What is the name of the city of Petrograd now. Petrograd during the First World War

In 1703, on the land conquered from the Swedes, Tsar Peter I tore out two pieces of turf and laid them in a cross, thus marking the beginning of the glorious history of the northern capital.

St. Peter-Burkh and co

The built city with access to the northern waters was supposed to become, according to Peter's plans, a strong military fort-post of the Russian state. Did Peter need a peaceful city? It is necessary, but only around the military fortress - the place for the Peter and Paul Fortress was marked by the future emperor with a cross from improvised natural means. Peter cherished the dream of a military fortress for a long time, he saw the fortress in Azov, but the military campaign ended unsuccessfully. Hare Island became Peter's lucky ticket to an equally happy future. The military fortress was founded, a loud name was given to it, city buildings were erected around, people settled - it was necessary to think about the name of the city under construction. The act with the special name of the city, however, did not follow. Foreign associates of Peter, Russian subjects - polyglots called the city of St. Peter, each in his own way, improvising with all parts of the long name: Sant, St., San; Peter, Peter; burg, burh, burk. Peter himself in his letters diligently deduced Sanktpetersburk, and Sanktpetersburk, and Petersburg. The search for harmony continued until 1724, and only after the death of the emperor in 1725, the city received its final name: St. Petersburg.

petropolis

The legend that Peter dreamed of naming a new city in his honor is just a legend. Peter dreamed of dedicating the city to his patron, the Apostle Peter. With the name of the apostle, Peter played until his death, the original idea to name the city on the Neva - Petropolis, did not receive distribution. Petropolis (Petropol, Petropol) - a stone city, became St. Petersburg, leaving only an engraving depicting the city with the signature "Petropolis" as a reminder of its short existence. Why was the name with Greco-Italian motifs not preserved behind the glorious city? Peter created, Peter called, but the history of Ancient Greece was beyond his power to replay. Polis - the city glorified by Aristotle and Socrates existed so that people could live well. Did Peter seek to improve the life of the urban population? Of course, but the military capabilities of the new capital and its population were a priority, and western cities stood nearby, Peter looked towards the Dutch "burghs" dear to his heart.

Petrograd

The fixed name "St. Petersburg" successfully existed outside the city until 1914. In the summer of 1914, the Russian Empire entered the First World War. No one guessed that the war would drag on for more than three years. Having entered the war as the patron of the fraternal Slavic peoples, Emperor Nicholas II for the first time felt the long-awaited unity with the people - everyone was inspired. The Russian Empire was engulfed in anti-German sentiment everywhere - the townspeople burned German shops and stores, rebelled at the German embassy, ​​and the emperor, not without sin himself, (Nicholas II's wife Alexandra Feodorovna, a former German princess) abandoned St. Petersburg in favor of Petrograd. The innovation was received negatively by the public; the policy of Nicholas II did not find support in government circles: “The sovereign is doing well. Many attack him for Petrograd. Rukhlov seemed to say: what are you, Your Majesty, to correct Peter the Great! – And do you know how the Sovereign answered? He did not get angry, but laughed it off: “What! Tsar Peter demanded reports from his generals about victories, and I would be glad to hear about victories. The Russian sound is dearer to the heart ... ". The history of the new Russian city of Petrograd was short, but rich in events, the city with a new name stood on the Neva until 1924.

City of Lenin

In January 1924, at the Second Congress of Soviets, in memory of the untimely deceased Vladimir Lenin, Petrograd was named Leningrad. The city, which existed for two centuries under the auspices of the name of the first emperor Peter the Great, received a name based on the pseudonym of Vladimir Ulyanov. Leningrad disappeared in the nineties of the XX century.

Saint Petersburg under siege

One of the heroic deeds of the inhabitants of the northern capital with the revolutionary name "Leningrad" was the resistance to the fascist blockade. Leningrad defended not only itself, but also its name. The Germans intended to rename the city to St. Petersburg, not out of love for Russian history, of course. Dreams of a new Reich on the territory of the USSR obliged to give Russian cities German names. The plans of the Nazis were not a secret for contemporaries - the Germans placed road signs "Petersburg" and "St. Petersburg" on the Volkhov and Leningrad directions.

Solzhenitsyn city

On April 28, 1991, Alexander Solzhenitsyn appealed "To the inhabitants of the city on the Neva", Solzhenitsyn did not want to return the name of St. Petersburg to the city, which he wrote about. Solzhenitsyn did not like the foreign preferences of the imperial power - it was the same with St. Petersburg, and it also affected Yekaterinburg. Agreeing with the undertakings of Emperor Nicholas II, Solzhenitsyn suggested that his contemporaries name the city - St. Petrograd. This name combined original Russian roots and a tribute to the Apostle Paul. Solzhenitsyn had an idea to name the city and Nevograd. This option became a compromise between Petrograd and St. Petersburg. As a result of the referendum, the city turned to the original source - in 1991 St. Petersburg was restored, and the initiatives of Solzhenitsyn, who devoted many pages to the city on the Neva, did not receive support. This is how Petersburgers live in St. Petersburg.

Nien

Many thought about the name of the northern capital. The heirs of the peoples who lived on the territory of the city built by Peter, and to this day they call St. Petersburg none other than Nien, Nevograd, Nevaborg. The Ingrian city of Nyen, according to the separatists, began from the Swedish fortress of Nyenskansk, and the hand of Peter did not create it. This kind of interpretation of the name is not uncommon. It is worth considering what the Slavophiles would call the northern city? Finns neighboring in considerable proximity? Offer options, the northern city has tried on a lot of them, it is no stranger to it.

Exactly 100 years ago, on August 19/September 1, 1914, the Highest Order of Emperor Nicholas II to the Governing Senate was published to rename St. Petersburg to Petrograd. The very decision to change the name of the capital of the Russian Empire was taken by the Sovereign a day earlier - on August 18/31.

The renaming of the capital in the first month of the First World War was not accidental and reflected the general mood of the townsfolk, embraced by anti-German sentiments. As the historian of the Russian army A.A. Kersnovsky noted, “Yesterday's cosmopolitans suddenly turned out to be ardent nationalists. The dominant note here, however, was reckless chauvinism, hysterical fury against everything "German." People who seemed to be quite sensible, suddenly demanded that their surnames of German origin be changed into Russian.. "German speech was forbidden, - the modern historian and publicist S.V. Fomin echoes Kersnovsky . - Violators were subjected to a very impressive fine of up to three thousand rubles or a three-month imprisonment. The performance of musical works by German composers was considered an unpatriotic act. The settlements that bore German names were renamed..

However, similar phenomena were observed in Russia's allied countries. So, for example, in Paris, the municipality changed the name of the German street to Jaurès street, and the Berlin street to Liège street.

In this impulse to abandon everything German, already on July 31 / August 12, the liberal Birzhevye Vedomosti published an article with the characteristic title “Not Petersburg, but Petrograd”, in which they conveyed the wishes of the Czech diaspora of St. “remember the initiative of a long line of Russian figures and thinkers of the 18th and early 19th centuries, who were jarred by the German name of our capital”. Citing further quotations from the decrees of Empress Catherine II and Emperor Alexander I, in which the capital of the Empire was sometimes called the "City of St. Peter", the Czech diaspora of the city noticed that Petrograd "is called our capital by all southern and western Slavs, also Chervonoruss". “It is time to correct the mistake of the ancestors, it is time to cast off the last shadow of German guardianship. We, the Czechs, ask the public administration of the capital to come in with a petition to the Highest Name for the approval and obligatory henceforth use of the Russian name of the capital "Petrograd" ”, - said in the conclusion of the appeal.

We also note that the name "Petrograd", which is a Russian tracing paper from the German (Dutch) name "Petersburg", was not accidental and was already well known to educated Russians thanks to the poetic lines of A.S. Pushkin from The Bronze Horseman:

Above the darkened Petrograd

November breathed autumn chill.

Rushing in a noisy wave

At the edge of its slender fence,

Neva rushed about like a patient

In your restless bed...

This name of the city is also found in the poems of G.R. Derzhavin (“Procession along the Volkhov of the Russian Amphitrite”):

No, not a picture of ancient divas

Surprises mortals look;

Ekaterina is walking

With Georg to Petrograd!

However, both A.S. Pushkin and G.R. Derzhavin used in the same works another name for St. Petersburg - “Petropol”. And in the 1870s, as Russkoye Slovo stated, “among the Slavophiles, a movement arose in favor of renaming St. Petersburg into Petrograd.” “Historical documents confirm that the Slavophiles tried to introduce this name into life,” the newspaper recalled in 1914. - In correspondence and in personal conversations, they completely avoided the name Petersburg, and even on the envelopes of letters they wrote "Petrograd", as a result of which misunderstandings often arose between the Slavophiles and representatives of the postal department, who did not vouch for the accurate delivery of letters with the inscription "Petrograd". This movement, however, had no real results.

On August 11, 1914, Emperor Nicholas II received a report from the Minister of Agriculture A.V. Krivoshein, who, as is commonly believed, convinced the Sovereign of the need to issue an order to rename St. Petersburg. As the head of the office of the Ministry of Agriculture, I.I. Tkhorzhevsky, recalled, Krivoshein himself later said: “The sovereign is doing well. Many attack him for Petrograd. Rukhlov (Minister of Railways. - RNL) allegedly said: what are you, Your Majesty, to correct Peter the Great! - And do you know how the Emperor answered? He didn’t get angry, but laughed it off: “Well, Tsar Peter demanded reports from his generals about victories, but I would be glad to hear about victories. The Russian sound is dearer to my heart ... Is it really well said?”. According to Russkiy Slovo, the issue of renaming the capital received an unexpectedly quick resolution, after the support of this measure, in addition to A.V. changed his German surname to the surname of his wife, becoming Desyatovsky) and the Minister of Internal Affairs N.A. Maklakov.

Unfortunately, the Tsar's diary entries do not say a word about the motives that made him decide to rename the city, but already on August 20 / September 2, 1914, he mentions the capital of the Russian Empire precisely as Petrograd.

However, the tsarist initiative to rename the capital did not meet with everyone's understanding. According to Tkhorzhevsky, dissatisfaction was largely due to the fact that “the city was renamed without asking: it was definitely demoted”. “The historical name associated with the founder of the city and borrowed from Holland, reminiscent of the “eternal worker on the throne”, was replaced under the influence of some patriotic whim with the name of Petrograd, which says nothing, in common with Elizavetgrad, Pavlograd and other similar ones”- the well-known St. Petersburg lawyer and member of the State Council A.F. Koni lamented. “The crown of stupidity was, of course, the demand to rename St. Petersburg to Petrograd - the city of St. Peter to the city of Peter I. The ignorance of our educated circles, from which the initiative came, was amazing, - A.A. Kersnovsky wrote in turn. - Peter I named the city he founded in honor of his saint - "St. Petersburg" - in Dutch, not at all in German, and, of course, did not think to name it in honor of himself. Petersburg in Russian could be translated "Svyatopetrovsk". "Petrograd" was the first step to "Leningrad". Some barbarians adopted from others ". And the poetess Z.N. Gipius, in connection with this renaming, left the following entry in her diary: “According to the mania of the Tsar, Petersburg the great Peter - failed, destroyed. Bad sign! Later, in December 1914, in the poem "Petrograd", the poetess burst into the following indignant lines:

Who encroached on the brainchild of Petrovo?

Who is the perfect handiwork

I dared to offend, taking away at least a word,

Dare to change at least a single sound?

And given the fact that the renaming of the capital coincided with the catastrophe that the Russian troops suffered in East Prussia, it is not surprising that the following entry appeared in the diary of the artist K.A. Somov: "The defeat of our troops, two corps destroyed, killed by Samsonov . Shameful renaming of St. Petersburg to Petrograd! The mayor of St. Petersburg I.I. Tolstoy reacted in the same way in his diary, noting on August 19: “The morning papers report yesterday, on the 18th, the renaming, by the Highest Decree, of St. Petersburg into “Petrograd”. (...) I do not like this kind of chauvinism at all, being a rather sad omen: who do they want to please with this? If this renaming is a joy for someone, then it should be significantly overshadowed by the news that appeared in the morning newspapers and today about a serious defeat, if not about the defeat of the Russian army in Prussia.. Baron N.N. Wrangel also pointed out this: “...Today's government announcement speaks of serious setbacks. All the more tactless is the Supreme Command, published today, on the renaming of St. Petersburg into Petrograd. Not to mention the fact that this completely senseless order, first of all, darkens the memory of the great reformer of Russia, but the publication of this renaming "in retaliation against the Germans" today, on the day of our defeat, must be recognized as extremely inappropriate. Who prompted the Sovereign to take this step is unknown. But the whole city is deeply indignant and filled with indignation at this tactless trick.. Even the mother of the Sovereign, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, showed her displeasure, sarcastically remarking: "Soon My Peterhof will be called Petrushkin Dvor".

But on the pages of the press, the renaming of the imperial capital to Petrograd was only welcomed. The authors of newspaper essays pointed to the "liberation" of the city from the traces of "German dominance", the monarchist publications restrainedly supported the decision of the Sovereign, in some places there appeared hasty and rather clumsy verses dedicated to this historical decision. The now almost forgotten poet Sergei Kopytkin responded to this event with the poem "Petrograd!", In which there were such lines:

With what delight this word

Russia accepted from the Tsar's hands!

And thrown off the brainchild of Petrov

German faded frock coat.

Let the newborn name

Hear the enemy regiments!

It circles over them

Like a whirlwind of annoyance and longing.

It is like an angel of inspiration

Like heat that feeds hearts

In the smoke and roar of battle

Support the Russian fighter.

Down with the German poison!

Down with German words!

From now on the Russian State

The Russian head crowns!

Birzhevye Vedomosti reported with pathos: “We went to bed in St. Petersburg, and woke up in Petrograd!.. The St. Petersburg period of our history with its German tint has ended ... Hurray, gentlemen!..”. « The Petersburg Leaflet, calling the renaming of the capital a "great historical fact," rejoiced that what had happened was what "the best of the Slavophiles" dreamed of. “... The capital of the great Slavic state still bore a German name, - said in a newspaper article . - ... Russia - the head of the Slavs - must follow its own historical and original path. Its capital should have a Slavic name. By the command of the Sovereign Master of the Russian land, it will be so from now on. ”. At the same time, the publication continued, following the renaming of St. Petersburg, there must inevitably be changes in the names of the cities closest to the capital: Peterhof, Shlisselburg, Oranienbaum and Kronstadt, and with regard to the latter, it was especially emphasized that it was unacceptable to keep the name "Kronstadt", since in Within the borders of Austria-Hungary, which was at war with us, there was a city with the same name. "The capital of the most important Slavic people, - wrote "New time" - by the will of the Sovereign Emperor, she shook off her foreign name and was baptized in Slavonic. Petersburg became Petrograd. The common people used to say: Peter, Peterburh. And that part of it that defended the "old faith" always called it only Petrograd". The last statement is true - the Old Believer diocese of the city since 1901 was called Petrograd.

At the same time, as the researcher of this issue A.G. Rumyantsev notes, in the Petrograd City Duma, some deputies were dissatisfied with the disappearance of the prefix “saint” (“holy”) in the name of the city, in connection with which they asked the government to approve the full name of the capital as "City of St. Peter" or "St. Petrograd". As Baron N.N. Wrangel noted in his diary, the hasty and not universally accepted and understood renaming of the city even led to such a curiosity as the appearance of the “St. Petrograd Hotel” in Vilna.

However, the new name of the city on the Neva was destined to be short-lived. In common parlance, the city was still called simply “Peter”, and due to subsequent tragic events, the name “Petrograd” entered the mass consciousness exclusively with the invariable prefixing of the word “revolutionary” to it. And less than ten years after the tsarist decree, in January 1924, the Bolsheviks again renamed the former imperial capital, giving it the name of Lenin, and thereby turning Petrograd into Leningrad. The original name of St. Petersburg was returned to the city only in September 1991 after a referendum in which 54% of Leningraders voted for the historical name of the northern capital.

The official date of the founding of St. Petersburg is May 27, 1703 (May 16 according to the old calendar). Initially, until 1914, it was called St. Petersburg, then as Petrograd, and until September 6, 1991, it was called Leningrad.

The history of the founding of the city on the Neva

The history of the beautiful city on the Neva of St. Petersburg dates back to 1703, when Peter I founded a fortress called St. Peter-Burkh on the land of Ingermanland, conquered from the Swedes. The fortress was planned personally by Peter. The name of this fortress was given to the Northern capital. The fortress was named Peter in honor of the holy apostles Peter and Paul. After the construction of the fortress, a wooden house was built for Peter, with walls painted with oil paint, imitating brick.

In a short time, the city began to grow on the current Petrograd side. Already in November 1703, the first temple in the city called Trinity was built here. It was named in memory of the date of the foundation of the fortress, it was laid on the feast of the Holy Trinity. Trinity Square, on which the cathedral stood, became the first city pier where ships approached and unloaded. It was on the square that the first Gostiny Dvor and the St. Petersburg tavern appeared. In addition, here one could see the buildings of military units, service buildings and craft settlements. The new city island and the Hare, where the fortress stood, were connected by a drawbridge. Soon buildings began to appear on the other side of the river, and on Vasilyevsky Island.

It was planned to make the central part of the city. Initially, the city was called in the Dutch way "St. Peter Burch", since Holland, namely Amsterdam, was something special for Peter I and one might say the best. But already in 1720 the city began to be called St. Petersburg. In 1712, the royal court, and after that official institutions, began to slowly move from Moscow to St. Petersburg. From that time until 1918, St. Petersburg was the capital, and during the reign of Peter II, the capital was again transferred to Moscow. For almost 200 years St. Petersburg was the capital of the Russian Empire. It is not for nothing that St. Petersburg is still called the Northern capital.

Significance of the founding of St. Petersburg

As mentioned above, the foundation of St. Petersburg is associated with the foundation of the Peter and Paul Fortress, which had a special purpose. The first building in the city was supposed to block the fairways along two branches of the delta of the Neva and Bolshaya Nevka rivers. Then, in 1704, the fortress of Kronstadt was built on the island of Kotlin, which was supposed to serve as a defense of the sea borders of Russia. These two fortresses are of great importance both in the history of the city and in the history of Russia. Founding the city on the Neva, Peter I pursued important strategic goals. First of all, this ensured the existence of a waterway from Russia to Western Europe, and, of course, the foundation of the city cannot be imagined without a trading port located on the spit of Vasilyevsky Island, opposite the Peter and Paul Fortress.

From its foundation in 1703 until 1914, the city was named after St. Peter. Although many people think that the city is named after Peter the Great himself. Historically, this name is associated with the formation of the Russian Empire. From 1712 to 1918 St. Petersburg was the capital of the Russian state. The historical name of the city was returned in 1991.

By decision of Nicholas II during the First World War, the German name "Petersburg" was replaced by "Petrograd". Despite the indignation of the intelligentsia, the city bore this name from August 1914 to January 1924. It was preserved in the topography of the city - the names of some points on the map remind of it, for example, Petrogradsky Island.

The comparison with the "city on the water" did not arise by chance. In St. Petersburg, as in Venice, there are a lot of bridges: each has its own name and a special history. In the 18th century, gondolas ran along the rivers and canals of the city.

At the beginning of the 20th century, St. Petersburg was known for its book publishing houses. "Rainbow", "Lengiz", "Alkonost" and others were famous for the high quality of printed materials. That is why the city on the Neva was compared with the book capital of Europe - Leipzig. It all started with the fact that the Petrograd publishing houses became famous at a literary exhibition in Florence in 1892.

This name was given to the city by poets. In the era of classicism, St. Petersburg was called Palmyra in honor of the ancient trading city, famous for its incredible beauty of architecture. Contemporaries believed that the writer Faddey Bulgarin was the first to compare the northern capital with Palmyra on the pages of the Northern Bee.

Even in the "History of the Russian State" Nikolai Karamzin noted that the people say "Peter" instead of "Petersburg". This trend was reflected in fiction at the end of the 18th century. For example, in the works of Maykov, Radishchev, Muravyov. During the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks used the name "Red Peter". Today, the name "Peter" seems to be one of the most common.

It was in Tsarist Petersburg that three revolutions took place. Russian - 1905–1907, February and October 1917. Remembering these events, in Soviet times the city began to be called the Cradle of the Revolution.

Another historical event that became the reason for changing the name of the city is the death of Lenin in 1924. Basically, this name is associated with the Great Patriotic War, although it was official until 1991. As a rule, the city is called "Leningrad" by the older generation.

For several decades, the name of the city "St. Petersburg" was written in different ways: either together, or separately, then with "g", then with "x", then with "e", then with "i". And in the written evidence of that time there were such names as "Piterpol" and "S. Petropolis". Peter I himself in his letters called him in the Dutch manner - "St. Petersburg". This option is considered the first name of the city.

When the city was just being built, Peter I often called it "Paradise". He wrote to Menshikov: “... And we would like to see you here, so that you too, the beauty of this Paradise (in which you were and are a good participant in the labors) in return for your labors, would be a partaker with us, which I wish from the bottom of my heart.”

Petropolis is the Greek version of the name of the city. In the 18th century, the intelligentsia of tsarist Russia was fascinated by antiquity, so this option took root in poetry. Lomonosov uses it in "Ode on the day of the accession to the throne of Elizabeth Petrovna": "Petropolis, imitating the sky, similarly emitted rays."

Due to the fact that the city was often renamed, comic names “walked” among St. Petersburg residents: “St. Leninburg”, “Leningburg”, “Petrolen”. In 1917-1918, the capital's intelligentsia called Petrograd "Chertograd" because of dissatisfaction with the name adopted by Nicholas II.

The official name of Leningrad since August 18, 1914, was adopted after Russia's entry into the 1st World War as more "patriotic" instead of the "German" name St. Petersburg. Previously met as in fiction (A. S. Pushkin) ... St. Petersburg (encyclopedia)

Petrograd- Petrograd, the official name of Leningrad since August 18, 1914, was adopted after Russia's entry into the 1st World War as more "patriotic" instead of the "German" name St. Petersburg. Previously encountered as in fiction ... ... Encyclopedic reference book "St. Petersburg"

PETROGRAD, the name of the city of St. Petersburg in 1914 24. Source: Encyclopedia Fatherland ... Russian History

Existing, number of synonyms: 5 city (2765) Leningrad (12) Petersburg (13) ... Synonym dictionary

St. Petersburg Geographical names of the world: Toponymic Dictionary. M: AST. Pospelov E.M. 2001 ... Geographic Encyclopedia

Federal city of St. Petersburg Flag Coat of arms ... Wikipedia

PETROGRAD- (name; see also LENINGRAD, PETERSBURG, PETROPOL) We / each / keep drive belts in our five / worlds! / This brought audiences to Calvary / Petrograd, Moscow, Odessa, Kyiv, M914 15 (393); When everyone settles in heaven and hell, / the earth ... ... Proper name in Russian poetry of the XX century: a dictionary of personal names

Petrograd- Saint Petersbourg Pour les articles homonymes, voir Saint Petersbourg (homonymie). Saint Petersbourg Saint Petersburg ... Wikipedia en Français

The name of the city of St. Petersburg in 1914 24. * * * PETROGRAD PETROGRAD, the name of the city of St. Petersburg (see SAINT PETERSBURG) in 1914 24 ... encyclopedic Dictionary

See Petersburg… Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by Max Fasmer

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