Bronze Horseman
The work has had enormous influence in Russian culture. The setting of Evgenii's defiance, Senate Square, was coincidentally also the scene of the Decembrist revolt of 1825. Within the literary realm, Dostoevsky's "" ["Двойник"] (1846) directly engages with "The Bronze Horseman", treating Evgenii's madness as parody. The theme of madness parallels many of Gogol's works and became characteristic of 19th- and 20th-century Russian literature. Andrei Bely's novel "Petersburg" ["Петербург"] (1913; 1922) uses the Bronze Horseman as a metaphor for the centre of power in the city of Petersburg, which is itself a living entity and the main character of Bely's novel. The bronze horseman, representing Peter the Great, chases the novel's protagonist, Nikolai Albleukov. He is thus forced to flee the statue just like Evgenii. In this context, Bely implies that Peter the Great is responsible for Russia's national identity that is torn between Western and Eastern influences.