text” was introduced by V. N. Toporov. He wrote that the St. Petersburg text created by the “collection of texts of Russian literature” possesses all those specific features that are characteristic of texts in general and, above all, of semantic coherence, although it was written (and will be written) by many authors. ” Classical works of the “Petersburg theme” are perceived “new art” as a single text. In a sense, it can be said that it was symbolism that transformed (painterly “imposing” this sensation on the reader, and then on the researchers), a fairly motley legacy of the 19th century. in the “Petersburg text”, which becomes the bearer of a single artistic language. The main idea of the “Petersburg text” – through symbolic dying, death to redemption and resurrection. The city in the “Petersburg text” is a higher reality, symbolic-mythological
VN Toporov identifies a number of essential features of the St. Petersburg text. Noting the perception of Petersburg as “cheerful” and “glorious”, preserved mainly in the “folk” word about the new capital – in songs, jokes, etc. – the researcher focuses on the other side of the city and the supertext created by him – on the metaphysics that permeated and in many respects formed this segment of Russian literature. “None of the cities in Russia,” VN Toporov writes, “has been converted so many curses, blasphemy, reproofs, reproaches, resentments, regrets, lamentations, disappointments, as much to Petersburg, and the St. Petersburg text is exceptionally rich in the widest circle representatives of this “negative” attitude toward the city, which by no means excludes (and often implies) devotion and love “(Toporov 1995, 263).
The core of the symbolized 1900’s. “St. Petersburg text” of the XIX century. – “The Bronze Horseman” and “The Queen of Spades” by Pushkin, Gogol’s