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“How Well Do You Know Your Krai?” The Kraevedenie Revival and Patriotic Politics in Late Khrushchev-Era Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Victoria Donovan
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Abstract

This article examines the state-sponsored rise of local patriotism in the post- 1961 period, interpreting it as part of the effort to strengthen popular support for and the legitimacy of the Soviet regime during the second phase of de- Stalinization. It shifts the analytical focus away from the Secret Speech of 1956, the time of Nikita Khrushchev's full-scale assault on Iosif Stalin and his legacy, to the Twenty-Second Party Congress of 1961, the inauguration of a Utopian and pioneering plan to build communism by 1980. I consider how this famously forward-looking program gave rise to an institutionalized retrospectivism, as Soviet policymakers turned to the past to mobilize popular support for socialist construction. I examine how this process played out in the Russian northwest, where Soviet citizens were encouraged to turn inward, to examine their local history and traditions, and to reread these through a socialist lens.

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Articles
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Slavic Review , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , Fall 2015 , pp. 464 - 483
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2015

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References

This article is based on doctoral research carried out as part of an AHRC-funded project titled “National Identity in Russia since 1961: Traditions and Deterritorialisation” (200711). I would like to thank the AHRC for its support and also the two readers for Slavic Review whose anonymous reports on an earlier version of this article were extremely helpful.

1. Programma KPSS, section 1, part 1, August 2, 1961.

2. See, for example, Jones, Polly, ed., The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization: Negotiating Cultural and Social Change in the Khrushchev Era (London, 2006)Google Scholar; Dobson, Miriam, Khrushchev's Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reform after Stalin (Ithaca, 2009)Google Scholar; Ilic, Melanie and Smith, Jeremy, eds., Soviet State and Society under Nikita Khrushchev (London, 2009)Google Scholar; and Smith, Jeremy and Ilic, Melanie, eds., Khrushchev in the Kremlin: Policy and Governance in the Soviet Union, 1953-1964 (London, 2011)Google Scholar.

3. The literature on memory politics and nation building in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia is by now vast and various. Some of the most important works in this corpus include Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1983); Verdery, Katherine, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change (New York, 1999)Google Scholar; Kirschenbaum, Lisa A., The Legacy of the Siege of Leningrad, 1941-1995: Myth, Memories, and Monuments (Cambridge, Eng., 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bittner, Stephen, The Many Lives of Khrushchev's Thaw: Experience and Memory in Moscow's Arbat (Ithaca, 2008)Google Scholar; Brandenberger, David, National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931-1956 (Cambridge, Mass., 2002)Google Scholar; and Corney, Frederick C., Telling October: Memory and the Making of the Bolshevik Revolution (Ithaca, 2004)Google Scholar.

4. Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, 4.

5. Yekelchyk, Serhy, Stalin's Empire of Memory: Russian-Ukrainian Relations in the Soviet Historical Imagination (Toronto, 2004), 20–21 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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8. Yekelchyk, Stalin's Empire of Memory, 20-21.

9. For an informative account of the vexed fate of the kraevedenie movement in the early Soviet period, see Johnson, Emily D., How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself: The Russian Idea of Kraevedenie (University Park, 2006)Google Scholar.

10. Alexei Yurchak draws on Claude Lefort's reasoning to argue that Stalin constituted an authoritative “master figure, whose presence was able to resolve the paradox between a doctrine of enlightenment and emancipation and its illiberal implementation.” Yurchak, Alexei, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton, 2006), 10–11 Google Scholar.

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12. For a discussion of the political discourse around hooliganism in the post-Stalin period, see Brian LaPierre, Hooligans in Khrushchev's Russia: Defining, Policing, and Producing Deviance during the Thaw (Madison, 2012); and Fürst, Juliane, Stalin's Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and The Emergence of Mature Socialism (Oxford, 2010), 181–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. The ideological foundation stones for this process were the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism and the new Program of the Communist Party, both launched at the Twenty-Second Party Congress of 1961. See Programma KPSS, section 1, part 1, August 2, 1961. For a discussion of the political thrust of the Third Party Program, see Alexander Titov, “The 1961 Party Programme and the Fate of Khrushchev's Reforms,” in Ilic and Smith, eds., Soviet State and Society, 8-26.

14. Titov, “The 1961 Party Programme.”

15. For a discussion of the rise of social control in Khrushchev-era Soviet society, see Melanie Ilic, introduction to Ilic and Smith, eds., Soviet State and Society, 3.

16. See, for example, Dmitrii Likhachev's strictures on the shortcomings in national heritage preservation in Literaturnaia gazeta in 1965: D. S. Likhachev, “Chetvertoe izmerenie,” Literaturnaia gazeta, June 10, 1965, 2; D. S. Likhachev, “Iz letnikh putishestvii,” Literaturnaia gazeta, September 14, 1965, 2; and Vladimir Soloukhin's patriotically inspired defense of Russian cultural authenticity, “Pis'ma iz Russkogo muzeia,” first published in Moiodaia gvardiia in 1966 and republished in various later editions, for example, in V. A. Soloukhin, Slavianskaia etrad’ (Moscow, 1972).

17. Picking up on the official emphasis on democratism in the post-Stalin era, the scholar stressed the democratic potential of heritage preservation: “The principle of democratism in everything that concerns the preservation and propagandizing of cultural monuments is of the utmost importance.” Likhachev, Dmitrii, “Pamiatniki kul'tury— vsenarodnoe dostoianie,” Istoriia SSSR, no. 3 (1961): 9 Google Scholar.

18. Ibid., 11.

19. Kathleen Parthé has argued in her seminal study of the genre that village prose was “the most aesthetically coherent and ideologically important body of literature that was published in the Soviet Union between the death of Stalin and the ascendancy of Gorbachev.” Parthé, Kathleen, Russian Village Prose: The Radiant Past (Princeton, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. For a discussion of VOOPIK's role in fostering Soviet patriotism in the Brezhnev era, see Mitrokhin, Nikolai, Russkaia partiia: Dvizhenie russkikh natsionalistov v SSSR 1953-1985 gody (Moscow, 2003), 300–37Google Scholar; and Brudny, Yitzhak M., Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953-1991 (Cambridge, Mass., 1998)Google Scholar. Catriona Kelly has explored the organization's activities in Leningrad/St. Petersburg in “‘A Dissonant Note on the Neva’: Historical Memory and City Identity in Russia's Second Capital during the Post-Stalin Era,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 1, no. 1 (2010): 72-83. See also Maddox, Steven, Saving Stalin's Imperial City: Historic Preservation in Leningrad, 1930-1950 (Bloomington, 2015)Google Scholar.

21. Mitrokhin, Russkaia partiia, 300-37.

22. Brudny, Reinventing Russia.

23. Hirsch, Francine, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca, 2005), 12 Google Scholar.

24. Johnson, , How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself, 157 Google Scholar. See also Mel'nikova, Ekaterina, “‘Sblizhalis’ narody kraia, predstavitelem kotorogo iavliaius’ ia': Kraevedcheskoe dvizhenie 1920-1930-kh godov i sovetskaia natsional'naia politika,” Ab Imperio, no. 1 (2012): 209–40Google Scholar.

25. As much is revealed by the entry for “kraevedenie” in the 1937 edition of the Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, which states, rather dryly, that “K. is characterized by a class-conscious dedication to the interest of socialist construction, its mass nature, its topical relevance, and its specific, scientific and planned character.” O. Shmidt et al., “Kraevedenie,” Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1937), 34:522.

26. Ravikovich, D. A., Formirovanie gosudarstvennoi muzeinoi seti (1917-pervaia polovina 60-kh gg.): Nauchno-metodicheskie rekomendatsii (Moscow, 1988), 143 Google Scholar.

27. Zlatoustova, V. I., “Gosudarstvennaia politika v oblasti muzeinogo dela (1945-1985 gg.),” in Kasparinekaia, S. A., ed., Muzei i vlast': Sbornik nauchnykh trudov (Moscow, 1991), 232–37Google Scholar.

28. Ibid., 240.

29. Ibid.

30. This quotation is taken from a letter to the head of the Regional Department for Culture and director of the Novgorod Museum from the head of the Regional Cultural Authorities in Novgorod, K. Daineko, in response to the recommendations of the Main Authorities for Cultural and Enlightening Institutions under the Ministry of Culture. Novgorodskii gosudarstvennyi ob'edinennyi muzei (NGOM), op. 1, d. 410, 1. 24.

31. Postanovlenie TsK KPSS “O povyshenii roli muzeev v kommunisticheskom vospitanii trudiachshikhsia,” printed in the newspaper Politicheskoe somoobrazovanie, 6, 1964, quoted in Zlatoustova, “Gosudarstvennaia politika,” 262.

32. These institutions were founded not only in regional capitals but also in smaller settlements, such as Valdai, Staraia Russa, and Borovichi, in the Novgorod region, and Velikie Luki, Sebezh, Porkhov, and Pechory, in the Pskov region. NGOM, istoricheskaia spravka, op. 1; annual report of the Pskov Cultural Authorities for 1965, Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Pskovskoi oblasti (GAPO), f. R-1855, op. 1, d. 247, 1. 143.

33. These criticisms were voiced at a meeting of researchers from historical architectural museums of the RSFSR, held in Novgorod in November 1960. Among those participating at the meeting were representatives of the Ministry of Culture and directors and vice-directors of national museums. See NGOM, op. 1, d. 380 (Materials on the proceedings of meetings and seminars of workers of architectural museum-zapovedniki of the RSFSR in Novgorod [plans, protocols]), 11. 13-49.

34. Vologodskii oblastnoi kraevedcheskii muzei (VOKM), op. 1, d. 403 (Reports on museum activity in 1961), 11. 1-4.

35. NGOM, op. 1, d. 429,1. 17.

36. VOKM, op. 1, d. 403,1. 2.

37. Ibid., 1. 8.

38. The Lenin citation included in the display was the following: “Capital has all the newest developments and means not only to separate cream from milk but also to separate milk from the children of the rural poor.” Ministerstvo kul'tury RSFSR, VOKM, op. 1, d. 491,11. 2-17 (1963).

39. NGOM, op. 1, d. 410,1. 24.

40. Ibid.

41. Order of the Council of Ministers RSFSR of August 28, 1958, 5639, in E. A. Shulepova, ed., Muzeevedcheskaia mysl' v Rossii XXVIII-XX vekov. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Moscow, 2010), 885. See also Susan Nicole Smith, “The Creation of the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve: Preservation for a National Audience” (paper, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Los Angeles, November 2010).

42. Gorsuch, Anne E., “‘There's No Place Like Home’: Soviet Tourism in Late Stalinism,” Slavic Review 62, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 771 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43. A pamphlet on tourism and kraevedenie published slightly later, in 1974, pointed out that conscientious tourists should make use of kraevedcheskie materials and report as soon as possible to local kraevedy in order to get the most out their touristic experience. See Iun'ev, I. S., Kraevedenie i turizm (Moscow, 1974), 11–12 Google Scholar.

44. The following statistics are drawn from work carried out with the card catalogue and in collaboration with local librarians at the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg in 2010.

45. See the “Decree of the Central Committee of the KPSS and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of 4 November 1955 1871 ‘On the Elimination of Decorative Extravagances in Design and Construction Work,’” Sovarkh: Proekt Sovetskaia arkhitektura, at http://www.sovarch.ru/postanovlenie55/ (last accessed March 2,2015).

46. These descriptions of the northern Russian architectural style are taken from the guidebooks M. V. Fekhner, Arkhitektura gorodov SSSR: Vologda (Moscow, 1958), 42; and Bocharov, G. and Vygolov, V., Vologda, Kirillov, Ferapontovo, Belozersk (Moscow, 1969), 6 Google Scholar.

47. For a discussion of the role of “party democracy” in Khrushchev's campaign for power and legitimacy after Stalin, see Lovell, Stephen, The Shadow of War: Russia and the USSR, 1941 to the Present (Maiden, 2010), 44–47 Google Scholar.

48. NGOM, op. 1, d. 480 (Correspondence with the Ministry of Culture and museum authorities concerning matters connected with the work of the museum), 1.35. Emphasis added.

49. Ibid., 1. 43.

50. Ibid., 1.44.

51. Ibid., 1.36.

52. GAPO, f R-1855, op. 1, d. 157 (Plans for the restoration of cultural monuments and correspondence with the ministry about their preservation), 1.23.

53. Ibid., 1. 50.

54. Ibid.

55. See the response and suggestion book of the Novgorod Council for Tourism and Excursions for 1968-72. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Novgorodskoi oblasti (GANO), f. R-4063, op. 2-10, d. 140a, 11.2,3, and 9.

56. A list of museums in the Vologda region compiled in 1974 included the museums at the “Glory of Work” sewing factory, the Vologda car equipment plant, and the Vologda sheepskin and fur factory. See the 1974 report on the conditions of folk and industrial museums in the Vologda region. VOKM, op. 1, d. 784, 11.59-60.

57. See the report on the Novgorod museum collective's expeditions to villages in the Novgorod region for the collection of museum exhibit materials. NGOM, op. 1, d. 429, 1.17.

58. The disconnect between public discourse and local reality with regard to the preservation of architectural heritage was the focus of a number of letters sent to local authorities and newspapers in the 1960s. See, for example, the opinions expressed by a local electrician in Novgorod concerning the decision to exclude many “old buildings” (starie doma), which the author considered to be “monuments” (pamiatniki), if not “architectural masterpieces” (shedevry zodchestva), from local heritage lists. G. Melomedov, “O gorode moem rodnom,” Novgorodskaia pravda, January 6, 1967, 4. See also the commentary of a local resident published in a letter to the editor in Novgorodskaia pravda in 1968 concerning the state's selective preservation of churches in the local region. I. Mikhailov, “Pis'ma v redaktsiiu,” Novgorodskaia pravda, March 10, 1968, 4.