Abstract

While several historians have explored the Soviet presence at World’s Fairs, few have looked at the presentation of Soviet identity and none have asked questions about how the senses were evoked in the Soviet pavilions and the materials that they displayed. World’s Fairs, as international events, provide an opportunity to see how this identity was distilled for a foreign audience. The Soviet pavilions at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and the 1958 Brussels Expo were chosen as the center-point of this research so as to explore the differences in Soviet identity as they existed under Stalinism and during the Khrushchev-era cultural Thaw. Using photographs of the Soviet pavilions, accounts by journalists and visitors, and Soviet ephemera from the pavilions themselves, this thesis strives to offer a composite of not only Soviet identity but Soviet presence at these Fairs. It does so by looking at how the senses were evoked and particularly how they were tied into Soviet efforts to expand and connect territorial boundaries, whether in the form of Arctic exploration, aviation or the space race. While the final work is far from exhaustive, it shows how mastery over the senses was deemed an essential expectation of the ideal Soviet person, and how inanimate Soviet elements, like land and machinery, became identified with the human Soviet body. Additionally, the sense of touch and sound found an important place in the Soviet spaces and writing of the Fair, in ways that were unexpected in a modern world which tended to prioritize sight over the other senses.