Our Food, St. Petersburg Characters, and Other Essays by Anatoly Bakhtiarov – Lurye Lev, Garmanova Vera – Eksmo – 2026 – ISBN 978-5-04-235044-3
Our Food, St. Petersburg Characters, and Other Essays by Anatoly Bakhtiarov
29.99 €
In stock
Our Food, St. Petersburg Characters, and Other Essays by Anatoly Bakhtiarov
29.99 €
An illustrated history of everyday life in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, edited by Lev Lurye's House of Culture.
Anatoly Bakhtiarov's essays first appeared in the 1880s. Having spent his childhood in a harsh Perm school for the poor and experiencing constant financial hardship, and already teaching Russian at the Military Paramedic School, the writer had firsthand knowledge of the lives of the "humiliated and insulted." He explored the lives of his ordinary contemporaries of the late 19th and early 20th centuries from the inside, without the lordly, condescending affection, becoming the voice of the natural school for his generation. The triumphant collection "The Belly of St. Petersburg," written in the genre of "physiological" essays and published in 1888, alluded to Émile Zola's famous novel "The Belly of Paris."
It's difficult to overestimate the importance of the information presented. For over 100 years, "The Belly," Bakhtiarov's main and most famous work, has been reprinted by every major publisher in our time, yet these publications don't contain even a quarter of the facts Bakhtiarov obtained during his lifetime and published in specialized journals. Research after the triumph of his first work continued for nearly 20 years. Thus, new and intriguing publications about the outskirts and trade and factory life of the imperial capital were discovered in pre-revolutionary journal articles.
Lev Lurye and Vera Garmanova have selected and commented on the best of these forgotten essays—on gastronomy and food prices, work in the capital's center and life on the outskirts, traditions, and how Easter and Christmas were celebrated.
Anatoly Bakhtiarov's essays first appeared in the 1880s. Having spent his childhood in a harsh Perm school for the poor and experiencing constant financial hardship, and already teaching Russian at the Military Paramedic School, the writer had firsthand knowledge of the lives of the "humiliated and insulted." He explored the lives of his ordinary contemporaries of the late 19th and early 20th centuries from the inside, without the lordly, condescending affection, becoming the voice of the natural school for his generation. The triumphant collection "The Belly of St. Petersburg," written in the genre of "physiological" essays and published in 1888, alluded to Émile Zola's famous novel "The Belly of Paris."
It's difficult to overestimate the importance of the information presented. For over 100 years, "The Belly," Bakhtiarov's main and most famous work, has been reprinted by every major publisher in our time, yet these publications don't contain even a quarter of the facts Bakhtiarov obtained during his lifetime and published in specialized journals. Research after the triumph of his first work continued for nearly 20 years. Thus, new and intriguing publications about the outskirts and trade and factory life of the imperial capital were discovered in pre-revolutionary journal articles.
Lev Lurye and Vera Garmanova have selected and commented on the best of these forgotten essays—on gastronomy and food prices, work in the capital's center and life on the outskirts, traditions, and how Easter and Christmas were celebrated.
See also:
- All books by the publisher
- All books by the author