“Our Architecture Has Long Acquired Global Significance”: International Contacts of the Union of Soviet Architects in the 1930s

Abstract

The article is focused on the international contacts of the Soviet architecture in the 1930s. The direct object of the research is the cross-border communications of the Union of Soviet Architects: the tasks and forms of contacts of Soviet architects with foreign colleagues and institutions, as well as the role of the Union of Architects in this process; mechanisms of interaction with the authorities and tactics of the professional community in the context of regulation and control of international relations; conflicting nodes of state and professional interests. It is shown that in its international contacts, the Union of Architects did not appear as an independent actor, as it did not have institutional independence in international communications, autonomy in decision-making and its own resources for the implementation of projects. The institutional nature of the interaction prevailed; personal contacts were minimized and included into collective strategies. The international activity of the Union of Architects was part of the state policy of “cultural diplomacy” and had not only a professional, but also a propaganda-ideological component. The authorities ignored the professional motives of the architectural community if they did not coincide with governmental tasks. However, it is shown that the Union of Architects had its own tactics and realized its professional interests, using the interest of the state in a particular project. As a result, the thesis is presented that state regulation and total control sharply narrowed the possibilities of cross-border communications of the architectural community, distorted their forms and contents, but did not destroy them. The discovery and study of new documents shows that the myth of the cultural autarchy of the Stalinist USSR is not confirmed by the example of an architectural field.