“The Most Soviet-Looking” City: Constructing The Homeland Of The Soviets (Ivanovo-Voznesensk / Ivanovo, 1918–1985)

Abstract

This article examines the influence of the policy of memorializing the 1905 strike and the primacy of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Soviet of Workers’ Deputies on the branding and formation of the urban environment of Ivanovo (Ivanovo-Voznesensk before 1932). The authors consider ways to include the history of the creation of the Soviet in the symbolic politics of the city and the country at different stages of history from the 1920s to the 1980s. Ivanovo assumed a double image — the city of revolution and the center of the textile industry. Particular attention is paid to the work to promote primacy of the Soviet, created in 1905, as a symbolic resource, which determined the status of the city (and its party leadership) from the 1960s. (Earlier, this progress was hindered primarily by the authority of the “History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks): Short Course”, which clearly stated that the Ivanovo Soviet was one of the first Soviets.) This image was gradually introduced into the Soviet symbolic space, for example, through the all-soviet tourist routes. Compared to other cities of the “Golden Ring”, Ivanovo stood out as primarily a revolutionary, Soviet city par excellence. The authors focus not only on the discursive design of such an image, but also on its implementation in the urban environment — street names, monuments, museums, memorial complexes, as well as celebrations of the anniversaries of the revolutionary events of 1905 and 1917.