Cultural landscape of the Arctic: ‘recycling’ of soviet imagery in the Russian settlement of Barentsburg, Svalbard (Norway)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe paper analyzes the contemporary cultural landscape of the Arctic, using the example of Barentsburg, a Russian mining town located on the archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. The study uses current debates on urban cultural landscape, heritage, and identity to explain the endurance of Soviet imagery in the contemporary cultural landscape. The article argues that Soviet heritage has not been ‘left over’; instead, it has been purposefully ‘recycled’ to serve its claimants under new economic and geopolitical conditions. By maintaining its presence on Svalbard, Russia asserts its Arctic nation status and adds the Arctic dimension to its identity project in the making. The latter instrumentalizes selective aspects of the Soviet past that fit well with political discourses in contemporary Russia, including those of power, space, and otherness.