To the Hermitage

Summary

In the novel «To the Hermitage», Malcolm Bradbury masterfully weaves together past and present, taking the reader on a captivating journey in the footsteps of the philosopher Denis Diderot. A contemporary English scholar, accompanied by a group of colleagues, travels to St. Petersburg to attend a conference dedicated to the fate of Diderot’s manuscripts, once kept in the Hermitage. Against the backdrop of the city’s majestic landscapes, among museum halls and the shadows of history, the novel’s characters confront questions of truth, freedom of thought, and cultural differences. Bradbury skillfully blends satire, philosophical reflection, and subtle irony, creating a multilayered narrative where past and present, fiction and reality, are interwoven into an exquisite literary mosaic.