Plague, quarantine, and environmental design in nineteenth century Odesa

ABSTRACT

The role of urban planning and architecture in mitigating infectious diseases has lately attracted more scholarly attention. The paper explores an epidemic of plague in nineteenth-century Odesa (then the Russian Empire, now Ukraine) and argues that the city's development was fundamentally linked to activities focused on preventing the disease's reoccurrence and creating a healthy urban environment. It analyzes never discussed visual materials from the collections of the Hermitage Museum, State Museum in Berlin, Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), British Museum, and Library of Congress and places them in the context of literary work, mainly travellers’ diaries and memoirs of contemporaries. Although over the last two decades, several publications focused on Odesa's history, literature, culture, and social life came into existence, the urban development and architecture of this metropolis have yet to garner sufficient scholarly attention. The article focuses on primary sources making new attributions of visual materials. It illuminates such essential aspects of urban life as health and hygiene, sanitation, design of open green spaces, and control of air and water supplies. It also helps to understand the architectural solutions for mitigating infectious disease and establishing Odesa as one of the leaders in pandemic-related development at the time.

KEYWORDS:

• Odesa
• quarantine
• nineteenth-century Russian empire
• environmental design
• urban planning
• urban health

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Davis, Epidemics, planning, and the City: A Special Issue of Planning Perspectives; Lopez. Urban Life and Health in the Nineteenth Century; Hebbert, A City in Good Shape: Town Planning and Public Health; Lowe, Embedding Health; Gehl, Public Space, and Public Life During Covid-19.

2 Odesa is spelled with one letter S according to Ukrainian convention. Citations from nineteenth-century publications preserve the historical spelling – Odessa.

3 See note 1.

4 Howard, An Account of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe, 1789.

5 Shafonsky, Opisanīe morovoǐ i︠a︡zvy, byvsheǐ vʺ stolichnomʺ gorodi︠e︡ Moskvi︠e︡ s 1770 po 1772 god.

6 Kostyuk, Disease control.

7 The Notes of the Odessa Society, accessed at https://customs.gospmr.org/karantin-istoriya-tryokhsotletney-davn.html.

8 Serrano, Spreading the Revolution: Guyton's Fumigating Machine in Spain. Politics, Technology, and Material Culture (1796-1808).

9 Laugier, 122.

10 Hommaire de Hell, Les steppes de la mer caspienne, 6.

11 Lyall, Travels, 203.

12 Hommaire, Op.cit., 5.

13 Le Cointe, La cuisine de santé, 1790.

14 Бoтанический сад Десмета in Одесский вестник. 1829, No 53, c.59.

15 Kohl, Russia: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkoff, Riga, Odessa, the German Provinces, 425.

16 AGHORA: platform for research databases at l’Institute national d’histoire de l’art (INHA); https://agorha.inha.fr/ark:/54721/cde39dfb-3288-44c5-af61-12e771addecb.

17 Laugier, An essay on Architecture, 122.

18 Kirpichnikov, Odessa: 1794-1894, 276.

19 Schaal, Water Well.

20 Kirpichnikov, Op.cit. 278.

21 Sintsov Ob Odesskikh burovykh skvazhinakh. Zapisski Novorossijskogo obshchestva estestvoispytatelei. T.xviii, vyp. 2, 1893, s.95.

22 Armstrong, Julien-David Leroy and the Making of Architectural History.

23 State Hermitage Museum, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

24 Morton, Travels.189.

25 Thomas de Thomon Hospital for Poor.

26 de Reuilly, Voyage, 265.

27 Bergdoll, Architecture of Isolation, 3–13.

28 Lynch, Odessa, 1812: Plague and Tyranny at the Edge of the Empire.

29 Castlneau, Essai sur l’histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle Russie. Statistique des provinces qui la composent. Fondation d’Odessa; ses progrès, son état actuel; détails sur son commerce.

30 Morton, Travels, 318.

31 Mead, A Short Discourse.

32 Boulton, An Essay on the Plague, 6–8.

33 Rose, A Theorico-Practical, 9, 12, 13, 18, 19.

34 Iljine and Herlihy, Odessa's Memories, 5.

35 Kirpichnikov, Одесса, 1794-1894, 185.

36 Reports of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 28.

37 Mead, A Short Discourse, 12–13, Ibid., 81.

38 Sir Richard Manningham, A Discourse 14.

39 Hauy, Bridge over Post Street. 1824.; Hauy. Bridge over the Jewish Street. 1824.; Schaal and Hauy, Constructions for the Porto-franco in Odessa. 1822.; Schaal and Hauy, Work on the Quarantine. Façade and Plan of the Area for Passengers. 1823.; Schaal and Hauy, Work for the Quarantine. Façade and Plan of the Area for Those Infected. 1823.; Schaal and Hauy, Work for the Quarantine. Site Plan. 1823.

40 Morton, Travels; Stephens, Incidents of Travel.

41 Gross, Odessa La Quarantaine. The British Museum # 1936,0425.45.

42 Foreign Quarterly Review, 126.

43 Kohl, Russia: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkoff, Riga, Odessa, the German Provinces, 126.

44 Harper & Brothers, The Steppes, Odessa, and the Crimea, 10. This description is similar to the one in John Stephens, Incidents of Travel.

45 Hommaire de Hell, Les steppes de la mer caspienne, 3–5.

46 Hommaire de Hell, Les steppes de la mer caspienne, 3.

47 Bergdoll. Architecture of Isolation.

48 Report by Consul-General, 436.

49 Diachenko The Centenary of the Organization … 

50 Kirpichnikov, 445.

51 Hommaire de Hell, Les steppes de la mer caspienne, 7.

52 Adolphus Slade, Travels in Germany, 326.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maya Gervits

Maya Gervits is a historian and librarian. She holds Ph.D. in art and architectural history and a master's in library science. She has been Director of the Littman Library at the Hillier College of Architecture and Design, NJIT since 2002. Prior to that, she served as a Western Art Bibliographer at Princeton University and curator at the Hermitage Museum, Russia. She has presented her research at multiple conferences and published two books and numerous articles, including Leo von Klenze and the New Hermitage. St. Petersburg: Hermitage Museum & ARS, 2003 (in Russian), “Leo von Klenze and the New Hermitage” (Visual Resources, vol. 14, n. 2), and “Historicism, Nationalism, and Museum Architecture in Russia from the Nineteenth to the Turn of the Twentieth Century” (Visual Resources, vol.27, n.1). Her current research is focused on urban planning and architecture in the nineteenth-century Russian empire, digital humanities, and librarianship.