Petersburg (novel)

Petersburg
	Cover of 1916 edition
Author	Andrei Bely
Original title	Петербургъ
Translator	John Cournos, John E. Malmstad & Robert A. Maguire, David McDuff, John Elsworth
Language	Russian
Series	East or West
Genre	Symbolist novel, modernist novel, philosophical novel, political novel
Publication date	1913 / 1922
Publication place	Russia / Germany
Preceded by	The Silver Dove

Petersburg (Russian: Петербург, Peterbúrg) is a novel by Russian writer Andrei Bely. A Symbolist work,^[1] it has been compared to other "city novels" like Ulysses and Berlin Alexanderplatz.^[2]^[3]^[4] The first edition was completed in November 1913 and published serially from October 1913 to March 1914 (and later reissued as a book in 1916).^[5] It received little attention and was not translated into English until 1959 by John Cournos, over 45 years after it was written.^{[citation needed]}

Today the book is generally considered Bely's masterpiece; Vladimir Nabokov ranked it one of the four greatest "masterpieces of twentieth century prose", after Ulysses and The Metamorphosis, and before "the first half" of In Search of Lost Time.^[6]^[7]

In 1922 Bely published in Berlin a revised edition which was shorter by a third than the first one. As Bely noted, "the new edition is a completely new book for the readers of the first edition". In the Berlin version Bely changed the foot of his rhythmic prose from anapest to amphibrach, and removed ironical passages related to the revolutionary movement. The second version is usually considered as inferior to the first one.^[8]

The novel is the second part of Bely's unfinished trilogy East or West, while The Silver Dove is the first one.

^ Giansiracusa, Noah; Vasilyeva, Anastasia (2017-09-07). "Mathematical Symbolism in a Russian Literary Masterpiece". arXiv:1709.02483 [math.HO].
^ Nabokov, Russian Writers, Censors, and Readers, Read at the Festival of the Arts, Cornell University, April 10, 1958
^ Cornwell, Neil (2016-07-27). James Joyce and the Russians. Springer. ISBN 978-1-349-11645-4.
^ Barta, Peter I. (1996). Bely, Joyce, and Döblin: Peripatetics in the City Novel. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-1450-0.
^ Livak, Leonid (2018-12-11). A Reader's Guide to Andrei Bely's Petersburg. University of Wisconsin Pres. ISBN 978-0-299-31930-4.
^ 1965, Nabokov's television interview TV-13 NY
^ "Nabokov and the moment of truth". 21 April 2008. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21 – via www.youtube.com.
^ "Петербург". Полка.

[1] Giansiracusa, Noah; Vasilyeva, Anastasia (2017-09-07). "Mathematical Symbolism in a Russian Literary Masterpiece". arXiv:1709.02483 [math.HO].

[Nabokov58RussianWriters-2] Nabokov, Russian Writers, Censors, and Readers, Read at the Festival of the Arts, Cornell University, April 10, 1958

[3] Cornwell, Neil (2016-07-27). James Joyce and the Russians. Springer. ISBN 978-1-349-11645-4.

[4] Barta, Peter I. (1996). Bely, Joyce, and Döblin: Peripatetics in the City Novel. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-1450-0.

[5] Livak, Leonid (2018-12-11). A Reader's Guide to Andrei Bely's Petersburg. University of Wisconsin Pres. ISBN 978-0-299-31930-4.

[NabokovTv13-6] 1965, Nabokov's television interview TV-13 NY

[7] "Nabokov and the moment of truth". 21 April 2008. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21 – via www.youtube.com.

[8] "Петербург". Полка.

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