At the beginning of the last century, residents and visitors of the city showed immense interest in the history of the Northern Palmyra and in the personality of its founder, Peter the Great.  In 1903, the 200th anniversary of St. Petersburg was celebrated. The festivities included not only military parades, public celebrations, and the opening of the Trinity Bridge, but also the publication of books, paintings, graphic works, and postcards reflecting the history of the city on the Neva river. The ROSPHOTO State Museum and Exhibition Center presents an exhibition dedicated to postcards and photographs created in St. Petersburg–Petrograd in the early 20th century.

Urban mail service in the Russian Empire began operating in 1843. The first postcard forms were issued by the postal administration in 1871, and until 1894 their production was under state monopoly. The modern size and appearance of the postcard took shape only in 1904, when the address side was divided vertically into two parts: a designated area for writing text on the left and lines for the recipient’s and sender’s addresses on the right, with a rectangle in the upper right corner for a postage stamp. At the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, during the heyday of Russian book graphics, illustrated postcards created by prominent Russian artists also enjoyed great popularity.

Among the artists who contributed their works for the illustration of these postcards were Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, Heorhiy Narbut, Boris Kustodiev, Konstantin Somov, Nikolai Samokish, and other well-known masters. The Committee selected the best works for reproduction on postcards by organizing drawing competitions. One such competition, held in 1902, was dedicated to the 200th anniversary of St. Petersburg.

In total, during the existence of the Community, more than 6,400 postcard designs were published, several of which were in high demand and reprinted multiple times. Beginning in 1904, a shop operated in the building of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts at 38 Bolshaya Morskaya Street, selling postcards issued by the Community of St. Eugenia. The same building also hosted exhibitions of artists’ works, where visitors could purchase original watercolors and graphic pieces created by Russian masters for charitable purposes. After the Revolution, the Community’s publishing house was reorganized into the Committee for the Popularization of Art Publications under the State Academy of Material Culture, which operated until 1930.

In addition to postcards of the Community of St. Eugenia, the exhibition presents examples of printed materials from the early 20th century produced by renowned Russian and foreign printing houses such as Scherer, Nabholz & Co., Golike & Wilborg, and E.G.S.I.S., as well as other publishers engaged in producing scenic and artistic postcards dedicated to St. Petersburg. A special place is given to postcards printed from original negatives of the Boisson & Eggler studio.

The exhibition also includes examples of autotypes made from photographs by C. Bulla, depicting the central squares, main thoroughfares, and monuments to the city’s founder, Peter I, published in the early 20th century by the I. Dazziaro publishing house.

On display are photographs of St. Petersburg from the early 20th century from the collections of the ROSPHOTO State Museum and Exhibition Center and the Museum of the Academy of Arts, a series of images from the holdings of the Central State Archive of Cinema, Photo, and Phono Documents of St. Petersburg dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the city, and works by M. V. Dobuzhinsky, E. E. Lanceray, A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, P. A. Shillingovsky, I. L. Fomin, I. E. Braz, and other artists from the collections of the State Russian Museum. These works depict the Petrine baroque paradise and the Empire-style architecture of the Northern Palmyra during the Art Nouveau era, as well as copies of engravings from the time of Peter the Great from the collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

The interactive part of the exhibition allows visitors to view “fading” photographs taken in the 1890s by Colonel V. P. Sabaneev, assistant commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress, restored by ROSPHOTO specialists. Visitors can also examine the details of the interior of the Peter and Paul Cathedral through the eyes of early-20th-century city residents.

We express our gratitude to the publishing house Stereoskop and V. I. Yolkin for their assistance in preparing the exhibition.