Reflections on St. Petersburg

This Too Shall Pass

            I recently had opportunity to visit St. Petersburg, Russia, with students from George Fox University.  Many Americans would be surprised to learn that this great city, capitol of the Russian Empire for two hundred years, is newer than Boston or New York.

            Peter I ruled Russia 1682-1725.  He added significantly to Russia’s territory, producing an empire and making himself an emperor.  Russian history books call him Peter the Great.  Peter wanted to make Russia more European, to bring French and German culture to Russia.  To open a door to the West, and to provide access for the Russian navy to the Baltic Sea, 1703 Peter founded a new city on the banks of the Neva River where it flows into the Gulf of Finland, on land he had taken from Sweden.  He named his new city for his patron saint, and in 1712 St. Petersburg became capitol of the Russian Empire.

            The new city grew rapidly.  The Russian nobility built palaces and brought servants.  Shipbuilders, merchants and manufacturers gained fortunes and built mansions.  Later in the 1700s Empress Catherine the Great, whose policies also added to the Russian Empire (including Alaska), began the art collection that later became the famous Hermitage Museum.  At the beginning of the 20^th century, St. Petersburg was the seat of Czarist government, the most Westernized city in Russia.

            World War 1 brought defeat and the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.  Dedicated atheists, the communists changed the name of the city to Petrograd (“Peter’s City”), and after Lenin’s death it became Leningrad.  Marxist doctrine teaches the inevitability of a worker’s revolution, and the Russian Communist Party enthusiastically proclaimed itself the vanguard of humanity’s future.  Despite such confidence, the soviet era lasted less than 75 years.  In 1991 the people voted to restore the name St. Petersburg.

            Our study group toured St. Petersburg on foot and by boat on streets and canals that date to the 1700s.  We visited Catherine’s summer palace outside the city, the Winter Palace (which is now part of the Hermitage Museum), Russian Orthodox cathedrals and churches, and other tourist sites.  The visit impressed me with the transitory character of “great works.”

            Here’s an example.  In 1881, a revolutionary group wounded Emperor Alexander II with an explosive device; the emperor died soon afterward.  His son, Alexander III, began building a church in homage to his father.  The resulting Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is one of the main tourist sights in St. Petersburg.  Construction continued from 1883 to 1907.  The Church is lavishly adorned with beautiful mosaics, but it was actually used only as a place for memorials, not for public worship.  After the 1917 revolution it was used variously as a warehouse, a morgue (during World War 2), and a museum.  Today it belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church, but it has not been re-consecrated.  It is a tourist attraction; our students gathered for a group photo outside the church.

            St. Petersburg is a great city; more than six million people live there.  Perhaps it is, still, the cultural capitol of Russia.  Our boat tour guide said as much, voicing what is probably a common boast.  In that regard, we might say that Peter the Great and Catherine the Great’s ambitions are still bearing fruit.  But their empire is gone.  The palaces and mansions of the Russian nobility became state property in the communist era; now, those that are not museums belong to new owners, the new wealthy class.  The Soviets, assured by Marx and Lenin that their movement represented the future, have passed from history’s stage.  Today the city faces all the uncertainty of modern Russia; they have a President who rules much like one of the Czars.  Not even Mr. Putin will be President forever.  Who will succeed him?

            All our works, even the “greatest,” fade into history.  This is not a new insight, of course.  “This too shall pass,” is attributed to medieval Sufi poets.  But St. Petersburg pushed the thought into my mind.  Maybe the city speaks particularly to people of my generation.

            I grew up in the Cold War, a generation raised in the shadow of nuclear war.  We children were taught in grade school how our country (US) faced great danger from them (USSR).  Public libraries had bomb shelters in the basement.  We heard the grown-ups at church talk about the Berlin Wall, the missile crisis, Red China, and Khrushchev.  To a child raised in that world, the division of the world between “us” and “them” seemed permanent.  Or almost permanent; we knew the missiles could fly any time.

            Peter’s empire is gone.  The Soviet era passed.  The Cold War has been replaced by a “war on terror.”  (No president can declare victory in this war, since terrorists can renew their war at will.)  Nevertheless, this too will pass.

            I do not believe everything is transitory.  We pray for the kingdom of God to come, the kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Spirit.  When the kingdom is fully come (it is now, as Jesus said, breaking in), it will transcend all the great works we have ever attempted.