Download or read book How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself written by Emily D. Johnson and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Johnson traces the history of kraevedenie, showing how St. Petersburg-based scholars and institutions have played a central role in the evolution of the discipline. Distinguished from obvious Western equivalents such as cultural geography and the German Heimatkunde by both its dramatic history and unique social significance, kraevedenie has, for close to a hundred years, served as a key forum for expressing concepts of regional and national identity within Russian culture."--Jacket.