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Introduction to the History of Saint Petersburg

The Saint Petersburg region was originally inhabited by Swedes. It was conquered by Russia during the Great Northern War (1700-1721) fought between Sweden and a coalition of countries led by Russia. In 1703 Russian tsar Peter the Great chose a site on Zayachy Island in the Neva River and began the construction of the Peter and Paul Fortress, named after the two saints.

Although the site was cold, damp, and poorly protected, Peter was determined to build a new capital in the Neva delta to replace Moscow, which had served as Russia's capital since the origins of the Russian state in the 1300s.Peter wanted an outlet to the Baltic Sea and intended to make Saint Petersburg a modern, Western-style city that would serve as Russia's "window on Europe. The imperial capital-including the Russian court, the Senate, and the foreign embassies-was moved to the new city in 1712. Peter and the rulers after him commissioned Dutch and Italian architects to build the city's beautiful palaces, and an influx of Western scholars and artisans helped make Saint Petersburg a cultural as well as political center.

Saint Petersburg has witnessed some of the most dramatic political events in Russia's history. In 1825 a group of Russian military officers called the Decembrists tried to instigate a rebellion in the city to prevent the accession to the throne of Nicholas I, favoring Nicholas's brother Constantine instead. Five of the rebel leaders were hanged.

In January 1905 a huge parade of demonstrators marched toward the city's Winter Palace to voice their grievances with Emperor Nicholas II; the imperial guard responded by opening fire on the crowd. Nationwide outrage over the massacre, which became known as Bloody Sunday, turned into a full-scale, although ultimately unsuccessful, revolution against the monarchy (Russian Revolution of 1905).Continued opposition to imperial rule led to the Russian Revolution of 1917, which began with a spontaneous uprising by workers and soldiers in the city (then known as Petrograd). The revolution culminated in a seizure of power by the Bolsheviks (later renamed the Communists) and the establishment of a new Soviet government headed by Vladimir Lenin. With World War I still underway, the Bolsheviks deemed Petrograd too vulnerable to German invasion to remain the Russian capital. They also considered the city too symbolically linked to imperial rule. Thus, the Bolsheviks made Moscow the capital of the new Soviet state. After Lenin's death in 1924, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor.

From September 1941 to January 1944, during World War II, Leningrad was besieged by invading German troops, who blocked the supply of food and fuel to the city. Leningrad's only link to the rest of the country was across the frozen waters of Lake Lagoda or by air. About 1 million people are believed to have died as a result of disease, starvation, and bombings, and more than 10,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged. After the war, Soviet authorities undertook to rebuild the city and restore important buildings and palaces, an expensive project that has continued since the Soviet Union collapsed and the new government of independent Russia took power in 1991. The end of Communism led to the creation of multiple political parties in Saint Petersburg-as elsewhere in Russia-and the establishment of a democratic city government.