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VISUAL PLURALITY OF ST. PETERSBURG: OBVIOUS AND UNOBVIOUS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 4 (38). P. 119-142

St. Petersburg is one of the recognized UNESCO World Heritage sites. It arose and was historically organized as a meeting place for world cultures. The maximum approximation of the capital to the borders of the state initially predetermined its ethnic and confessional multiformity, which was the potential for active creative interaction. The subject of consideration in this publication is the dialogue of recognized world architects, whose professional task was the formation of the planning structure of the historical center of the capital. For a modern city dweller involved in the sphere of domestic relations, the historical landscape undergoes semantic reduction. The figurative system of ensembles and monumental monuments comes to be only an impersonal background of everyday life, while the scale of architectural projects and urban planning ideas is leveled and simplified. However, the cultural heritage is turned to the probabilistic logic of reproduction, which can be done with the help of reading, interpretation and verification programs. Based on the comparison and comprehensive assessment of historical sources, statistical data and memoir documents, attribution and disclosure of new semantic oppositions of the urban structure are proposed. The examples selected for the analysis implied the use of hermeneutic approaches in the attribution of historical material with its binding to a system of topological projections. An important place in the knowledge of St. Petersburg belongs to the languages of the non-obvious, the disclosure of the unmanifested aspects of its value structure. The specificity of the translation of visual images into everyday language becomes the primary subject of consideration. The city as a semiotic space is included in the system of text-generating mechanisms that combine the planning principle of building and the conditionality of everyday scenarios by the place of action into a single whole. A certain unity of behavioral models can act as a criterion for characterizing the urban space, which actualizes the position of the urban observer. Thanks to this, “la promenade de l’Empereur” – the route of Emperor Alexander I’s daily walks – is specified, and a commentary is offered on the political scenario for the opening of the monument in his honor. The fact of the installation of the Alexander Column is assessed not only as a memory of the merits of the emperor, but also as an event that determined the legitimacy of the power of his successor, Emperor Nicholas I. The modern city acts as a historically defined visual diversity. The semiotic analysis of urban phenomena is focused on the integration of this unique content. The inevitable changes in the value structure of the city are replaced by the production of new spatial connections. The meaning-generating mission of St. Petersburg is the experience of constant discovery and acquisition, the production of the value presence of man.

Keywords: memorial policy, social myth, event script, value topography of city, visual thinking, meta-landscape, Saint Petersburg