Archaeology of a Lost World and Remembering Soviet Life

Abstract

Archaeology of a Lost World and Remembering Soviet Life Igor Narskii Translated by Nicholas Seay Karl Schlögel, Das sowjetische Jahrhundert: Archäologie einer untergangenen Welt (The Soviet Century: Archaeology of a Lost World). 912 pp. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2018. ISBN-13 978-3406715112. €38.00. Among the hundreds of books on the history of the Russian Revolution and the USSR published to mark the centennial of the October Revolution, Karl Schlögel’s new work stands out. It seems likely to become an instant classic, essential reading for any specialist of East European history, at least those competent in German. This comes as no surprise. The same thing happened with the previous works of this well-known historian and publicist who has taught East European history at Universität Konstanz (1990–94) and Europa-Universität Viadrina (1995–2013).1 The book under review has a long backstory. As the author himself explains in the afterword, the book developed over a quarter-century, and his students at Konstanz were the first to learn about the project (849). Schlögel was finally able to devote his full attention to this long-term study in 2013, as a fellow at the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung Foundation in Munich. He presented his work to the foundation in May 2013, then reworked and expanded his presentation into a 120-page brochure, The Archaeology of Communism, or Russia in the 20th Century: Reconstructing the Picture, in 2014.2 This pamphlet [End Page 891] outlined the main concepts of Schlögel’s scholarly approach and offers useful insights on the history of the current book’s publication. The structure of the brochure likewise eases the task of contextualizing Schlögel’s work within the international historical literature. One factor crucial to contextualizing Schlögel’s latest monograph is the events that occurred between his presentation in Munich in May 2013 and the publication of his brochure at the end of 2014. In his own words, the “illegal annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the events that followed (including the Russian Federation’s subsequent armed intervention in Eastern Ukraine) struck the field like a lightning bolt, illuminating it once again. As a result, the subjects of my research have newly defined, clear-cut contours. The question thus arises: is it too early to talk about the end of an era? The situation in Ukraine has become extraordinarily pressing and even dangerous for the country, not to mention the rest of Europe.”3 The Russian-Ukrainian conflict effectively transformed Schlögel’s priorities (19). Although his “major work” had been maturing for years, even decades, current events spurred him to finish it. A second important factor is Schlögel’s analytic approach to Russian and Soviet history, developed throughout his career, which became the foundation of his 2014 brochure. In this method, he approaches the Soviet past as if it were an archaeological site, digging investigatory pits, removing layers, and uncovering new objects for preservation and interpretation. As in an archaeo-logical excavation, his method lacks a concrete plan and carries the risk that he may emerge from the research empty-handed. Instead of applying limits, systems, or hierarchies in the process of gathering, selecting, and interpreting material, Schlögel states: “it is much more interesting and effective to begin working in a few different places and directions and then see where the most promising leads emerge. This is precisely how archaeological fieldwork begins; if you knew previously where the treasure was, you could skip these steps altogether.”4 But, of course, this work requires the human “touch.” It relies on the researcher’s personal experience, knowledge, temperament, and intuition and is thus riddled with subjectivity. That subjectivity is heightened if the past “dug up” is one that the researcher personally lived through: “The process of excavation simultaneously becomes a process of self-analysis, both engaged with the era and formed by it.”5 The specific points of Schlögel’s research program, as outlined in 2013 and realized in his 2017 book, allow us to place his work in the context of [End Page 892] a nearly virtual historiographical trend, the defining characteristic...