Putting Up Moscow: The Commissarat of Education in Kirov, 1941–1943

Abstract

During World War II, a quarter of million people and many factories, institutions, and government agencies evacuated to the region and city of Kirov (known as Viatka before December 1934) and located 530 miles northeast of Moscow. Their number included the Russian Republic’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompros). Putting Up Moscow focuses on the resistance by local, municipal, and regional organs in Kirov, when confronted with Narkompros’s demands of them. While the commissariat at fi rst received scarce resources, including prime physical facilities, Kirov’s soviet and party organs pushed back, tentatively at fi rst, and more boldly later, in order to limit the strain on the region’s resources and the harm to local interests. In 1943, Narkompros completed its return to Moscow. Its leaders and rank-and-file members were happy to go home. Kirov’s government and many of its citizens were equally happy to see them go.