THE 20th Century Russia

Capital Sigma – symbol of Akademgorodok; It reflects diversity and unity.
From: Akademgorodok: Town of Science in Siberia. 1995.

Hidden away in the frozen forests of Siberia and away from the eyes of the bureaucracy resides a city built for the scientist and the researcher. It was believed that Akademgorodok would be the harbinger of scientific breakthroughs that would put Soviet Russia at the forefront of academic achievement, and, more importantly, ahead of western science. Though few would view the frozen Siberian wasteland as appealing, Russian scientists flocked to Akademgorodok for the opportunity to conduct research free from the red tape.

The living conditions here surpassed even those of Moscow’s. The shops were well-stocked and the apartments were well-furnished, a far cry from the shoddy ‘Khrushchev barracks’ that were hastily built to combat the housing shortage in the traditional cities. Those who obtained a doctorate were given a ‘special food delivery service,’ which provided them with a wider selection of food than the average person could normally acquire.

Main street of Akademgorodok (Early 1980s.)
Source: Akademgorodok: Town of Science in Siberia. 1995.

Akademgorodok isn’t just a research institute, it’s an entire city, complete with housing, stores, hotels, hospitals, restaurants, cinemas, clubs, libraries, 35 research institutes, and even a sports complex. The House of Scientists, which served as the social center for the city, contained over 100,000 volumes of not only Russian literature, but American, British, French, German, and Polish works as well. It was estimated that 30,000 scientists and their families would move in upon its completion in 1958. Akademgorodok, dubbed, ‘Science City,’ also had kindergartens and nurseries to accommodate upwards of 2800 children and schools to accommodate 6000 students. (Edit: This statement in particular refers to another ‘Academic City’) Later on, 65,000 scientists and families called this city their home. Akademgorodok was a small utopia residing within the failed reforms of the Khrushchev era.

In the end, Akademgorodok couldn’t live up to the hopes of the Soviet Union. At best the city achieved mixed results. Successes in the field of physics was coupled with failures in genetics and cybernetics. However within its confines existed an openness that didn’t exist elsewhere in Russia, especially during the repression of anti-Stalin or anti-Soviet sentiments. Topics that couldn’t be discussed in the streets of Moscow could be freely discussed in Akademgorodok.

Aerial view of the city.
Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Luftbild_akademgorodok.jpg

The collapse of the Soviet Union did not mean collapse of this city, though many of Russia’s scientists were reduced to poverty after the Soviet collapse. In the 1990’s when economic reforms allowed private investment in Russia, Akademgorodok saw $10 million in private investments. This grew to $150 million in 2006. The software company Novosoft, whose chief client was IBM, was founded here, and Intel have done some of their work here as well.

In Russian, the name is Академгородо́к, a combination of академия (akademiya, or academy) and город (gorod, or city).

City lies on the Ob Sea, 30 miles from Novosobirsk, a city in southwest Russia.

Edit: It has come to my attention that there were not just one, but multiple of these ‘Academic Cities,’ with the one in Novosobirsk being the most prominent. The dlib eastview source refers to another one of these cities, in Minsk.

Sources:

http://dlib.eastview.com/browse/doc/13637858

http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1956akademgorodok&Year=1956&navi=byYear

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademgorodok

View of the exhumations from the air. Recovered bodies are laid in rows. In the background, the main road.

In 1943, Nazi Germany announced the discovery of a mass grave site in the Katyn Forest. They announced that they discovered a ditch “28 meters long and 16 meters wide, in which the bodies of 3,000 Polish officers were piled up in 12 layers.” The Polish government, who were at the time exiled and residing in London, asked the International Red Cross to do an investigation. The Soviet Union denied involvement up until 1990, when Gorbachev admitted that the executions were ordered by Stalin and carried out by the NKVD, the Russian secret police, on March 5, 1940. The number of victims were tallied at 22,000 Polish officers.

Nazi propaganda poster depicting executions of Polish military officers by the Soviets, with caption in Slovak: “Forest of the dead at Katyn”

The massacre, executed in 1940, was the result of the partitioning of Poland between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939. The Soviet Union claimed that it was liberating the Ukrainians and Belorussians from their oppressive Polish rulers. The Soviet Union arrested Polish landlords, officials, intellectuals, and officers, who were then sent to prison camps. The number of arrests ranged in the tens of thousands. Lavrentii Beria, head of the NKVD, considered it inconvenient to feed and safeguard such a high number of prisoners, and thus ordered the executions of some 22,000 of them.

Memo from Beria to Stalin, proposing the execution of Polish officers

In the memo that proposed the executions, it was stated that these imprisoned Polish officers were members of the Polish counter-revolutionary resistance groups, and that they possessed a hatred for the Soviet system. It also claimed that these Polish officers were carrying out counter-revolutionary acts in the prison camps. It was recommended that they were to be executed at gunpoint. In 1941 when the Polish general Wladyslaw Anders was organizing his army and requested information regarding the missing Polish officers, Stalin reassured them that all the Poles were freed, but not all could be accounted for because they “lost track” of them in Manchuria.

One historian, Gerhard Weinberg, believed that Stalin signed the executions because he wanted to make Poland weaker, since many of the officers also comprised Poland’s technical and intellectual elite. Stalin foresaw a potential future where a hostile Poland would border eastern Russia. Stalin endeavored to weaken Poland to discourage any hostilities.

In 1990 when it was reveal that the massacre was indeed carried out by the Soviet Union, it was also revealed that Katyn was only one of the sites where the Polish officers were buried. The other burial sites are Piatichatki, Bykivnia, and Mednoye. The Polish officers were massacred not only in Katyn, but in Kharkov, Kherson, Kiev, Minsk, and Tver.

Map of massacres and burial sites.

http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1943katyn&Year=1943&navi=byYear

http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1943katyn4&SubjectID=1943katyn&Year=1943

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

Pic 1: http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&show=images&SubjectID=1943katyn&Year=1943&navi=byYear

Komar and Melamid: The Origin of Socialist Realism (1982)

Socialist Realism was the name of the game in Soviet Russia. It was art with a purpose. The goal of this state-sponsored art form, according to Lenin, was to create an entirely new type of human being: The New Soviet Man. Artists and authors that pioneered this new cause were dubbed “engineers of the human soul.”

Socialist Realism first came into being during the First Congress of Soviet Writers meeting of August 8, 1934 and sponsored by the Union of Soviet Writers. At its head was Maxim Gorky, who coined the term Socialist Realism Gorky declared at literature and art should depict the ‘New Soviet Man,’ which is as follows: “A new type of man is springing up in the Soviet Union. He possesses a faith in the organizing power of reason….He is conscious of being the builder of a new world, and although his conditions of life are still arduous, he knows that it is his arm and the purpose of his rational will to create different conditions and he has no grounds for pessimism.”

Socialist-Realist sculpture in Vilnius

During the First Congress meeting, four rules were established that defined what was to be considered Socialist realist art. The work had to be:

1. Proletarian: art relevant to the workers and understandable to them.
2. Typical: scenes of every day life of the people.
3. Realistic: in the representational sense.
4. Partisan: supportive of the aims of the State and the Party.

The aim of the Union of Soviet Writers was to gain government control in the field of literature. For those wishing to publish anything, membership into the Union was virtually required, as opportunities for publication was much more limited for non-members. In Soviet Russia, the only patron of the arts was the State itself; artists and authors became state employees, promoting socialism and communism in their works. Artists who were members of the Union were well provided. They were given high-end clothing, foreign delicacies, and even country houses, or dachas. However, artists who strayed from the socialist realism movement were cut off from publication and best and severely punished at worst.

Aleksandr Kuprin: Baku Oil Rigs (1931)

Soviet art at this time was often positive and optimistic. Sculptures and paintings depicted happy, muscular peasants working in factories and farms. Industrial and agricultural landscapes were also common, honoring the achievements of the Soviet economy. There were very little that was abstract in Soviet art. Many paintings and sculptures focus on the simple peasant carrying his tools. In literature, the common peasant was often glorified as a ‘hero of labor.’ Literature was more heroic and romantic, reflecting the ideal rather than the realistic.

Sources

http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1934socrealism&Year=1934

http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1934writers&Year=1934&navi=byYear

http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1934gorky1&SubjectID=1934writers&Year=1934

Pictures 1 and 3: http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&show=images&SubjectID=1934socrealism&Year=1934&navi=byYear

Picture 2:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AR%C3%A9alisme_socialiste_(Vilnius)_(7622118328).jpg