Book ID: CBB334243328

Building Stalinism: The Moscow Canal and the Creation of Soviet Space (2018)

unapi

Cynthia A. Ruder (Author)


I. B. Tauris


Publication Date: 2018
Physical Details: 352
Language: English

Today the 80-mile-long Moscow Canal is a source of leisure for Muscovites, a conduit for tourists and provides the city with more than 60% of its potable water. Yet the past looms heavy over these quotidian activities: the canal was built by Gulag inmates at the height of Stalinism and thousands died in the process. In this wide-ranging book, Cynthia Ruder argues that the construction of the canal physically manifests Stalinist ideology and that the vertical, horizontal, underwater, ideological, artistic and metaphorical spaces created by it resonate with the desire of the state to dominate all space within and outside the Soviet Union. Ruder draws on theoretical constructs from cultural geography and spatial studies to interpret and contextualise a variety of structural and cultural products dedicated to, and in praise of, this signature Stalinist construction project. Approached through an extensive range of archival sources, personal interviews and contemporary documentary materials these include a diverse body of artefacts - from waterways, structures, paintings, sculptures, literary and documentary works, and the Gulag itself. Building Stalinism concludes by analysing current efforts to reclaim the legacy of the canal as a memorial space that ensures that those who suffered and died building it are remembered.

...More
Reviewed By

Review Steven A. Barnes (2020) Review of "Building Stalinism: The Moscow Canal and the Creation of Soviet Space". American Historical Review (pp. 2036-2037). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB334243328/

Similar Citations

Book Ashley Carse; (2014)
Beyond the Big Ditch: Politics, Ecology, and Infrastructure at the Panama Canal (/isis/citation/CBB368970305/)

Book Brian Phillips Murphy; (2015)
Building the Empire State: Political Economy in the Early Republic (/isis/citation/CBB610727332/)

Article Waldemar Kuligowski; (March 2019)
How “Poland Entered Europe”: The Motorway as a Space of Neoliberalism (/isis/citation/CBB588990884/)

Book Michael Truscello; (2020)
Infrastructural Brutalism: Art and the Necropolitics of Infrastructure (/isis/citation/CBB993987768/)

Book Hugh R. Slotten; (2022)
Beyond Sputnik and the Space Race: The Origins of Global Satellite Communications (/isis/citation/CBB430492982/)

Article Richard Hirsh; (2013)
Fifteen Years Later: Whither Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System? (/isis/citation/CBB706689708/)

Book Andreas Marklund; Mogens Ruediger; (2017)
Historicizing Infrastructure (/isis/citation/CBB045716184/)

Chapter Klaus Grewe; (2016)
Urban Infrastructure in the Roman World (/isis/citation/CBB572717553/)

Book Ashley Carse; (2014)
Beyond the big ditch: politics, ecology, and infrastructure at the Panama Canal (/isis/citation/CBB384585453/)

Book Christopher F. Jones; (2014)
Routes of Power: Energy and Modern America (/isis/citation/CBB824368541/)

Book Maria Rogacheva; (2017)
The Private World of Soviet Scientists from Stalin to Gorbachev (/isis/citation/CBB882566124/)

Article Vedran Duančić; (2020)
Lysenko in Yugoslavia, 1945–1950s: How to De-Stalinize Stalinist Science (/isis/citation/CBB524254444/)

Article Hicks, Geoffrey; (2012)
Disraeli, Derby and the Suez Canal, 1875: Some Myths Reassessed (/isis/citation/CBB001550397/)

Authors & Contributors
Carse, Ashley
Ruediger, Mogens
Duančić, Vedran
Ryan Dearinger
Michal Ďurčo
Waldemar Kuligowski
Concepts
Infrastructure
Technology and politics
Canals
Roads and highways
Technology and economics
Transportation
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, early
18th century
Places
United States
Soviet Union
Panama
Göta Canal (Sweden)
Suez Canal (Egypt)
Western states (U.S.)
Institutions
International Telecommunications Satellite Organization
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment