The Modern City as a Place of Fear
Agoraphobia in Andrei Belyi’s Petersburg
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Andrei Belyi’s novel Petersburg, published on the eve of the First World War, is marked by an apocalyptic-eschatological expectation of impending doom. The novel was written during a period of external and internal instability marked by economic and social upheaval, war, and revolutionary unrest. At the same time, it is the product of an “epoch of nervousness”. Almost all of the characters suffer from “neurasthenia” syndrome, which was typical of the period. In the novel, fear, which is one symptom of the syndrome, affects not only individuals. It becomes a characteristic of the Russian capital itself. The agoraphobia of protagonist Apollon Ableuchov, who as a powerful senator is himself a source of fear, intensifies the dread of dissolving boundaries and decay. Belyi’s symbolist “mind games” were considered decadent in the Soviet Union. Today, the significance of the novel as his magnum opus is undisputed. It speaks in a special way to readers of the 21st century, which is experiencing a “return of a nervous age”.
(Osteuropa 10/2025, pp. 35–56)