Aleksej Kara-Murza – Russian Venice

BOOK: A city and an archetype dreamed by artists and poets of every generation, Venice is an enchanted gate of Italy, often the very first destination of a Russian great trip when it was made by sea. A considerable part of Russian intellectuals declared Venice an unavoidable attraction, being fascinated with its magnificent palaces and churches together with the richness of its art galleries. But Russian people were also taken away with the unusual beauty of the city landscape, the character of Venice inhabitants and with the contrast between the feverish life pulse of everyday Venice and the subtle mood of decadence and death emanating from everything they encountered.
This is a book in which Venice is looked at from a new viewpoint: the one of the charmed Russian travelers. In the memories and works written by the main characters  of Russian culture, the time passed in Venice did not dissipate even after the contact with the reality: years and distance could not help but dilate the vision of it. Shifted to the literary dimension, Venice entered the dimension of a myth to stay there forever. This volume collects, for the very first time, documents, correspondence and diaries fragments witnessing the Russian famous personalities’ sojourns in Venice. It is a refined edition completed with Vittorio Strada’s foreword and with more than a hundred unedited pictures coming from the Italian and foreign archives.