Andrei Bely, Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev_ Transl by Robert A. Maguire and John E. Malmstad-Petersburg -Indiana University Press (1978)

Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (Russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Буга́ев; IPA: [bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪt͡ɕ bʊˈɡajɪf] , better known by the pen name Andrei Bely (Russian: Андре́й Бе́лый; IPA: [ɐnˈdrʲej ˈbʲelɨj] ( listen); 26 October [O.S. 14 October] 1880 – 8 January 1934), was a Russian novelist, poet, theorist, and literary critic. His novel Petersburg was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the four greatest novels of the 20th century.

Bely's symbolist novel Petersburg (1916; 1922) is generally considered to be his masterpiece. The book employs a striking prose method in which sounds often evoke colors. The novel is set in the somewhat hysterical atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Petersburg and the Russian Revolution of 1905. To the extent that the book can be said to possess a plot, this can be summarized as the story of the hapless Nikolai Apollonovich, a ne'er-do-well who is caught up in revolutionary politics and assigned the task of assassinating a certain government official—his own father. At one point, Nikolai is pursued through the Petersburg mists by the ringing hooves of the famous bronze statue of Peter the Great

Petersburg (Russian: Петербургъ, Peterburg) is the title of Andrei Bely's masterpiece, a Symbolist[citation needed] work that foreshadows Joyce's[1] Modernist ambitions.[citation needed] First published in 1913, and For various reasons the novel never received much attention and was not translated into English until 1959 by John Cournos, over 45 years after it was written, after Joyce was already established as an important writer. It was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the four greatest "masterpieces of twentieth century prose", after Ulysses and The Metamorphosis, and before In Search of Lost Time