The Genesis of the Russian Grazhdanskii Shrift or Civil Type—Part II

Abstract

Part II of the Kaldor paper is based on the assumption that the first Russian modern type (i.e., Peter I’s grazhdanskii shrift) was patterned after three basic models: a) the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Russian civil hands, b) the outmoded poluustav type, and c) the contemporaneous Western roman types. The impact of Western roman types appears to be the most significant. In his search for a particular work that might have served as a source, the author proposes the hypothesis that the roman type used in Matthias Dögen’s Architectura militaris moderna and, to some extent, in Peter’s favorite Symbola et emblemata were the models applied by the designer. A type-by-type analysis of the original three versions of grazhdanskii shrift is used to support the basic theory.