Socialist utopia or dystopian nightmare? American interwar travelogues about Russia

Abstract

This article examines US travellers’ disparate definitions of Russia between World War I and World War II. The study focuses primarily on two distinct types of tourists: those who visited more for recreational purposes and those who travelled to educate themselves about Russian society. The essay argues that these divergent forms of border crossing contributed to the growing abundance of ambiguous Russo-American travel narratives that proved unable to define “Russianness” with any clarity or consistency. Such hazy travel narratives continued – to an extent – during the Cold War, as travellers from both the USA and Russia did not necessarily agree with the oppositional rhetoric espoused by Moscow and Washington. An analysis of travelogues from the interwar years therefore allows for a more comprehensive examination of the ill-defined identity dynamics which later manifested themselves in the Cold War.