HEALING THE WOUNDS: COMMEMORATIONS, MYTHS, AND THE RESTORATION OF LENINGRAD’S IMPERIAL HERITAGE, 1941-1950 By Steven Maddox A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Steven Maddox, 2008 Dissertation Abstract “Healing the Wounds: Commemorations, Myths, and the Restoration of Leningrad’s Imperial Heritage, 1941-1950.” Steven Maddox, Department of History, University of Toronto (Ph.D., 2008) This dissertation is a study of Leningrad during World War II and the period of postwar restoration (1941-1950). Leningrad was besieged by the Germans for nearly nine-hundred days. As hundreds of thousands of people died from bombings, shelling, cold, and starvation, local authorities surprisingly instituted measures to ensure that the city’s historic monuments be safeguarded from destruction. When Leningrad was liberated in January 1944, a concerted effort was put into place to breath life into these damaged and destroyed monuments and to heal the wounds inflicted on the city. Instead of using the damage to modernize the city, Leningrad and Soviet authorities opted to privilege the country’s tsarist heritage. In the postwar period, municipal authorities proclaimed that restored monuments commemorate the determination and heroism shown by the people of Leningrad during the war. The memory of the blockade, it was argued, was a “red thread” that must run through and be inscribed in all restoration works. Although this dissertation is a local study of war and postwar restoration, it speaks to broader trends within the Soviet Union before, during, and after World War II. I argue that the care shown for Leningrad’s imperial monuments was the result of an ideological shift that began in the mid-1930s away from iconoclasm toward rehabilitating and respecting certain events and characters from the past. With international tensions rising in the 1930s, this turn to the past acted as a unifying force that had a tremendous influence on the patriotism shown during the war with the Nazis. In the postwar period, ii as the Soviet state began to redefine its image based on the myth of war and the country’s tsarist heritage, this patriotism was further promoted, resulting in a flurry of work throughout the Soviet Union to restore the vessels of the country’s past. Like many other modernizing states, the Soviet Union looked to its past to create a united and patriotic citizenry. iii Acknowledgements This dissertation could not have been written were it not for the continuous support I received from family, friends, colleagues, and advisors over the years. I would like to thank all the members of my committee for their encouragement, guidance, and enthusiasm about my project. First and foremost, I thank my advisor, Lynne Viola. Lynne has patiently taught me the intricacies of research and writing. She has provided a model of dedication and hard work that I have aspired to match. She has been there from the very beginnings of this project, has helped me formulate my ideas, and has been a rigorous and supportive mentor from day one. I am truly in her debt. Bob Johnson read and re-read drafts of chapters, suggested fruitful avenues of inquiry, and has always been there for me when I needed his help. For this I am eternally grateful. I thank Thomas Lahusen and Peter Solomon for consistently providing insightful criticism and advice whenever it was needed. I am also very grateful to Professor David L. Hoffmann who served as my external appraiser for the dissertation. His comments, questions, and suggestions have given me much to think about in further developing this work. During my years as a graduate student, scores of friends in King’s Cove, Toronto, Moscow, Cheboksary, and St. Petersburg have in some way or another helped to shape this project. My fellow grad students Sarah Amato, Ariel Beaujot, Wilson Bell, Auri Berg, Jeff Bowersox, Liz Burns, Heather DeHaan, Sveta Frunchak, Maya Haber, Geoff Hamm, Janet Hyer, Tomaz Jardim, Misha Kogan, Denis Kozlov, Tracy Macdonald, Alex Melnyk, Brigid O’Keeffe, Ruth Percy, Amy Milne-Smith, Nathan Smith, Yen Tran, and Mike Westren have all been faithful and unfailingly supportive friends. Many of these people read drafts of chapters on often very short notice. The same can be said of Rich Bidlack, David Brandenberger, Fred Corney, Emily Johnson, Lisa Kirschenbaum, Nikita Lomagin, and Karl Qualls. Their comments, criticisms, and suggestions have made this dissertation a much stronger piece of scholarship. Friends from home – Mark Aylward, Paul Maddox, Craig Murphy, and Keith Strickland – have always been there to provide a sometimes much needed outlet from the ivory tower. I thank them for that! I extend a heartfelt thanks to Ryan Gingeras and Mariana Chavez. Their friendship over the years has made my time in Toronto a very special experience. iv I am indebted to several friends and colleagues in Russia who made my research trips some of the most enjoyable periods of my life. Since1997 the Efimovs (Dima, Tania, and Sasha) have constantly served as a family away from home. Maya Efimova has offered me a place to stay in the centre of Moscow on far too many occasions to count. Edik Kudriavtsev, Sergei Antonov, Sasha Pirogov, and Vlad Smirnov always make my trips to St. Petersburg fun and enjoyable. Taisa Pavlovna Bondarevskaia – senior researcher at the former party archive in St. Petersburg – deserves special notice here. From my first day in the St. Petersburg archives in 2004, she took me under my wing and became not only a constant source of knowledge, but a very dear friend. I thank her for all her encouragement and interest in my work, but most of all for the daily conversations we had over tea and cookies in her office at the archive. I would also like to thank Iuliia Iurevna Bakhareva at the Archive of the Committee for State Control, Use, and Preservation of Monuments of History and Culture in St. Petersburg for sharing her seemingly infinite knowledge of historic preservation in Leningrad. The research and writing of this dissertation has benefited from the generous support of fellowships and grants. A doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded my work for the majority of my years as a graduate student. An Ontario Graduate Scholarship from the provincial government helped the writing tremendously. My work was also supported by grants and travel scholarships from the History Department, the School of Graduate Studies, and the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto. Without this generous support the present work would have been much more difficult to write. Finally, I would like to thank those closest to me. My parents, Tom and Nell Maddox have been a constant source of love and support. They encouraged me to continue my university career after that first dreadful year when my natural inclination was to spend all my time on the slopes. My sister, Dr. Kelly-Anne Maddox helped me discover my passion for research and writing and urged me to continue to pursue my interests in Russian history, no matter how remote they seemed to a Quebec literature specialist. My greatest source of support has been my wife, Gillian Clarke. She has been with me every step of the way. She lovingly encouraged me to continue at times when I v doubted myself. She offered help and guidance when it was needed. She has been an inspiration. It is to her that I dedicate this work. vi Table of Contents Title Page…………………………………………………………………………………..i Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………iv Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………..vii Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1: Setting the Stage: Old Petersburg, Preservations Movements, and the Soviet State’s “Turn to the Past”...………………………………………………………….......19 Chapter 2: “These Monuments Must be Protected!”: Leningrad’s Imperial Landscape at War…...………………………………………………………………………………….56 Chapter 3: Leningrad’s Resurrection: Restoring the City’s Historic Monuments, 1944- 1950…...………………………………………………………………………………....89 Chapter 4: “When Ivan Comes There Will be Nothing Left”: Rebuilding and Reimagining the Historic Monuments in Leningrad’s Suburbs.……………………….132 Chapter 5: Sites of Memory, Sites of Mobilization: Official Commemorations of the Blockade of Leningrad, 1944-1949…………………………….………………………177 Chapter 6: The Parting of the Ways: Soviet Patriotism, Restoration, and the End of Blockade Commemorations…………………………………………………………….215 Conclusion………………………………………………………….…………………..250 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………258 vii Introduction On 9 May 2005, thousands of people, young and old, gathered in the centre of St. Petersburg to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory in the Second World War, or the Great Patriotic War as it is known in Russian. As dusk fell over the city, an impressive fireworks show began, which lasted more than half an hour against the backdrop of St. Petersburg’s historic core. Cheers and shouts of “hurrah” were almost deafening as hundreds of explosions illuminated the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Winter Palace, the Admiralty, and other historic monuments along the banks of the Neva. For the entire length of this fireworks display music roared from speakers set up in front of the palace. The people gathered there did not hear the Soviet national anthem (again in fashion under the Putin administration), nor patriotic songs reflecting the battle of all Soviet people during the war. Instead, at this event celebrating the victory of the Soviet Union over the Germans during the Second World War, fireworks were accompanied by Shostakovich’s Seventh (“Leningrad”) Symphony, written during the first months of the nine-hundred day blockade to commemorate the suffering and heroism of Leningraders. These fireworks were set against a cityscape which demands praise, admiration, awe, and respect. The people of St. Petersburg – which was renamed Petrograd in 1914 and Leningrad in 1924 – have traditionally shown a deep connection to the city’s historic monuments and landmarks.