The ability to quite literally make something out of nothing has been a reoccurring theme since we started to discuss the city of Petersburg. In the Bronze Horseman, Pushkin presents us with the idea and image that Peter is this God-like figure that managed to erect this city of majestic proportions from the water and its vast nothingness. This nothingness over time fulfilled the purpose of its creation, and became a window into Europe, bridging Russia to the West, and as a result it became everything, being both Russia and Europe, but not quite able to be distinctly either one of them. This conflict in its identity is fascinating to watch as it is explored by the writers inhabiting it. The origin of the city is in itself a miraculous feat, it having been built in spite of the laws of nature, and therefore, along those lines, should not have existed. With that in mind, the identity of the city is already compromised through its very creation.

The story in The Nose then perfectly encapsulates this idea, where this absurd scenario is most likely dreamt up by the inhabitants of the city and spread around the city as a rumor. This story than becomes a reality in the mind of inhabitants of the city, the same way that a guide to the city would present the monuments of the city along with places of action in famous literary works about the city of Petersburg. All this feeding into the mythical aspect of the city, in which the city is partly defined by fiction and false realities, in other words nothingness. The false story  itself is emblematic of this conflicted sense of identity where the character of the Major loses his nose, a part of the body that is not typically emblematic of the whole of one’s identity, but as a result of losing it has a an identity crisis. This identity crisis at the loss of such an insignificant part of oneself is emblematic of the fragility of the identity of the Major: the identity of the Major is also then based on nothing, like the city. But then the fact that the nose could then in turn gain an identity all of its own is then also testament of the precarious of nature of identity in the city.

The theme repeats itself again in the movie Lieutenant Kizhe, where the entire movie is then based on the non-existence of its main character, made into being to cover the mistakes and inadequacies of some palace guards. Throughout the movie, this non-existant character is recognized as being a real person without corporeal form, and is treated thus. He was whipped, exiled, brought dinner, promoted, married, dies, demoted, and finally buried throughout the course of the film in one extremely short span of time. This character lived through so many experiences without really existing.

The identity of the city is unlike anything I have encountered in literature, where it, though concrete, is yet nothing while also being everything projected onto it. It is a city then full of possibility, more than any other place in the world, but this potential is then also tainted by the idea that the result of that possibility is somehow also fictional.