The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space

334 Pages·2003·2.365 MB·English

by  Evgeny Dobrenko, Eric Naiman (eds.)

Studies in Modernity and National Identity
SIBEL BOZDOG˘AN and RES¸AT KASABA,
Series Editors
Studies in Modernity and National Identity examine the relationships
among modernity, the nation-state, and nationalism as these have
evolved in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Titles in this inter-
disciplinary and transregional series also illuminate how the nation-
state is being undermined by the forces of globalization, international
migration, electronic information flows, as well as resurgent ethnic and
religious affiliations. These books highlight historical parallels and con-
tinuities while documenting the social, cultural, and spatial expressions
through which modern national identities have been constructed,
contested, and reinvented.
Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the
Early Republic
by Sibel Bozdog˘an
Chandigarh’s Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India
by Vikramaditya Prakash
Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: AStudy in Vernacular Politics
by Jenny B. White
The Landscape of Stalinism: TheArt and Ideology of Soviet Space
edited by Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman
The Landscape of Stalinism
THE ART AND IDEOLOGY OF SOVIET SPACE
Edited by EVGENY DOBRENKO and ERIC NAIMAN
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS
Seattle and London
This publication was supported in part by the Donald R. Ellegood
International Publications Endowment.
Copyright © 2003 by the University of Washington Press
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The landscape of Stalinism : the art and ideology of Soviet space / edited
by Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman.
p. cm.—(Studies in modernity and national identity)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN0-295-98333-7 (alk. paper)
1. Communism and culture—Soviet Union. 2. Socialist realism.
3. Stalin, Joseph, 1879–1953. I. Dobrenko, E. A. (Evgenii Aleksandrovich)
II. Naiman,Eric, 1958– III. Series.
HX523.L32 2003
335.43—dc21 2003046767
The paper used in this publication is acid-free and recycled from 10 percent
post-consumer and at least 50 percent pre-consumer waste. It meets the min-
imum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.
CONTENTS
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
Note on Transliteration x
Introduction xi
ERIC NAIMAN
Part One: Space and Art
1 Socialist Realism and the Sacralizing of Space 3
KATERINA CLARK
2 The Spatial Poetics of the Personality Cult:
Circles around Stalin 19
JAN PLAMPER
3 Spatial Figures in Soviet Cinema of the 1930s 51
OKSANA BULGAKOWA
4 “Broad Is My Motherland”:
The Mother Archetype and Space in the Soviet Mass Song 77
HANS GÜNTHER
5 The Art of Totality 96
BORIS GROYS
Part Two: Mobilizing the Soviet Subject
6 All This Can Be Yours!: Soviet Commercial Advertising
and the Social Construction of Space, 1928–1956 125
RANDI COX
7 The Art of Social Navigation:
The Cultural Topography of the Stalin Era 163
EVGENY DOBRENKO
8 “But Eastward, Look, the Land Is Brighter”:
Toward a Topography of Utopia in the Stalinist Musical 201
RICHARD TAYLOR
v
vi Contents
Part Three: The Blank Page
9 To Explore or Conquer?: Mobile Perspectives
on the Soviet Cultural Revolution 219
EMMA WIDDIS
10 Tabula Rasa in the North: The Soviet Arctic and
Mythic Landscapes in Stalinist Popular Culture 241
JOHN MCCANNON
11 “The Best in the World”:
The Discourse of the Moscow Metro in the 1930s 261
MIKHAIL RYKLIN
12 Russo-Soviet Topoi 277
MIKHAIL EPSTEIN
Contributors 307
Index 311
FIGURES
2.1. Anton von Werner, The Proclamation of the German Empire
(1877).
2.2. On the Hillside of Kazbek’s Peak,photograph in Pravda(1935).
2.3. Aleksandr Gerasimov, Stalin and Voroshilov in the Kremlin
(1938).
2.4. Vasilii Efanov, An Unforgettable Meeting(1936–37).
2.5. Iosif Serebriany, At the Fifth London Congress(1947).
2.6. Fedor Shurpin, Morning of Our Motherland(1949).
2.7. Thomas Cole, River in the Catskills(1843).
2.8. Asher Durand, Progress(1853).
2.9. Viktor Tsyplakov, V. I. Lenin (Lenin in Smolny)(1947).
2.10. Dmitri K. Mochalski, After the Demonstration (They Saw
Stalin)(1949).
3.1. Frame showing the bench in Vertov’s Three Songs of Lenin
(1934).
3.2. Frame from Lev Kuleshov’s The Siberians(1941).
3.3. Frame from Lev Kuleshov’s The Siberians(1941).
3.4. Frame from Lev Kuleshov’s The Siberians(1941).
3.5. Frame from Lev Kuleshov’s The Siberians(1941).
6.1. NEPadvertisement stressing the ramifications of
consumption, 1925.
6.2. Advertisement for Camelia face cream, 1929.
6.3. Advertisement for Chlorodont toothpaste, 1930.
6.4. Advertisement for Hotel Savoy, 1935.
6.5. Advertisement for the Aurora Restaurant, 1936.
6.6. Advertisement for the state insurance agency, 1937.
6.7. Advertisement for a savings bank, 1946.
6.8. Advertisement for gourmet soy sauces, 1939.
6.9. Advertisement for Red Poppy cosmetics, 1938.
6.10. Advertisement for a savings bank, 1955.
6.11. Advertisement for the state insurance agency, 1952.
6.12. Advertisement for frozen dumplings, 1951.
vii
viii Figures
7.1. Postage stamps for the eight-hundredth anniversary of
Moscow, 1947.
7.2. Part of the stamp series “Peoples of the USSR,” 1932.
7.3. Stamps commemorating the first All-Union Congress of
Architects, 1937.
7.4. Stamp devoted to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition,
1940.
7.5. Stamps depicting “Views of the Caucasus and Crimea.”
7.6. Stamps depicting “Spas of the USSR.”
7.7. The stamp series “Stalin’s Plan for Transforming Nature,”
1949.
9.1. Frame from Vertov’s Shestaia chast’mira,1926.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This volume received generous financial support from the Com-
mittee on Research and from the Institute of Slavic, East European, and
Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as
from the Institute for Russian, Soviet and Central and East European
Studies at the University of Nottingham, the International Center for
Advanced Studies at New York University, and the Stanford Human-
ities Center.
The editors wish to express their appreciation to the translators who
worked on this volume: Mary Akatiff, Abigail Evans, Jeffrey Karlsen,
Sonja Kerby, and Glen Worthey. The book benefited enormously from
the editorial and research assistance provided by Gabriel White and
from the editing of Jane Kepp. We are particularly grateful to Michael
Duckworth at the University of Washington Press for his patience and
continued enthusiasm for this project.
ix