The Caspian Campaign of Peter I in the Memorial Practices of the 19th century

Abstract

The article is about the memorial practices of the Caspian campaign of Peter the Great on the example of evolution of images of the Emperor’s visit to Derbent. Despite of the shortness of his stay at the Caspian coast, all the details of military complain and the Peter’s stay in Derbent was carefully investigated. The main object of the memorialization was the ‘Peter’s dugout’, the numbers of publications about the legends around their appearance made by contemporaries. Both the scientific community and the city’s military administration doubted its authenticity, but dugout became a peculiar ‘place of memory’ which carefully preserved. The propaganda of the connection of the Russian-speaking population of the city with the history of the region’s integration into the Russian Empire had an important political and ideological significance in the multinational city.