Army and city: socio-cultural analysis

Abstract

Military man is a frequent character of the Russian literature of the XIX — early XX century. There was no historical period, no literary phenomenon born on the St. Petersburg soil in which the features of everyday life and the characters lived in the "military capital" have not been mentioned. We can assert that if some phenomenon acquires the status of literary fact, if it becomes the act of creative consciousness — this means that its influence upon public consciousness is rather strong and permanent.In this connection it is important first of all to determine the morphology of the examined phenomenon — army in a city — and to define its space and quantative elements as well as its scale. Secondly, the spheres of the city's life influenced by army should be distinguished.It is necessary also to present, even though in short, the institutional structure of the part of the Russian Army, and the institutions, related to it, located on the territory of St. Petersburg and its close suburbs. That structure presented as a kind of a subordinate hierarchy looks as follows:-     military administrative institutions;-     military educational institutions;-     military medical institutions;-     military cathedrals and churches.Rather important role in the system of life provision for military population was played by various elements of social everyday life infrastructure. Memoirs give us complete and interesting picture of how many people of different professions — tailors, shoemakers, craftsmen — were engaged in making uniform and other equipment and outfit for military men. To those elements of infrastructure we should also classify warehouses, artillery depots and even regiments' vegetable gardens, situated in the southern suburbs of the city.Thus, one can imagine an impressive picture of numerous and active community of military population of the city. This community included all the grades — from children-cadets to old veterans who had retired and lived in the city. In general, such a considerable part of male population certainly influenced everyday life through the direct activity of servicemen as well as through their family tics.The subject matter of the discussion here are the following four groups of phenomena of different nature and content:1.   degree and extent of the influence of the army upon space and planning structure of the city;2.   the role of the army in the formation of the city's culture;3.   the influence of the army on religious life of the city;4.   the army's role in the semantization of the city's space, including its place in toponymies of St. Petersburg.The army has always been иле part of life of a Russian city, and it has never stopped being it. In Moscow and Petersburg regular military units were replaced by Military Schools. There are 25 military schools in St. Petersburg and outskirts now. The relations between army and city before the revolution and nowadays have qualitative difference: before 1917 army was in part a closed, caste institution, but the other part was public, easily observed, logically and naturally included in the city life. The life of contemporary army is a great secret for the majority of people.Today, when turbulent and dynamic oppositely directed processes take place in politics and economy, we should search for some historically stable, preserved in time, lines of development and institutions, try to understand and to explain what are the reasons for such stability and what that means.One thing is clear: staying far from everyday social life, being a "power structure", standing above society, the army can hardly restore the role of an integral and necessary part of society.