The book is dedicated to M. V. Lomonosov’s living in St. Petersburg. The book pages tell us about M. V. Lomonosov’s activity as a consistent and convinced successor to Peter the Great’s traditions, who initiated the science development and made it a part of the national strategy, a necessary condition of Russia’s development in economic, technical and cultural fields of knowledge.The book covers every stage of scientist’s biography, such as Lomonosov’s childhood, education, his work in the Academy of Sciences and Arts, and his pass from a student to the academician. It tells us about M. V. Lomonosov’s contribution to the formation of the national science and the Academy transformation into the educational center of the Russian Empire. It gives consideration to the scientist’s role in the development of physics, chemistry, economics, geography, literature, and tool engineering.This publication is of interest both for specialists and for a wide range of the scientific community.This book is a translation of the edition in Russian, original name “M.V. Lomonosov in St. Petersburg“, published at the commission of the Committee on Science and Higher school of St. Petersburg Government on the occasion of the celebration of 300th anniversary of Mikhail Lomonosov’s birth in St. Petersburg in accordance with the decree of St. Petersburg Government of 16.04.2010, N 407, “On the approval of the List of activities for 2011 on the preparation and holding of 300th anniversary of Mikhail Lomonosov’s birth in St. Petersburg”.

This study explores the evolution of Lomonosov's imposing stature in Russian thought from the middle of the eighteenth century to the closing years of the Soviet period. It reveals much about the intersection in Russian culture of attitudes towards the meaning and significance of science, as well as about the rise of a Russian national identity, of which Lomonosov became an outstanding symbol. Idealized depictions of Lomonosov were employed by Russian scientists, historians, and poets, among others, in efforts to affirm to their countrymen and to the state the pragmatic advantages of science to a modernizing nation. In setting forth this assumption, Usitalo notes that no sharply drawn division can be upheld between the utilization of the myth of Lomonosov during the Soviet period of Russian history and that which characterized earlier views. The main elements that formed the mythology were laid down in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; Soviet scholars simply added more exaggerated layers to existing representations.

Primarily an attack on serfdom and an appeal to the serfs voluntarily, Aleksandr Radishchv's Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow has often been described as a Russian Uncle Tom's Cabin. Published in 1790, the book was banned immediately and the author first sentenced to death, then banished to eastern Siberia. On the order of the Empress Catherine II, who read the Journey very carefully, all copies that could be found were collected and burned. The few that escaped were widely circulated and laboriously copied out by hand, but the book was not freely published in Russia until 1905.

This book explores the multicultural world of historical Russia through the life stories of 31 individuals that exemplify the cross-cultural exchanges in the country from the late 1500s to post-Soviet Russia.

Many cities across the globe are rediscovering their rivers. After decades or even centuries of environmental decline and cultural neglect, waterfronts have been vamped up and become focal points of urban life again; hidden and covered streams have been daylighted while restoration projects have returned urban rivers in many places to a supposedly more natural state. This volume traces the complex and winding history of how cities have appropriated, lost, and regained their rivers. But rather than telling a linear story of progress, the chapters of this book highlight the ambivalence of these developments. The four sections in Rivers Lost, Rivers Regained discuss how cities have gained control and exerted power over rivers and waterways far upstream and downstream; how rivers and floodplains in cityscapes have been transformed by urbanization and industrialization; how urban rivers have been represented in cultural manifestations, such as novels and songs; and how more recent strategies work to redefine and recreate the place of the river within the urban setting. At the nexus between environmental, urban, and water histories, Rivers Lost, Rivers Regained points out how the urban-river relationship can serve as a prime vantage point to analyze fundamental issues of modern environmental attitudes and practices.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- ONE: Searching for Enlightenment -- PART I: Wisdom and Wickedness, 1500-1689 -- TWO: God and Politics in Muscovy -- THREE: A Question of Legitimacy -- FOUR: Visions of the State at Mid-Century -- FIVE: Church and Politics in Late Muscovy -- PART II: Ways of Virtue, 1689-1762 -- SIX: Church, State, and Society under Peter -- SEVEN: Virtue and Politics after Peter -- PART III: Straining toward Light, 1762-1801 -- EIGHT: Catherine II and Enlightenment -- NINE: Nikita Panin and Imperial Power