Revolutionary Conservation and the Evolution of Conservatism: I. E. Grabar and the Design of Socialist Monument Protection Policy in the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents the formulation of socialist conservation policy under Soviet regimes. It shows how, with the realization of the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist doctrine, a specific attitude toward the preservation of artistic monuments and cultural heritage emerged and how it changed in the course of the great historical ruptures leading up to the disintegration of ‘real socialism’. Special attention is paid to the work of Igor Emanuelovich Grabar, who had a central influence on Soviet monument preservation as a whole. The article presents the problems of formation of a specifically socialist conception of monument preservation, which began with the first socialist revolution at the beginning of the last century and influenced other countries under the rule of communist parties.