Patterns of Russia: History, Culture, Spaces by Robin Milner-Gulland

Abstract

Reviewed by: Patterns of Russia: History, Culture, Spaces by Robin Milner-Gulland Sergei Bogatyrev Milner-Gulland, Robin. Patterns of Russia: History, Culture, Spaces. Reaktion Books, London, 2020. 237 pages. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Further reading. Index. £25.00. In his book, Robin Milner-Gulland seeks to build up a distinctive portrait of Russia through the study of a few themes and moments in its history. He is particularly interested in locations and landmarks that witnessed the development of Russia and its culture. The methodology of the book is diverse. Milner-Gulland draws on Bakhtin's concept of the 'chronotope' as a dynamic interaction between space and time. By way of analogy, Milner-Gulland offers the notion of 'cultural spaces' which implies the intersection between geography and history. The book has been also influenced by the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school (Iu. M. Lotman, D. S. Likhachev, B. A. Uspenskii) and scholarship on the creation and exploitation of sacred space (Mircea Eliade, A. M. Lidov). Finally, Milner-Gulland engages Anthony D. Smith's concept of 'ethnoscape' ('landscapes endowed with poetic ethnic meaning through [End Page 188] the historicization of nature and the territorialization of ethnic memories'). Milner-Gulland interprets Russia's ethnoscape as its cultural consciousness. Chapter one seeks to define Russia in terms of the four cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) and the great rivers that articulate the Russian space. In Chapter two, the author looks at the built environment, including wooden architecture, medieval churches, and some later palaces, but not fortifications (apart from the Golden Gates in Vladimir). Chapter three deals with art and artists in Old Russia. The author dwells on the social status of icon painters as craftsmen because Old Russia lacked the overarching concept of 'art'. Chapter four is devoted to art and place. It examines some famous works of art from different periods, including two sixteenth-century objects which have the word 'place' in their established names: the so-called 'Tsar's Place' (i.e. Ivan IV's pew) in the Dormition Cathedral and the Place of the Skull in Red Square, both in Moscow. In chapter five the author discusses the sacred places of Russia which are usually associated with various representations of Jerusalem. The author treats the subject in the context of the notion of Holy Russia, though the origin of this idea is as obscure as its meaning. In chapter six, 'Petersburg: Foundation and Fate' Milner-Gulland notes that there was a combination of practical and ideological motifs behind Peter I's project of the new capital. The author calls our attention to the legends about the foundation of Petersburg which are usually dismissed by historians as fantasies. Here Milner-Gulland develops a cultural approach to the history of St Petersburg advanced by Lindsey Hughes (1949–2007), his former student and a leading specialist on Peter I. The author movingly acknowledges Hughes as a source of his inspiration. In chapter seven, the author returns to the north to reflect on the Solovki Transfiguration Monastery as an ultimate symbol of Russia. He traces the history of the monastery from its foundation in the fifteenth century through the Soviet period, when the Bolsheviks turned the monastery into a concentration camp, to the post-Soviet revival of the religious institution. Smith has introduced his concept of 'ethnoscape' in an attempt to strike a balance between two approaches to ethnicity, one that posits that ethnic connections are universal, natural and primordial (hence, primordialist approach) and another that sees ethnicity as a tool whose configuration changes depending on its various uses, a strategic choice, a construct (thus, constructivism). Milner-Gulland clearly leans towards primordialism as he assumes the existence of some perennial structures or patterns in Russian culture. This is why his chapters often end with forays into Soviet culture to demonstrate alleged continuity from the middle ages to the twentieth century. But can we really assume that culture and identities have remained unchanged since the period of Kyivan Rus'? The best parts of the book are based on Milner-Gulland's personal experience of visiting different parts of Russia. The publisher, Reaktion Books, [End Page 189] did a great of job on visualizing Milner-Gulland's...