Soviet Context Research Articles

Architecture between empire and revolution: housing and the shaping of Soviet Leningrad

ABSTRACT This article traces the planning history of the first major housing projects built in Soviet Leningrad: the Traktornaya Ulitsa and Serafimov site housing estates. Initiated by municipal authorities in 1924, they were built according to the designs of its own Design Buro and the architects Aleksandr Nikolsky, Aleksandr Gegello, and Grigorii Simonov in 1925–1926. Spearheading the reconstruction of a large industrial suburb, these projects offer an original example of the role of housing in urban development in the Soviet Union and in one of Europe’s largest cities. The planning history of the projects illuminates the way urban development unfolded in the early Soviet context: through practice and negotiation with multiple contexts, both the historic, imperial city and the revolution. The article shows the exemplary quality of these projects and their power and means to reinvent the historic forms and meanings of the city, and reconfigure its spatial hierarchies. It analyses the sources and means at play from revolutionary ideals and avant-garde ideas on form to western models of housing, the surrounding classical city and Byzantine and Russian vernacular architecture. It thus delineates the means through which architecture acts as an instrument of social and cultural change.

Introduction

AbstractThis cluster of articles explores the gendered history of the military in the Russian imperial and Soviet contexts during periods of imperial conquest, war, and their complex aftermaths. The cluster began at the 2021 ASEEES virtual convention, when the contributors joined the Zoom panel while their respective countries were in various stages of lockdown. Chronologically, the cluster stretches from the middle of the nineteenth century to the 1960s, with two articles on the Russian Empire and two covering the Soviet period. From the imperial borderlands of the Caucasus in the nineteenth century to the Nazi‐occupied western frontiers of the Soviet Union during the Second World War, ideas about appropriate feminine and masculine behavior shaped the enactment of and reactions to violence. Veterans of the Russo‐Japanese and Second World Wars drew on vocabularies of military masculinity to claim authority within their respective postwar societies. In this short introduction, we reflect on the relationship between gender history and military history and underline the importance of integrating the Russian/Soviet case into international historiographies of gender and war.

Poetic content [Poeticheskoe soderzhanie

Abstract The text is a translation from Russian of the first chapter of Soviet theorist Efim Etkind’s 1963 work Poeziia i perevod [Poetry and Translation], in slightly abridged form. Etkind is a vital figure within the translation milieu of the ‘Thaw’ era of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when there was a policy of de-Stalinization and a degree of liberalization. Etkind’s insightful work on poetry translation using comparative stylistics reflected, in some ways, the cultural-political environment of the time. It differed radically from the Realist approach of Ivan Kashkin, who was influenced by Socialist Realism and Stalin-era rhetoric. Etkind pushed the boundaries of what could be said about translation. His apparently apolitical approach was in fact strongly politicized in the Soviet context, and his choice of authors and translators to discuss evidenced his sympathy for those out of favor with the regime and for fellow Jews. Appendices – including a glossary of poetic terms and some biographical notes – are attached for the reader’s benefit.

Introduction to translating Etkind

Abstract The text is a translation from Russian of the first chapter of Soviet theorist Efim Etkind’s 1963 work Poeziia i perevod [Poetry and Translation], in slightly abridged form. Etkind is a vital figure within the translation milieu of the ‘Thaw’ era of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when there was a policy of de-Stalinization and a degree of liberalization. Etkind’s insightful work on poetry translation using comparative stylistics reflected, in some ways, the cultural-political environment of the time. It differed radically from the Realist approach of Ivan Kashkin, who was influenced by Socialist Realism and Stalin-era rhetoric. Etkind pushed the boundaries of what could be said about translation. His apparently apolitical approach was in fact strongly politicized in the Soviet context, and his choice of authors and translators to discuss evidenced his sympathy for those out of favor with the regime and for fellow Jews.

Soviet and Russian Regimes of Spatial Inscription: A Critical Analysis of Indigenous versus Official Place Names on Maps in Siberia, 1920s–2000s

This article discusses Indigenous Evenki place names (hydronyms) on official topographic maps and handwritten sketches in a broader context of Soviet and Russian regimes of spatial inscription and toponymic policies and their legacies. The early Soviet policy of korenizatsia (indigenization) facilitated the incorporation of Indigenous place names into official nomenclature. As a result, a large number of Indigenous toponyms appeared on official maps. The aim of this article is to examine the evolving relationships between Indigenous place names and official place names of Indigenous origin across three historical periods (the 1920s, the 1950s, and the contemporary era) and in two politically distinct settings, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Amur region. The data sets for this research were extracted from official maps and Evenki archival sketch maps collected by Glafira Vasilevich in Siberia between the 1920s and the 1960s. Using Quantum GIS in conjunction with ethnographic fieldwork, statistical analysis, and qualitative linguistic assessment, this research further investigates the evolution of Indigenous names on maps, focusing on the most characteristic changes in their inscription over the past century. This article concludes by highlighting the power dynamics between different Indigenous place-naming traditions in Siberia, where various Indigenous communities have historically distinct opportunities to influence toponymic policies.

Late-Soviet Collective Housing: Self-Help Construction and Self-Management in Youth Residential Complex Housing Movement

In the Soviet era, a long-lasting idea of collective housing was implemented in various forms, most notably, constructivist “house-communes” (doma-kommuny) of the 1920s. This article considers less-known realization of collective housing in late-Soviet Russia, by focusing on the project of “Youth Residential Complex” (MZhK). Starting in 1968, this project was declared as an experiment, in which residents had to participate in the process of design, organization, and management of their housing complexes. Future residents also had to work on the construction site for several years, building housing with their labor and earning, in such a way, the right to live in it. Based on this case, this article re-emphasizes the agency of residents’ collectives and grassroot organization as an essential but neglected part of late-Soviet urban development. In contrast to the common narrative of the top-down provision of apartments by the state, it demonstrates that bottom-up collective practices were behind a major housing project, with ample consequences for both people concerned and urban development. While the history of self-help housing construction is firmly embedded within the context of crises and austerity, in the Soviet context, participation in self-help project was regarded as a privilege, leading to a single-family apartment ownership and exclusive urban services, otherwise unavailable in residential districts.

Why Was Lina Shtern Not Executed? An Academic's Strategy of Survival in the Late Stalinist Period

AbstractThe Soviet physiologist Lina Solomonovna Shtern (1875—1968) was the only defendant in the trial against the Jewish Antifascist Committee who was not sentenced to death; the circumstances surrounding the court’s leniency toward her have long remained unknown. Shtern was sentenced to five years in exile and even her belongings were not confiscated. Her story has become the stuff of legends and much speculation. My paper reconstructs the particular circumstances surrounding the court’s decision to give Shtern a more lenient sentence and considers how the politics of science in the late 1940s and early 1950s could have influenced this decision and helped Shtern elaborate her own strategy of survival. I argue that the main reason for sparing Shtern’s life was her essay “On Cancer” written in the prison cell in the late 1951—early 1952. My work is based on a careful analysis of documents from Shtern’s personal archive and of the context of Soviet and North American medicine.

The nothingness myth

Abstract This article analyzes the concept of “nothingness” as a part of human- resource relations in pre- and post-industrial landscapes. It addresses nothingness as a part of mythological narratives in Kvartsitnyi settlement in northwestern Russia. Kvartsitnyi was built in the 1970s near the new quartzitic sandstone quarry and was initially viewed as a modern settlement attracting workers from all around the country. However, in the early 2000s, the quarry went bankrupt and closed. The pre-industrial landscape of Kvartsitnyi is often viewed in the interviews as empty, and the quarry's closure recreated this symbolic “nothingness.” These narratives resemble mythological creation stories when a new world appears from nothing but is destroyed as a result of human mistakes. The article discusses the cosmogonic myth of Kvartsitnyi within the larger context of Soviet and post-Soviet myth-making.

Centralization can jeopardize local wild plant-based food security

Centralization is one mechanism of authoritative control, where citizens receive operation guidelines from a single source. This can impact various spheres of life including local gastronomic knowledge, a cornerstone of biocultural diversity. We explored how to evaluate the effects of Soviet centralization on wild food plant local gastronomic knowledge. We considered four case studies of ethnic communities that are divided by political borders. In total, we conducted 581 semi-structured interviews. Our results suggest three main findings. The first regards the high similarity of use of wild food plants among the communities living in Russia and Finland. The second involves the higher proportion of simple preparations made with wild food plants in Soviet contexts, which is not evident in adjacent non-Soviet countries. The third concerns the low(er) number of distinct wild plant-based foods retained by non-Soviet countries and, in post-Soviet contexts, those that refer to past uses. We argue that the erosion of wild food plant-based local gastronomic knowledge guided by homogenization and repression poses a serious risk to local food security.

Adventure in times of terror

This article follows the history of the idea of adventure in the Soviet Union, which started as a dream of the great communist adventure but two decades into the revolution turned into the nightmare of the Great Terror. Adventure was implicated in the violent realities of Stalinism through tropes of the adventure genre, such as the loneliness of the adventurer in a precarious world impenetrable by reason. Understanding this situation requires a focus on philosophies of both adventure and terror. For instance, Hegel’s philosophy of adventure will help us to reveal features of the lived experience in times of terror, whilst Mikhail Ryklin’s philosophy of terror sheds light on the significance of the adventure genre in the Soviet 1930s. This double focus allows articulation of a primary feature of violence that is often overlooked, namely, the fundamental reciprocity that structures it. In the Soviet context, we find historically neglected but critically important reflections on the relation between violence and adventure in the life and works of Lev Kopelev. We also find a unique deliberation on the dialectics of violence (and counter-violence) in Evgeni Shvarc’s adventure tale The Dragon (1943) which can be fruitfully read in dialogue with Arendt’s vital distinction between violence and power. Reconsidering these sources is an important task for today given that Russian politics has once again, 30 years after perestroika, regressed into mass violence.

NORTHERN ENCOUNTERS: THE RUSSO-FINNISH BORDER AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY IN A CROSS-REGIONAL COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

This paper explores the connection between border making and order making projects and informal transborder practices and experiences in the geopolitically important sectors along contested Russian imperial/Soviet borders in the early twentieth century. In particular, the study examines how borders and controls were locally co-constructed at two different border strips of the Russo-Finnish border in the 1920s, while also conceptualizing the border as a site of informality and resistance. Findings, based on an array of previously unused historical sources, reveal that the cooperation patterns and rivalry between economic and military-political border control agencies in the early Soviet context differed in various regional frameworks, depending on the multiplicity of local factors. Civil, economic measures of border protection finally failed due to its inherent incompatibility with the increasing state pressures in a new, highly politicized context and a lack of financial and human resources. The paper demonstrates that the disintegration of the Russian empire was accompanied by enlivening of not only economic, but also generating new unique social and cultural exchanges at formerly ‘transparent’ borders. Novel cross-border networks and practices emerged around Soviet borders after 1917 in a radically transformed postimperial space, were all geared toward illicit transborder trade, but had their own unique specificity.

TURKMEN VERNACULAR MUSIC CULTURE AS A SUBJECT MATTER OF THE ALMANAC “AYDING-GYUNLER”

The paper considers the representation of Turkmen music culture in the Soviet almanac “Ayding-Gyunler” (1934) and aims to recognize the patterns of including vernacular culture into the Soviet literary field. The analysis of the texts’ content and the archival sources, including unpublished ones, sheds a light on the processes of incorporation of the so-called “national” culture into the Soviet context, such as declared decolonization and an attempt to “understand the new Turkmenistan”. The analysis is put into historical and cultural perspective of recognizing the typical Turkmen traits of the music culture in the texts of the almanac. Th e archival sources include unpublished notes on the Turkmen folklore, which is considered as one of the sources of the writers’ work. Th e texts of the almanac represent the view of the Europeans –members of the writers’ brigade who provided materials for the almanac. The poem by Turkmen author Durdy Klych is strongly connected with vernacular culture, but being put into the context of the almanac, it gains a new use for the aims of the Soviet literature. The view of the Turkmen culture in the almanac remains oriental, which dissonates with the proclaimed “deexotization” of the Soviet policy. However, further investigation into the next almanac “Turkmenistan” should be made. It is probable that the integration continued and the view of the writers changed according to the contemporary Soviet policy.

Soviet and Russian perspectives on geoengineering and climate management

AbstractSoviet science contributed significantly to our understanding of anthropogenic climate change and, as part of this, played a central role in the emerging science underpinning climate modification and geoengineering initiatives. A key focus of discussion was the use of stratospheric aerosols linked to the innovative ideas of Mikhail Budyko and colleagues. This work had its origins in what has been termed the theory of aerosol climatic catastrophe, which gained prominence in the Soviet context during the early 1970s. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the ideas of Budyko concerning the use of stratospheric aerosols were advanced by Yuri Izrael and his collaborators. The associated body of work gained traction during the 2000s and engendered a wider debate concerning the efficacy of geoengineering solutions amongst Russia's climate scientists. The legacies of this scientific discussion are also evident in recent high‐level international debates such as those linked to the activities of the IPCC. While significant geopolitical obstacles remain in the way of an international agreement linked to the possible deployment of geoengineering measures, interest continues to grow. The maturity of Russian science in the area of geoengineering and climate modification ensures that it remains an important voice within the broader scientific debate. At the same time, the progressive isolation of Russian science from the international scene due to wider geopolitical events risks deflecting attention away from contemporary popular and political debate in this area and alienating this rich scientific tradition at a critical juncture.This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > Ideas and Knowledge Climate, History, Society, Culture > Disciplinary Perspectives Climate, History, Society, Culture > Technological Aspects and Ideas

Grief: The Biography of a Holocaust Photograph, by David Shneer

The late David Shneer’s final monograph is an ambitious project: he focuses the entire book on a single iconic image and writes a ‘biography’ of that photograph, beginning with the events leading to its production and examining its continuing significance, from its first printing to the present day. The photograph at hand, simply titled ‘Grief’, depicts the aftermath of a Nazi mass killing following their occupation of Kerch, in Ukraine. ‘Biography’ summarises well Shneer’s approach to this image, as he emphasises the role of its creator, Dmitri Baltermants, in examining its interpretation throughout the twentieth century. Whether taking this photo, editing it or shaping its place in later exhibitions, Baltermants is rarely out of sight in the book. The result of this approach brings together the historical and the personal to provide a full picture of this image at different points in history. Shneer begins his biography before the creation of ‘Grief’ itself, looking at Baltermants’s approach to photography and relevant influences on his work. These include aesthetic and technical aspects of Soviet photography as well as the role and reach of photographs in an early twentieth-century Soviet context. In this framework, Shneer notes how newspapers formed the platform for photographic reports.

Paradoxical Russian nationalism in the Soviet context: a contentious literary debate in 1969–1970

Paradoxical Russian nationalism in the Soviet context: a contentious literary debate in 1969–1970

Rethinking early Soviet nationality policies within the poststructuralist context: Marxist legacy, Soviet nation-building, and contingency

Early Soviet nationality policies determined the framework of the ethnicity regime of the Soviet state and largely continued within the same context until the collapse of the Soviet state. While reevaluating early nationality policies, this study argues that structural analysis is not sufficient to understand the social reality of the nationality policies in the Soviet context. Hence, there is an urgent need to add the conditional, unclear and unpredictable aspects to the structural analysis of Soviet nationality policies. By analyzing through the amorphous nationality legacy of the classical Marxist thought, which highly affected the contingent Bolshevik nationality policy orientation, this study shares the concept of Soviet nation-building against the conventional Cold War approach. While analyzing the foundational dynamics of the early Soviet nationality policies, this study attempts to further improve structural analysis through poststructuralist intervention taking into account contingent case study examples.

Bogoroditsa, stan’ Feministkoi?

Abstract In this article, I compare two female-only feminist groups from the Soviet Union and Russia: one of them, the Leningrad feminists, were active in the Soviet Union in the late 1970’s and the other, Pussy Riot, appeared in the 2010’s. By placing Pussy Riot in the (post-)Soviet context and comparing them with the Leningrad feminists, I arrive at a novel reading of both. The similarities between both their structures and messaging are striking: both groups initially split off from larger, male-dominated dissident collectives; both faced challenges as mothers; and both groups appealed to the Virgin Mary as their guardian. These similarities are often obscured in readings that compare Pussy Riot with the Russian male actionists or Western riot grrrl feminists. By forging a different genealogy and comparing these two constellations of women, this article highlights both activist potentials and feminist genealogies in the (post-) Soviet space that have remained largely invisible.

Between Homo and Ludens: The Dichotomy of Subjectivity in The Snail on the Slope

The Strugatsky brothers' novel Snail on the Slope (Ulitka na sklone, 1966-68) marks a turning point in the imagining of utopian subjectivity in the Soviet context. This paper argues that the ubiquitous instability in previously coherent subject-positions emphasizes the ludic aspects of realism which become a central feature of the Strugatskys’ later work, most strikingly illustrated through their exploration of the concept of homo ludens. Late-Soviet science fiction’s incorporation of ludic elements point to the problematics of novelistic subjectivity in an era when the utopian ambition of creating a New Soviet Man came under increasing scrutiny. The crisis of the liberal subject-position in the post-Thaw Soviet Union is dramatized within the dichotomous, complementary relationship between institutional enmeshment and absolute alienation, first articulated in Snail but carried forward into their later work. Through its extensive meditations on the possibility of the utopian, its treatment of split characterization, and the halting, recursive trajectories of its parallel plots, Snail engages with the tension underlying the ludic underpinnings of narrative subjectivity in the Soviet context. This paper, alongside other papers in this cluster, demonstrates the way literature and games have both been called upon to address the problem and possibility of agency for the subjects they create.

Gruzini na ziemiach polskich

This article aims at briefly presenting the few-centuries-long history of Georgians in Poland. This minority is very rarely described in population surveys and often neglected in censuses. In this article, the presence of Georgians in Poland in described from different perspectives. Special attention is paid to the international, primarily Russian and Soviet contexts of the minority’s life. This subject has not been sufficiently studied by historians and this article attempts to fill this gap. Moreover, the author identifies the areas which still need to be researched, thus showing the direction of future research in this field.

Russian Logics and the Culture of Impossible: Part I—Recovering Intelligentsia Logics

This article reinterprets algorithmic rationality by looking at the interaction between mathematical logic, mechanized reasoning, and, later, computing in the Russian Imperial and Soviet contexts to offer a history of the algorithm as a mathematical object bridging the inner and outer worlds, a humanistic vision that we, following logician Vladimir Uspensky, call the “culture of the impossible.” We unfold the deep roots of this vision as embodied in scientific intelligentsia. In Part I, we examine continuities between the turn-of-the-twentieth-century discussions of poznaniye—an epistemic orientation towards the process of knowledge acquisition—and the postwar rise of the Soviet school of mathematical logic. Establishing this connection allows us to explain, in Part II, the role of the algorithm in disciplinary dynamics between mathematical logic and cybernetics and a characteristic understanding of programming, not as a narrow skill, but as a matter of consciousness.