'Winter Palace': A lesson in monarch as theater

Stretched majestically along the Neva River in St. Petersburg, the Winter Palace remains one of the top tourist attractions in all Russia, drawing tens of thousands to see its priceless collections of Rembrandts and El Grecos and its elaborate ornamentation in malachite and porphyry (much of it mined in Siberia).

Its glories have been celebrated in Alexander Sokurov's 2002 film (shot in the Winter Palace in one single, 96-minute take) and in Debra Dunn's best seller "The Madonnas of Leningrad," recounting the heroic efforts of unnamed curators to save the structure during the Nazis' brutal 900-day siege.

Susan McCaffray argues, however, that the Winter Palace and its Hermitage wing are more than just one gorgeous building. Reading between the lines, she contends in "The Winter Palace and the People," that the structure can be read as a skeleton key to Russian history — which Winston Churchill described (in a slightly different context) as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

McCaffray, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, has devoted herself to the study of pre-Communist Russia in the 1800s. In many ways, "The Winter Palace" is a summing up of much of her scholarship.

Built between 1754 and 1962 by the Empress Elizabeth (mother-in-law to Catherine the Great), the Winter Palace is an impressive edifice, and McCaffray argues it was intended to impress. It was the centerpiece of Peter the Great's port-capital, a Russian window to the world.

While Peter, the carpenter-tsar, was content to live modestly in a glorified cabin (which tourists can still find), later monarchs needed more. Hence, the Winter Palace: a giant work of beauty meant to leave foreign diplomats and Russian nobles awestruck (and, occasionally, intimidated) by the tsar's power.

Over time, however, the tsars' use of the Winter Palace subtly changed. In theory, the tsar was an autocrat, unchecked by any parliament (at least, until 1906) or any other power on Earth or in heaven. (Like the British monarch, the tsar was head of the Russian state church.)

Practice, however, was a little more tricky. Tsars who did not placate and charm the army or the aristocracy, such as Catherine's hapless husband Peter III or her son Peter, might find their reigns and their lives abruptly shortened.

So, gradually, the tsars used the Winter Palace and the adjoining Palace Square to court the citizens of St. Petersburg in numerous ways. There were the Shrovetide fairs (Russia's answer to the Mardi Gras) and occasional spectacles, like Catherine's victory celebration in the square, a mass buffet with spurting fountains of red and white wine.

There were the elaborate New Year's costume balls. Open mainly to nobles and the wealthier merchants, the balls could be crashed, McCaffray contends, and judging from elaborate rules and warnings, some lesser breeds must have snuck in frequently.

After Napoleon's invasion of Russia, the Winter Palace became a scene of military parades and ceremonies, some involving 100,000 soldiers or more. In the 1800s, Nicholas I, Catherine's grandson, turned halls of the Winter Palace into military memorials and personally greeted thousands of grizzled veterans at annual victory celebrations.

More notably, in 1852, Nicholas opened up his grandmother's art galleries in the Hermitage wings -- the function the Winter Palace performs to this day.

After Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by bomb-throwing radicals in 1881, the imperial family withdrew from St. Petersburg somewhat. At the same time, McCaffray argues, the people of St. Petersburg adopted the Winter Palace as their own. When Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace in 1917, it was a sign that Russia had changed for good.

"The Winter Palace" is academic rather than popular history. Ordinary readers should be prepared for some slogging, with frequent trips to the encyclopedia and Google. McCaffray is an entertaining, unstuffy writer, however, and her observations on the parallels between governance and theater could offer lessons for our own time.

Reporter Ben Steelman can be reached at 910-616-1788 or Ben.Steelman@StarNewsOnline.com.