Jacqueline M. Olich, Ph.D.

Associate Director

Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies

FedEx Global Education Center, Campus Box 5125

Chapel Hill, NC 27599-5125

jmolich@email.unc.edu

global.unc.edu/slavic

Study Questions for Gloria Whelan, Angel On The Square (Harper Trophy, 2001)

NCSLMA Battle of the Books Booklist 2007-2008

http://www.ncslma.org/BookCompetitions/BoBstate/bobbooklist2007-2008.htm

• What is in a name? Peter the Great planned the city of St. Petersburg on the deltas of the Neva River on the Gulf of Finland. Construction began in 1703 and the city became the official seat of the Russian state in 1710. In 1914, as Russia fought Germany in World War I, Nicholas II changed St. Petersburg’s name to the less Germanic sounding Petrograd (in Russian, “the city of Peter”). After Lenin’s death in 1924, Russia’s revolutionary city was officially referred to as Leningrad. However, throughout Soviet times the city was commonly referred to as “Peter.” In 1991, the city reverted back to it pre-Soviet name and is once again St. Petersburg.

Though the city’s name changed at certain moments in history, its defining landmarks persisted. Using Google maps or Google Earth, locate the following places: Neva River, Nevsky Prospect, the Winter Palace, the Summer Garden, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, Smolny Institute, Peter and Paul Fortress, Alexander’s Palace.

How does Whelan make use of some of these famous places in her story?

• Angel On the Square is an example of historical fiction. The author, Gloria Whelan, juxtaposes fictional characters with historical figures, real-live events and actual places. The author researched Russian history and language to help transport her readers back in time. In many ways, the Russian city of St. Petersburg functions as a character in Angel On The Square. Why did she select the setting--St. Petersburg, 1913-1918--that she did? Why did she select the characters that she did?

• St. Petersburg is famously linked with Russia’s revolutionary history. In Russia, dramatic changes took place in 1905 and in 1917. Revolutionary changes can also be less dramatic and more gradual. There were two widening divides in Russia in the late 1800s and early1900s: 1) the gap between the privileged members of Russian society and the less-privileged members and 2) the gap between members of the ruling family and their circle and the rest of the country. Once these two gaps became wide gulfs, nothing could unite the country. As you read or reread Angel On The Square, list examples of these divides.

• At the onset of the novel, Katya and her mother are members of the Russian nobility, living a life of privilege in the Zhukovsky mansion. Katya’s mother exposes her daughter to the finer things in life--carriages, caviar, French language tutorials, ballrooms, silks, ballet--as she becomes a lady-in-waiting to the Tsarina. Misha, determined to puncture Katya’s idyll and warn of her of looming danger, paints a very different picture of Russia as a whole and St. Petersburg in particular. “You don’t even know what goes on right here under your nose in St. Petersburg,” Misha tells Katya (Whelan, 45). Which represents the “true” St. Petersburg, that of Katya’s mother or Misha?

• Katya is unsettled by what she sees when she and Misha leave the mansion. She concludes: “I was sure that if he knew of it, the Tsar would never allow such a thing. His government must be keeping it a secret from him. . . I resolved to find a way to tell the tsar” (Whelan, 51). Here Katya personifies the “myth of the good tsar.” If only the Tsar knew what was going on, he would improve the way that his people lived. Is she right? Or, as an absolute monarch, was the Tsar blinded by its vision of autocracy and privileged nobility. Why does her mother intercept Katya’s letter? Read through these primary sources--some of Nicholas II’s letters and diary entries at http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/ndiaries1917.html and decide for yourself.

Was he hopelessly and tragically out of touch with events? Were Russians who believed in “they myth of the good tsar” justified or not?

• Katya’s trip to the Oaks serves two important functions: it gives the reader a sense of life outside of St. Petersburg and conveys the tremendous costs, both human and financial, of maintaining a life of privilege. “It was those fields that brought in money to help pay for the upkeep of our St. Petersburg mansion,” (Whelan, p. 66) Katya states. Does Vitya “keep the peasants under control” (Whelan, p. 85) as Katya’s mother claims? What does the character of Vitya teach us about rural Russia?

• “In the event of [Russia’s military] defeat, the possibility of which in a struggle with a foe like Germany cannot be overlooked, social revolution in its most extreme form is inevitable”—P. N. Durnovo, tsarist official, in a memorandum to Tsar Nicholas II, February 1914

Was Russia prepared for war? Katya worried about what the advent of war would mean for Misha but, ultimately, what did it mean for Russia? Initially, people supported the war efforts and made sacrifices. How and why do people’s attitudes change over time? How does Misha’s letter from the front impact Katya?

• By 1917, there were many different groups of people opposed to the war and the Tsar. Some wanted the Tsar to remain in power as a constitutional monarch, others wanted more drastic changes to Russia’s social, economic, and political systems, and others wanted something in between. Everyone found it challenging to keep up with the people in the streets and strikers. Misha is a follower of Alexander Kerensky, who led the Provisional Government after the Tsar abdicated or relinquished his throne. “With Kerensky there is still a chance for a democratic government. Without him, it will be Lenin and Stalin, and Russia will be finished,” (Whelan, p. 185) Misha tells Katya. It is always easier to oppose or criticize a ruler than to rule. Did Keresnky prevail? Did Misha really have his finger on the pulse of Russia or did he have an aristocrat’s romanticized understanding of revolution, as Galya suggests (Whelan, pp. 52-53)?

Want to learn more about Katya’s world? Here are some additional resources:

The State Hermitage Museum

http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/

Photographic tour of St. Petersburg c. 1900:

http://www.alexanderpalace.org/petersburg1900/toc.html

Secret Police (Okhrana) Surveillance Reports on Rasputin:

http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/rasputinreport.html

Diary and Letters of Nicholas II:

http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/ndiaries1917.html

1904 American magazine article on St. Petersburg:

http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/petersburgbayview.html

Jewels of the Romanovs: Treasures of the Imperial Court:

http://www.alexanderpalace.org/jewels/welcome.html

The Empire That Was: The Prokudin-Gorksii Photographic Record Recreated

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/architecture.html

Queen Victoria’s Grandchildren:

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/t-z/threekings02.html

Timeline of related events:

1432 Moscow becomes the capital of Russia

1613 The Assembly of the Lands elects Mikhail Romanov (r. 1613-1645) to become Tsar, beginning the dynasty that lasted until 1917

1696-1725 Peter the Great rules Russia

1703 Construction of St. Petersburg begins on the Finnish Gulf

1710 St. Petersburg became the official seat of government, construction of the Summer and Winter Palaces and the Menshikov mansion begin

1714 one thousand noble families were ordered to permanently relocate to the new capital; Peter the Great prohibited the construction of stone buildings outside of St. Petersburg

1762 Winter Palace completed; Russian nobles freed from compulsory state service

1762-1796 Catherine the Great rules Russia

1812-1814 The Russian Army staves off Napoleon’s invasion

1819 St. Petersburg University opens

1833 Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin publishes The Bronze Horseman

1856 Russia loses the Crimean War; leads to the era of the “Great Reforms” of the 1860s

1861 Emancipation Manifesto freed Russian serfs but land remained the property of the landlords

1881 After numerous attempts on his life, Alexander II assassinated

1882 St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra founded

1894-1917 Nicholas II rules Russia

1905 Russia defeated in the Russo-Japanese War; “Bloody Sunday” leads to strikes and uprisings throughout Russia and the Revolution of 1905

1913 Tercentenary of Romanov rule

1914-1917 Russia in World War I

1917 Russian Revolutions

1917 Prince Georgy Lvov and Alexander Kerensky lead the Russian Provisional Government

1917-1924 Vladmimir Lenin leads the Soviet Union

1928-1953 Josif Stalin leads the Soviet Union

1985-1991 Mikhail Gorbachev leads the Soviet Union

1990 The center of St. Petersburg added to UNESCO’s world heritage list

1991-1999 Boris Yeltsin leads post-Soviet Russia

2000-???? St. Petersburg native, Vladimir Putin, leads Russia