Топика прославления города и восприятие пространства в Петербургском панегирике XVIII века

Abstract

The article explores the representation of St. Petersburg in 18th-century Russian panegyric literature from the point of view of rhetorical topoi. The ancient and humanistic tradition of laus urbis provided established categories for the conceptualisation of the new capital that were first adapted by Gavriil Buzhinskii and Feofan Prokopovich. Following the development of specific St. Petersburg topoi in the 18th century the paper focuses on the perception of urban space both in panegyric literature and visual art. It shows how the point of view in the description of the city changes from Lomonosov's encomiastic prose and Makhaev's lithographies to Derzhavin's odes and Quarenghi's aquarelles.