St. Petersburg: Publishing House "European House", 2014. 506 p. (St. Petersburg and the World series)

In 2014, in the series "St. Petersburg and the World", which has been published since 2005 under the auspices of the Committee on External Relations of the Administration of St. Petersburg, the collection "St. Petersburg-Australia"was published. The aim of the series is to show the role of the Northern Capital in the development of relations with the countries of the world and with twin cities, as well as to tell about the most valuable and rich materials on

Natalia SKOROBOGATYKH-Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, arhip2212@yandex.ru.

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history and culture of a particular country stored in the city's libraries, archives, and museums. This approach determined the content of the peer-reviewed publication.

The St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences was responsible for the scientific part, and many articles were written and designed at a high scientific level, differing in the novelty of approaches and analysis. However, the collection, strictly speaking, is not a purely academic publication. Its authors and participants include scientists from universities and academic institutions of the Russian Federation and the Australian Union, as well as teachers, public figures (for example, Alla Petrova, organizer and leader of the Melbourne-St. Petersburg Friendship Society), officials from the St. Petersburg Administration (O. V. Koroleva, E. O. Dvorkin), an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Australian Consul in St. Petersburg Sebastian Fitzlyon and others.

The desire to cover all periods of history and, if possible, all areas of relations between St. Petersburg and Australia today has led to a variety of issues raised on the pages of the collection, which includes history, biology, ecology, education, sports, cinema, fashion, high culture, personalities, travel impressions and even problems of water treatment. The compilers and editors of the collection have tried to group all this thematic diversity in five sections: historical excursion; modern relations; Australian collections in St. Petersburg museums, archives and libraries; personalities; cultural relations. All this inevitably led to different styles of materials in the collection and very different levels of articles included in it, both in scientific terms and in terms of their factual content. In addition, the collection was conceived as a story about St. Petersburg's relations primarily with the twin city of Melbourne (this publication is timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the establishment of twinning ties between them), so the collection is dominated by the "Melbourne accent".

As a historian, my first attention was drawn to the materials of the historical section. I. B. Bratus ' articles "The Discovery of New Holland" and Yu.V. Kosov's "More than two hundred years of successful relations between Australia and Russia" are of a kind of introductory nature, which mark the main stages and briefly list the periods of development of Australia, its economy and the formation of Russian-Australian relations. The extensive (about 90 pages) article by Professor V. V. Noskov from the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences "Russian Cruisers and the formation of Australian statehood" contains all the information on the issues of Australian defense and the formation of the Australian national state in connection with the stay and actions of the Russian fleet in the Pacific basin in the The Russian factor in the formation of statehood on the Southern continent in the general context of consolidating the defense efforts of the British colonies is certainly important. Before V. V. Noskov, few people analyzed this aspect so thoroughly. However, from a broader point of view, the problem of the "Russian panic" raised by the author (p.90) looks only as one of a number of similar threats. It is enough to recall the German presence in New Guinea in the immediate vicinity of the Australian colonial possessions or the French activity in the South Pacific, not to mention the fears of a Chinese invasion-real or imagined for the second half of the XIX century. In this regard, it is impossible not to agree with the opinion of my colleagues (V. P. Nikolaev, S. Pale) that this work was written very competently, but the author still somewhat exaggerates the role of the Russian Fleet in the formation of Australian statehood.

Very interesting is the article by E. V. Govor from the Australian National University in Canberra "St. Petersburg Melbourne: towards the history of early connections", in which the author, using the rich resources of Australian archives, told about the fate of people from St. Petersburg who found themselves in Australia in the XIX-early XX centuries.

Professor A. Y. Massov from the St. Petersburg State Marine Technical University is always a fascinating writer. In his article "Russian Sailors in Melbourne in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries", he uses materials from the Russian State Archive of the Navy to reconstruct the details of Russian sailors ' visits to Melbourne. As always, this author combines a rigorous scientific analysis with a description of the details of daily communication between Russians and Australians.

A kind of mirror image of the article by A. Y. Massov was the remarkable work of a University of Queensland employee, J. R. R. Tolkien. McNair about St. Petersburg through the eyes of Australian travelers - "" A most elegant city...". St.-Petersburg through the Eyes of Australian Travelers". As part of a small review, he managed to present and review the widest range of sources that are not always accessible to the Russian reader. Starting with the notes of L. Macquarie, who visited Russia in 1807 (his words about "the most elegant city" are included in the title

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the author guides the reader through the pages of memoirs of famous Australian writers and public figures, concluding the excursion with the book by G. Ford, which tells about her visits to the banks of the Neva River in the 1990s and early 2000s. I would like to emphasize that J. McNair noted both what the guests from Australia liked in St. Petersburg-Leningrad, and what they did not like. This objectivity makes it very different from similar articles written by Russian, primarily St. Petersburg, authors.

The continuing tradition of St. Petersburg scientists to open to a wide audience the most valuable evidence of bygone times, stored in the archives of their native city, is gratifying. M. F. Matveeva, the head of the Archive of the Russian Geographical Society, is interested in the publication "Baron N. V. Kaulbars' Report on Russian Colonization in the Pacific in 1870". Another remarkable document is included in the collection with a small but high-quality introductory article by L. B. Volftsun, an employee of the Russian National Library (RNB) "A. A. Vasiliev-a scientist and traveller". This is a reprint of the most interesting report of the famous Russian Byzantine historian A. A. Vasiliev about his trip to Australia in 1906 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the University of Melbourne.

Almost all the materials that tell about Australian collections in St. Petersburg museums, archives and libraries are very good. This is not just a history of scientific connections and the formation of collections of museums and libraries: they can be considered as a kind of review and analysis of the source base for the development of Russian Australiana and as a reference material for domestic Australian scholars. I would like to mention the articles by the Zoological and Botanical Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences E. M. Arnautova "Botanical relations between Australia and St. Petersburg", N. V. Slepkova and E. P. Tikhonova "Cooperation of the Zoological Museum and Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences with zoologists of Australia", as well as St. Petersburg ethnographers about the collections of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera). Peter the Great: E. S. Soboleva "On the history of cooperation between the ethnographic museums of St. Petersburg and Australia at the beginning of the XX century" and P. L. Belkov "The land of Midday Galles, or the most remote part of the East in the mirror of the museum collections of St. Petersburg in the first quarter of the XIX century". Quite informative is the work of S. A. Khodakovskaya and V. M. Ushakov "Amazing a nice, peaceful country..."about Russian political emigrants and documents, mostly of a political nature, related to Australia and stored in the collections of the Museum of Political History of Russia.

It is a pity that articles about the book exchange with Australia, carried out by the Library of the Academy of Sciences (BAN), and about Australian animals that lived in the past and present in the Zoological Garden of St. Petersburg are actually announced due to the brevity of the text (2-3 pages each) compared to the stated topic. It is particularly disappointing that the Australian cartographic materials available in the cartography Department of the Russian National Library are also briefly mentioned; but, according to L. K. Kildyushevskaya, their images are reproduced for the first time on the pages of the reviewed collection (pp. 309-319) and undoubtedly deserve a more detailed description.

From the section on scientific and humanitarian contacts, I will highlight the remarkable work of A. S. Petrikovskaya "St. Petersburg and Melbourne: from the history of cultural ties", as well as the article by G. I. Kanevskaya "This is an amazing city, regardless of the time of year or historical time" about the role of St. Petersburg in the life of the founder of Australian Russian studies and a native of St. Petersburg Christesen. N. F. Efendieva's essay on the masters of the "new wave" in Australian cinema is of particular interest.

There are also a number of interesting or touching publications: for example, about Yu. D. Aksenov, a remarkable man, Consul General of Russia in Sydney in 1999-2003. The author of these warm memories is an employee of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography named after him. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera) RAS Doctor of Historical Sciences N. G. Krasnodemskaya, who knew Yu. D. Aksenov well.

I cannot but say good words about the travel notes of S. E. Katin and N. V. Gulyaeva, where their journey and meetings with Australians in 1999 are described in detail and very vividly. An inspiring impression is made by M. M. Shmulevich's story about the close friendly relations of Pushkin's schoolchildren and their peers from Melbourne.

In the section "Saint Petersburg-Australia. Today's Day " has published articles that give a detailed panorama of various aspects of bilateral cooperation. In particular, it was interesting to learn about the prospects of contacts in the field of education and ecology (articles by F. G. Khanin from St. Petersburg State University "St. Petersburg as a leader in educational relations between Russia and Australia", T. R. Kuzmina from the University of Economics " Prospects for St. Petersburg-Australian cooperation

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cooperation in higher education and research" and Professor A. E. Cherepovitsin "Economic incentives for energy-efficient development and emission reduction"). An interesting note about the use of Australian crayfish in water purification in Northern Palmyra.

It is worth noting the excellent design of the collection, in particular, numerous photographs, reproductions of portraits and sketches, facsimiles of old maps and documents from the archives.

It is also unusual for Russian publications that the articles of the Australian participants of the collection are published in the author's editorial office, i.e. in English. On the one hand, this makes it possible to preserve the stylistic features of each, on the other - we can only hope for an increased educational level of the domestic reader, which will allow him to master and appreciate the specifics and charm of the original. However, for everyone's convenience, the authors kindly accompanied each article with a short summary in Russian or English.

I am glad that such a publication was born and opened up all the diversity of St. Petersburg's cooperation with Australia, and most importantly, introduced such an unexpected number of people who are interested in Australia, are engaged in it and write about it. It is useful to learn a lot of new information about the organization of the museum business in St. Petersburg and about the huge, painstaking work of the staff of its archives and repositories, as well as about the intensive scientific connections between them and their Australian colleagues. The authors of the collection have fully achieved their goal: its pages contain a colorful, multi-faceted picture of historical and modern relations between St. Petersburg and the Australian Union - from economic, business and political relations to the "people's diplomacy" of ordinary citizens of the two countries. This mutual interest of residents of the Southern Continent and the Russian Federation is a powerful incentive for specialists in the field of Australian studies and inspires them to continue further research, since they are so in demand in our countries.

Unfortunately, the genre and volume of the review do not allow us to elaborate on all the articles contained in the collection; and this is not necessary, given the opportunity to get acquainted with them by reading the publication in person. It's just a pity that such an acquaintance is the lot of a few, because the circulation of this publication is negligible - only 200 copies. Well, this fact only adds weight to the collection, which automatically becomes a bibliographic rarity.

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