Jr. The Great White Bear and the Cradle of Culture Italian Images of Russia and Russian Images of Italy

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Volume 9, Number 2, Spring 2008 (New Series), pp. 389-406 (Review)Russia’s image and self-image, perhaps more than any other country’s, has been shaped from abroad. It is fitting that the director Aleksandr Sokurov chooses a foreigner, Astolphe Louis Léonor, Marquis de Custine, to guide viewers through three centuries of Russian history and culture in the Hermitage in his 2002 film Russkii kovcheg (Russian Ark). Since Muscovite times, Russia has looked to foreign experts, whether Italian architects starting in the 15th century, some discussed in these volumes; Greeks consulted by Patriarch Nikon in the 17th century; or Ukrainian clerics under Aleksei Mikhailovich and Peter I, followed by a steady stream of foreign statesmen, military leaders, artists, and scholars. The Pole Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the Baltic German Andrei Gotthard Budberg, the Greek Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias, and the German Karl Robert Nesselrode served as Alexander I’s foreign ministers.