A Ghost Without Shell - The Display of Soviet Public History works in Modern Russia

Almost every evening, I had to take the metro to Kropotkinskaya Station - from there I could walk to the only Citi Bank in Moscow to withdraw money. One very rainy evening, on my way back to the metro station, I decided to do a little detour to the green space on Gogolevsky Boulevard behind the metro station. Under the shaded trees and the dark sky above, the green space was rather a tranquil place considering that the surrounding metropolis of Moscow was one of the largest an busiest cities on the European continent. There was just me, and the city.  Then I noticed something else: there was a statue of a man sitting in the boat. I immediately had the following thoughts: 

At a rare peaceful moment in a bustling city, the time flows quietly as the Don. 

I knew the man sitting in the boat, without even looking at the name engraved beneath the statue. Mikhail Sholokhov, one of the most celebrated Soviet writers and the Nobel laureate who wrote And Quietly Flows the Don  today is still a household name not only in Russia, but also in other countries that were once under the influence of former Soviet Union. The statue of Sholokhov is actually a more recent work finished after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. Across Russia, there are so many artworks, memorials, and works in other formats created during the Soviet era aiming at presenting history (or like some people say, the government's version of history) to the public. Even decades after the red flag being lowered from the top of the Kremlin, the majority of these works survived - many are under the preservation and protection of the Russian government today.

Statues and Memorials:

Possibly the most visible format to everyone, including those who are simply transiting through Russia or bus tour tourists who never get the chance to really explore Russia on their own. Speaking of "the" symbol of this format, that honor definitely belongs to the innumerable statues of Vladimir Lenin all over the country. Instead of tearing down the statues of Lenin, the Russian government had simply renamed them as "Historical Monument dedicated to V.I.Lenin". By doing so, the Russian government acknowledged that Lenin is an integral part of Russian history - with neither praise nor denunciation. In recent years, many statues of Lenin that were torn down got restored, and the names of hundreds of streets were reverted back to "Проспект Ленина" (Lenin Street). From these actions, it seems that the current Russian government views the overall legacy Lenin had left for Russia as a very positive one. Now imagine if Nikita Khrushchev didn't order the tear down of all these statues of Stalin, would they have survived in the same way as Lenin statues?

One of the most iconic sculptures in the U.S.S.R was the center piece of the Soviet pavilion during the Paris World Expo in 1937. Known as the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, the statue itself symbolized the working class people: workers in industrial cities and peasants in the countryside. It was a powerful statue representing the official ideology of the Soviet Union and carried a strong message that the true masters of the world were the proletariats. During the Paris Expo of 1937, the Soviet pavilion was right across the street from the Nazi German pavilion, who had their own statue representing their own state ideology. The seemingly coincidental arrangement of the two pavilion's locations foreshadowed what was about to happen in the coming decade: the struggle between two totalitarian regimes which changed the history of the world forever. During the Soviet era, the statue also became synonymous with the Soviet film industry and Mosfilm - Soviet Union's (and to this day still Russia's) major movie production company featured the statues on its logos and opening credits to many of its movies.  In 2014, a replica of the statue even made an appearance at the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics. According to the organizer, the statue was meant to represent post- World War Two Soviet society. The fact that a statue like Worker and Kolkhoz woman is still standing in the heart of Moscow reflects that the Russian government wants people to remember the U.S.S.R, and what the old country stood for.

Postcard depicting the 1937 Paris Expo, with the Nazi German pavilion on the left and the Soviet pavilion on the right [photo credits: wikipedia.org]

At the Paris Expo of 1937 [photo credits:fishki.net]

The original Worker and Kolkohz Woman statue on top of the replica of the Soviet pavilion in Moscow

Inside the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (ВДНХ) - Soviet Union's "Disneyland", there is an elegant fountain surrounded by statues of major ethnic groups of the Soviet Union. Unity remains a hot issue in Russia today, and these shiny golden statues continue to remind the public that Russia is still a multi-ethnic state, although it no longer has any sovereign associations with all other former ethnic Soviet republics. Not far from the fountain, a Vostok 8K72K rocket has been standing as a memorial to the Soviet aerospace industry since, well, the Soviet era. The same rocket family was responsible for sending the very first satellite (Sputnik) and the first human (Yuri Gagarin) to the space. These accomplishments were once the national pride of U.S.S.R, and are still regarded as the national pride by many Russians.

Vostok Rocket

 Subway Arts:

A mosaic depicting a young pioneer giving flowers to athletes

Constructed as "the palace for the people", there is no other better place to find Soviet Public History than inside Moscow's impressive subway system -  where millions of residents and visitors alike travel every single day. Many of these artworks, just like all other public arts, reflected the official ideology and official view of historical events of the U.S.S.R. In many subway stations across Moscow, you can still find works dedicated to Lenin, the main ethnic groups of Soviet Union, and professions that were glorified by the government (industrial workers, scientists, teachers, doctors, soldiers, farmers, and etc.). Because these works were an integral part of Moscow's subway system and were intended as decorations when the whole system was designed and constructed, it wouldn't make any sense to demolish any of these works - the result would neither make the subway system look better nor would such action make people forget about Soviet Union. All of sudden, the subway of Moscow became one of the best museums for both social realism arts and Soviet era propaganda - all available to visitors for a mere cost of a subway fare.

Statues at Partisanskaya Station

Statue of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya - Soviet Union's heroine in WWII era at Partisanskaya Metro Station

A tree resembling the map of U.S.S.R. Each branch represented the dominant ethnic group of the Soviet republics

Construction Projects

The Mausoleum of Lenin - still standing today, is the resting place of Lenin's body and has been an important symbol of Soviet Union since its construction

The Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy mentioned earlier was originally built in the Soviet era as an educational ground for citizens to learn about the scientific and economic accomplishments of the U.S.S.R and cultures of each Soviet Republic. The Soviet government commissioned many public construction projects aiming at bringing their view of the world and history to a whole new level. 

The Russian State Duma today still bears the emblem of the U.S.S.R

One of these projects was the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. The construction of the museum started back in 1986, the same year as the Chernobyl incident. However, it was during the Yeltsin era that the construction was completed. In spite of this fact, the museum made visitors think that it was completed during the Soviet era - no matter if it was the style of decoration, the use of language, and the way how contents were being presented. The exhibits of the entire museum affirmed the pivotal role the Soviet government -and Joseph Stalin played in defeating the Nazis: without them, the outcome could have been otherwise.

Museum of Great Patriotic War in Moscow

The main hall of the Museum

Hall of Tears and Sorrows

A painting depicting the Battle of Moscow

Unlike public memorials of Communist armed forces in other Eastern European countries, many of the memorials related to the Red Army survived in Russia. The most famous and important one is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, which is still visited by the Russian president every single year. The eternal flame, which commemorates the legacy left behind by the Soviet soldiers who fought in World War Two, is still guarded by Russian soldiers today. The significance of World Two in Russia is that so many people died defending the Soviet Union. About one in three Soviet men died between the years of 1941 to 1945. The regime change which took place in 1991 did very little to how Russians today viewed the nature of World War Two. A government might influence and change the way people view historic events, but they could never make people forget the deaths of their loved ones. That's probably why President Yeltsin, who brought down the Soviet regime, allowed the museum to be built in the same style General Secretary Gorbachev would have envisioned.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers

Conclusion:
 

The main building of Lomonosov Moscow State University, which was a great example of Stalinist architecture built following the end of World War Two. The Soviet decoration is still intact despite the fell of the regime in 1991

Because the number of these works are simply overwhelming, I have only chosen one or two from each selected format to show you how these works still embed the memories and visions of the past, as well as how the Russian government and society today would like the same memories and visions - which were created in the Soviet era under official Soviet guidelines, to be passed down to future generations. There are also other works, like the statue of Mikhail Sholokhov and the Museum of Patriotic War, created after the fall of the U.S.S.R intending to display the history of Soviet Union to the public - some are exactly in the same fashion as how history would have been presented in the Soviet era whereas some others served as memorials to sufferings and pains in the everyday life under the U.S.S.R. Most of all, the whole purpose of keeping the Soviet monuments alive is to remind people that Soviet Union was an integral part of the Russian history, and people shouldn't forget about it.