Provincial Cities’ Anniversaries and the Formation of Soviet “Peripheral Capitals”

Abstract

This article analyses some aspects of the socioeconomic and political uses of anniversaries in the Soviet and contemporary Russian history to boost the development of the territory. Initially, the desire of the young Soviet state to sever all ties with the past made the “anniversary question” almost absurd. Soviet anniversary traditions formed in the late 1920s–1930s when the 3rd, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th anniversaries of organisations and enterprises were celebrated everywhere. The article also mentions personal anniversaries, which celebrated the time of work in a particular institution, or in a particular specialty and other reasons. Additionally, the author considers the political decisions of the Soviet / Russian authorities on the regulation of the “anniversary question”. Starting with the late 1940s, the anniversary of a city could be a political campaign, a way of symbolic mobilisation and accumulation of resources. On the other hand, cities’ anniversaries caused a surge in local historical and cultural activism, contributed to the formation of local lore communities, and stimulated the formation of local identity. Particular attention is paid to the resonant “dispute of historians” considering the date of foundation of the city of Perm at the turn of the 1970s, which is personified in the controversy between F. S. Gorovoy and B. N. Nazarovsky becoming a model for the establishment of anniversaries of local centres. A new interpretation of the above polemic is proposed in the context of the Soviet public history formation. The first full-scale anniversary of Perm (as well as a few other Soviet cities) demonstrated its potential as a socioeconomic technology and stimulated urban development and accumulation of the provincial / regional capital. The celebration of anniversaries forms a specific temporality of key dates and gives an impetus to the development of the symbolic component of metropolitan identity.