INTERRUPTED REBIRTH: SVERDLOVSK FACTORY “RUSSKIE SAMOTSVETY” DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

Abstract

The article reviews the activities of the Sverdlovsk factory “Russkiye Samotsvety”, a leading enterprise for the artistic processing of colored stone in the Soviet Union, during the Great Patriotic War. Based on archival materials from the State Archive of the Sverdlovsk Region and the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg, the article presents evidence of the crisis in stone-cutting production at the enterprise in the pre-war years. The author describes some measures taken to overcome the identified problems in 1940–1941, including the active involvement in this process of the plant consultant K.K. Matveev, a professor at the Sverdlovsk Mining University. Using annual reports from the factory, the author analyzes quantitative indicators of production and disagrees with the scholars’ claims that the  factory completely switched to the production of defense products. In addition, information is provided on the post-war measures of the factory to gradually revive stone-cutting activities. They included the restoration of the stone-cutting workshop after the re-evacuation of the Moscow Diamond Tools factory № 10, as well as the active participation in creating and organizing the educational process at the Sverdlovsk Art and Craft School № 42. The war years, therefore, were important for the activities of the Sverdlovsk factory “Russkiye Samotsvety”. Despite interruptions in its core stone-cutting activities for several years, the factory managed to partially preserve and quickly restore the resources for an active process of its revival in the second half of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s.