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Professionalization, Nationalism, and Preservation Practice in Soviet Moscow, 1964-1974

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Professionalization, Nationalism, and Preservation Practice in Soviet Moscow, 1964-1974 Planning for a Communist Future: Professionalization, Nationalism, and Preservation Practice in Soviet Moscow, 1964-1974 Michael Brinley A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of International Studies University of Washington 2016 Committee: Glennys Young Dan Abramson Chris Jones Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Jackson School of International Studies Ellison Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies 2 ©Copyright 2016 Michael Brinley 3 University of Washington Abstract Planning for a Communist Future: Professionalization, Nationalism, and Preservation Practice in Soviet Moscow, 1964-1974 Michael Brinley Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Jon Bridgman Endowed Professor Glennys Young History Department This paper explores the growth of historic preservation institutions in Soviet Moscow during the late 1960s and 70s. Beginning with the decade long creation of the General Plan of 1971 and exploring elements of professionalization, international exchanges, and citizen involvement in preservation battles, this paper complicates the narrative of emergent nationalism in Brezhnev era Moscow. Soviet preservationists worked within a bureaucratic structure that demonstrated a responsiveness to their activism, while high ranking officials, such as chief architect, Mikhail Posokhin, self-consciously cast Soviet planning and preservation practice as an alternative to Western and capitalist methods. Cases such as the rescuing of the belye palaty in Moscow’s central district demonstrate telling examples of Soviet citizenship and activism, as well as a dynamism rarely associated with “stagnation” era Soviet historiography. 4 As for the imperative that we must think about basic human needs (dumat’ o cheloveke), it seems to me that in restoring the historic city [in Warsaw] they demonstrated greater care for basic human needs than had they hastily thrown up box-houses. Even more, they were thinking about future generations and the fate of their country in distant future times. Here we must pause: what does it mean for us? Why do we need historic landmarks (pamiatniki), architectural monuments, manuscripts, even art? -Vladimir Soloukhin, 1965 Only in the continuity of the historical guarantee that Moscow will remain a distinctive city with its own unique face, can we preserve the best of what it has and develop all that is necessary to develop, stemming from the context of the present day and the requirements of the next. This is one of the fundamental positions of the General Plan for the development of Moscow. -Vladimir Libson, 1972 In 1968 Aleksandr Veksler authored a short book entitled The Moscow within Moscow (Moskva v Moskve). Veksler, an archeologist and architect at the beginning of a lengthy career that would last until 2009 and involve the supervision of massive urban archeological sites, outlines the significant archeological discoveries that had been made over the course of the previous decade due to new construction in the Soviet capital. His book, although focused on the practice of modern scientific archeology in Moscow, makes use of a fascinating metaphor about hidden truths and a process of growing self-awareness and discovery. If Freudian psychological preoccupations with the subconscious were strictly forbidden in an environment of Marxist ideological orthodoxy, Soviet intellectuals found other ways to indulge in self-reflexivity. Veksler’s title is itself a harkening back to a storied tradition of the Russian intelligentsia, as he indicates in an epigraph drawn from the writings of early 19th century belles-lettres author, Vladimir Filimonov: “We Muscovites know, in Moscow there is another Moscow.”1 Veksler’s sense of excitement at the prospect of plumbing the depths of Moscow’s buried history is 1 A. G. Veksler, Moskva v Moskve : istoriia v nedrakh stolitsy (Moskva: Moskovskiĭ rabochiĭ, 1968), 5. 5 palpable: “The greatest modern city, Moscow simultaneously presents itself as a gigantic archeological complex...the feudal city and its many peripheral monuments have left behind powerful and epochal sedimentation― the so called cultural layer.” The exploration and excavation of this cultural layer came at a cost. Veksler’s book clearly communicates the conditions in which Moscow’s ancient history was discovered, conditions of rapid change and unprecedented urban construction. This development emerged as a byproduct of modern science and industrial innovations in construction technology and transportation infrastructure. In the Soviet context this was called tipovoe proektirovanie and tipizatsia, and corresponded to prefabrication trends in practice across the globe. Suddenly humans had the ability to shape the world in their image to a greater degree than they had previously imagined possible, and for many with this power there came a strong sense that important things were being lost. Modern archeology, utilizing cutting edge scientific and technological innovation, could provide an antidote, of sorts. Veksler’s book takes a distinct archeological approach, one he calls “topographical”: eleven of the fourteen chapters in Moskva v Moskve are dedicated to archeological findings made at some of the most recognizable large-scale development projects of the 1950s and 60s. Veksler begins each chapter with a depiction of the new buildings and goes on to explain “what lies beneath.” The list of locations includes the new Olympic sports complex at Luzhniki, the newly expanded sadovoe kol’tso ring road, the detskii mir children’s emporium, the gargantuan Rossia hotel behind Red Square, the experimental cheremushki housing development, and the last Stalinesque “wedding cake” building designed by Dmitry Chechulin. Veksler makes his intent clear: “In these places, successive centuries of construction cannot completely erase traces of feudal fortresses, master craftsmen’s workshops, or even the earliest 6 fishermen’s huts. And today these pages of history are opened by archeology― in the words of Taras Shevchenko: ‘history’s mysterious mother.’ This is both poetic and scientifically accurate.”2 By highlighting what was learned in the process of demolition and disruption at some of Moscow’s most famous sites, Veksler complicates the picture of historic preservation interests in the Soviet city. This paper hopes to accomplish a similar task, unearthing the contested nature of preservation practice during a seminal moment in late Soviet life. By exploring early Brezhnev era Moscow city planning practice and historical preservation efforts in tandem, one can begin to see the ways that Soviet historians, architects, planners, and politicians conceptualized a future for the “model communist city.” This can be useful for a number of reasons. In a political and social climate so frequently considered informal and opaque, the primary sources available in this case help to shed light on the workings of the Soviet municipal “system.”3 The subject also allows for seemingly rare Soviet narratives of successful social mobilization within the structures of municipal organization, from those who were not explicitly taking a stand against the regime or communism. Ultimately this is an examination of various reactions, both personal and institutional, to the rapid reorientation and change that accompanied postwar urban development. Many of the characters in this narrative continued to play important leadership roles in Moscow well beyond the Soviet era.4 By honing in on dynamic elements of Soviet life during this period, 2 Veksler, Moskva v Moskve. P. 17 3 There are many fascinating scholarly attempts to “look under the hood” of social life in the Soviet Union in hopes of making sense of the paradoxical system. See especially, Alena V Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise?: Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance, 2013; Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006); Alena V. Ledeneva, Russia’s Economy of Favours : Blat, Networking, and Informal Exchange, Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies ; 102 (Cambridge University Press, 1998). 4 The revival of tsarist and Orthodox Russia in the aftermath of the Soviet Union is most prominently demonstrated by the story of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, rebuilt at great 7 this paper complicates survey textbook periodization misnomers, such as those that coarsely characterize the 1970s in the USSR as a time of stagnation, an interlude between the more dynamic Khrushchev and Gorbachev eras.5 Much of the writing on the topic of historic preservation in the Soviet Union zeroes in on the narrative of emergent nationalism. In this narrative, a totalitarian or post-totalitarian society begins to regain ethnic consciousness via preservation efforts initially mistaken by power holders as innocuous or marginally significant, the ultimate result of which is a Soviet Union dissolved into fifteen states, organized around the nation-state principle, hidden for all those years under socialist internationalism.6 While it is not the intent of this paper to challenge the validity of this narrative, it does hope to sidestep some of the nationalist implications of growing preservation interests in Moscow and look at the mechanisms of social mobilization that engaged growing number of Muscovites in preservation struggles, as well as the ways that various groups concerned began to justify their planning and preservation preferences in language that emphasized
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