Evenings in St. Petersburg living rooms at the end of Catherine II’s era as a form of interpersonal communication

The article analyzes the culture of communication of nobles at evenings in the capital's living rooms of Russian nobles at the end of the era of Catherine II, when a subculture of educated representatives of high society was already formed under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment. The purpose of the study is to identify the culture of St. Petersburg aristocrats of the late XVIII century, the features of which were manifested in their daily interaction. The tasks of the study are to study the degree of popularity of evenings in the living rooms of nobles, Catherine II's perception of the opinions of nobles, the style of nobles’ behavior, the subject of their conversations, a combination of innovations and traditions in leisure life, and in determining the attitude of Petersburgers to foreigners. The sources of the study are the memoirs of foreign and Russian contemporaries: Polish aristocrat A. Czartoryski, French artist E. Vige-Lebren, Anglicans Martha and Catherine Wilmot, Russian journalist F. V. Bulgarin, notes by Catherine II. The methodological basis of the work is the concept of a new cultural history, which involves the study of the person in the context of the social environment, its value guidelines, life attitudes, and norms of communication. In historical literature, the leisure of the capital's nobles is studied, but the features of their interpersonal communication in the evenings in the living rooms of the end of the era of Catherine II are not sufficiently analyzed. As a result of the study, the following conclusions were made: metropolitan aristocrats showed great interest in interaction, evenings in the living rooms performed a communicative function, stimulated the study of European literature and art, languages, and contributed to the development of polemic skills. The culture of Russian nobles of the end of the era of Catherine II in work is characterized as «Russian European», combining knowledge of French literature, art and the properties of the Russian mentality: generosity, hospitality, respect for the monarchy, perception of serfdom as the natural state of peasants. The nobles spent evenings in the living rooms of contemporaries explained their desire for communication, which satisfied their needs of social, spiritual and entertaining nature.