Creating and Preserving a Myth: Changing Attitudes about Country Estates in Late Imperial Russia

Abstract

This article examines how small groups of artistic elites and amateurs attempted to re-contextualise the cultural importance of the Russian country estate in the early twentieth century, a period of formative nation-building, modernisation and industrialisation. The ‘myth’ of the estate was used as a tool to spur preservationist rhetoric in a society without an effective instrument to preserve its built heritage. The principal avenue used by preservationists to advance their agenda was the artistic journal.