Three Petersburgs. Urban space in role-playing reportage essays by N. N. Zhivotov

The article considers the representation of the image of Petersburg in the journalistic texts written by N. N. Zhivotov, a columnist and writer of the late 19th century. The research material is role-playing reportage essays from the cycle of essays Peterburgskiye profili (Petersburg Profiles). In the essays, the author introduces readers to urban everyday routine, namely marginal professions and places of Petersburg. The methodology of the research is based, on the one hand, on the tradition of studying texts dedicated to Petersburg (the so-called Petersburg Text), on the other hand, on the study of urban journalism. The article attempts to identify the genre specificity of the considered texts and justifies their belonging to the genres of urban muckraking journalism. The study identifies three ways of representing the city: geographical, social, and symbolic. The geographical aspect reflects the geographical space, which is expressed in the exact location of urban objects in space as well as the wide use of official and folk toponymy. Petersburg is presented as a concentrically organized city: the central part of the city refers to its ‘ideal’ embodiment, while the periphery - to the ‘real’ one. The social aspect reflects the social space of the city, which is constructed by changing the author’s social role. The author’s perception of Petersburg forms an additional vector of urban space. The essay characters do not have a clear connection to the center or periphery of the city; their movements between the ‘real’ and ‘ideal’ Petersburg are determined by a change of their social role. Finally, the symbolic aspect is the symbolic space of Petersburg, which is represented by the theme of the characters’ immortality. This theme can be considered as a realization of the eschatological myth of Petersburg. The distinguishing of the three aspects in constructing the city’s image gives understanding of narrative strategies of depicting the space of Petersburg by a citizen of the late 19th century.