St. Petersburg Mythology in an Ancient Greek Poem by F. B. Graefe on the 100-year Jubilee of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (1826)

Abstract

This article deals with a poem by academician F. B. Graefe (1780–1851) written in ancient Greek elegiacs (424 lines) with authorized German poetic translation en regard (1826). The poem was dedicated to the 100-year jubilee of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and printed in a small number of exemplars (für Wenige). The poem has never been republished until now. The article provides the Introduction (54 lines), the Epilogue, and selected passages in Greek and German, with Russian translation and commentaries. The Introduction describes the foundation of St. Petersburg and the Academy by Peter the First. Graefe’s stock images (the marshes on which St. Petersburg appeared; a poor Finnish fisherman with his old net; a tsar demiurge on the bank of the river; etc.), motifs (nature and civilization) and formulas (before — now; one hundred years later; etc.) reflect the official, cosmological St. Petersburg mythology. Three other selected passages of the poem describe the paleontological and Egyptian collections of the Academy museums. The author discusses Graefe’s possible sources, the historical context of his poem, and responces to it in Germany. Graefe’s poem in ancient Greek is a testimony of the Neuhumanismus in Russia.