THE CONCEPT OF RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE IN THE BALTIC PROVINCES BETWEEN THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR AND THE COSMOPOLITANISM OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Abstract

The goal of this article is to examine the role of the new Russian rulingpower as it related to cultural policy in the Baltic provinces betweenthe Great Northern War (1700–1721) and the Russian Revolution (1917),in order to engender a discussion about the Russian influence inEstonia’s architectural history – its content and meaning – based onprimary sources in the archives of Estonia, St Petersburg and Moscow.The historiography of this topic dates back nearly a century; as aneighbouring country and an important centre of political power andculture, the influence of St Petersburg as the main Russian metropolishas been always been taken into consideration and studied in thehistory of Estonian art history. The articles by Sergey Androsovand Georgy Smirnov that appear in this volume have provided theinspiration to try and re-examine the entire spectrum of Estonia’sposition between East and West, and to point out the main subjectsin this new context and the relationship to the new geography ofarchitecture in the Age of Enlightenment and the stylistic changesof the 19th century.