Abstract
This article maps the presentation of nuclear power as valuable cultural heritage in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Drawing on the analysis of archival documents, exhibitions, site visits and interviews, it argues that the nuclear cultural heritage-making that is taking place in Russia is not limited to self-promotion by the nuclear industry but is shaped by different professional and societal groups seeking to define their identity and gain recognition in the public sphere. The selected case studies, the Polytechnical Museum (Politekh) in Moscow and Rosatom's recent attempts to institutionalize nuclear cultural heritage, add new empirical material to the existing studies of Soviet and post-Soviet nuclear culture and offer new insights into its character.
Highlights
In this article I trace the major shifts in the presentation of nuclear power as valuable cultural heritage in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia
Drawing on analysis of archival documents, exhibitions, site visits, and interviews, I argue that nuclear cultural heritage-making is an expression of a new form of nuclear culture, which is emerging bottom-up through the initiative of scientific communities and top-down, promoting the nuclear industry
The emerging notion of nuclear cultural heritage making can be compared to the nineteenth century idea of Russian national heritage as “stranovedinee,” which referred to studying and preserving the material and cultural legacies of the Russian lands
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