History
Tsar Peter the Great founded the city on May 16 (O.S) = May 27 (N.S), 1703 after reconquering the Ingrian land from Sweden. He named it after his patron saint, the apostle St. Peter. The original name of Sankt Piterburh was actually Dutch; Peter had lived and studied in that country for some time. The Swedish fortress of Nyen and later Nöteborg had formerly occupied the site, in the marshlands where the river Neva drains into the Gulf of Finland. Serfs provided most of the labor for the project, including draining the marshes and raising the buildings. According to one estimate, 30,000 died.
St. Petersburg was founded to become the new capital of Russia. By virtue of its position on an arm of the Baltic Sea, it was a "window on the West," allowing trade and cultural exchange. Russia would be a major British trading partner for years to come. It was also a base for Peter's navy, protected by the island fortress of Kronstadt.
One of St. Petersburg's many canals
By the late 19th century, the city was the nation's cultural center, with composers (such as the Big Five), artists, and Socialistss. A Socialist group was responsible for the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. The Russian Revolution of 1905 began here and spread rapidly into the provinces. During World War I, the name Sankt Peterburg was seen to be too German and the city was renamed Petrograd on the initiative of Tsar Nicholas II.
1917 saw the beginnings of the Russian Revolution. The first step (in February) was the removal of the Tsarist government and the institution of a multi-party system. The new government did not last, and civil war broke out in October with the Bolsheviks in charge of the government. The city's proximity to anti-Bolshevik armies forced revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin to flee to the former capital at Moscow on March 5, 1918. The move may have been intended as temporary (it was certainly portrayed as such), but Moscow has remained the capital ever since. Upon Lenin's death in 1924, the city was renamed Leningrad in his honour.
Whereas Alexander II's emancipation of the serfs had caused a mass influx of people and the erection of tenements on the periphery, the government's removal to Moscow caused a mass emigration. The benefits of capital status had now shifted to Moscow. Petrograd's population in 1920 was a third of what it had been in 1915 (see table below).
During World War II, it was surrounded and besieged by the German army from September 8, 1941 until January 27, 1944, a total of twenty-nine months (see Siege of Leningrad). A supply and evacuation road running through the frontline was established on January 18, 1943, but it was open to German airstrikes. Some 800,000 of the city's three million inhabitants are estimated to have perished. (According to some historians, Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin delayed the breaking of the siege and stymied the evacuation of the city because of a desire to curb its free-thinking tendencies and intellectual sophistication.)
The original name - Saint Petersburg - was restored on September 6, 1991. However, the name of the Oblast (administrative province) of which the city is the capital remains Leningrad Oblast.