George E. Munro The Most Intentional City. St. Petersburg in the Reign of Catherine the Great. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Madison, NJ 2008. ISBN: 978-0-8386-4146-0

George E. Munro The Most Intentional City. St. Petersburg in the Reign of Catherine the Great. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2008. 372 S., Abb., Ktn. ISBN: 978-0-8386-4146-0.

Professor Munro of Virginia Commonwealth University has written a fine, well-structured account of the physical face and internal life of Imperial Russia’s capital city during the third of a century when it was the residence of, and governed by, Catherine II. While he attempts to resolve old debates in Russia’s urban history, a principal theme is a reaffirmation of her 1770 comment that ‘she found St. Petersburg built of wood and would leave it dressed in marble.’ Having previously published widely on the laws and economic life of 18th century Russia, the author can marshal much secondary literature and impressive archival research to emphasize those arenas within a multi-faceted portrait of the city. Individual chapters describe its population and social structure, its administration in law and practice, the provisioning of its inhabitants, its commercial links to the Russian hinterland and to the outside world, industrial production within its boundaries, and urban planning and construction. A thoughtful epilogue considers alien Petersburg in the context of Russian thought and imagery. The tone is sober, detailed, and serious, with relatively few human-interest anecdotes.

Given the author’s interests, some subjects are understandably slighted. The treatment of Petersburg’s role in education is superficial. Likewise, the religious life of the city, its churches and monasteries, is treated as an afterthought, as is most of high culture. Four period urban maps are visually attractive, but the text really requires a schematic plan showing the city’s administrative districts, major landmarks, and urban expansion between 1762 and 1796. Munro is familiar with Boris Mironov’s major economic writings, but has overlooked his recent work on urban self-government, in particular a 1994 article in the “Slavic Review” which contains a fine diagram of the institutions of local administration (note also the companion piece on provincial and estate governance: Local Government in Russia in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, in: JGO 42 (1994), pp. 161–202). Without it, or something comparable, Munro’s account of dumas, six-man councils, and other municipal institutions will be confusing to many. But to compile a wish-list is to quibble. Professor Munro has contributed an essential chapter to the oft-neglected urban history of modern Russia.

Max J. Okenfuss, St. Louis

Zitierweise: Max J. Okenfuss über: George E. Munro The Most Intentional City. St. Petersburg in the Reign of Catherine the Great. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Madison, NJ 2008. ISBN: 978-0-8386-4146-0, http://www.dokumente.ios-regensburg.de/JGO/Rez/Okenfuss_Munro_Most_Intentional_City.html (Datum des Seitenbesuchs)

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