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Connecting Spaces and Conquering Bodies: The Ideal Soviet Person at the World's Fairs

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Connecting Spaces and Conquering Bodies: The Ideal Soviet Person at the World's Fairs

Lanni, Ashley (2019) Connecting Spaces and Conquering Bodies: The Ideal Soviet Person at the World's Fairs. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

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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.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > History
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Lanni, Ashley
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:History
Date:24 August 2019
Thesis Supervisor(s):Rowley, Alison
Keywords:Russian history; Soviet Union; World's Fairs; Sense History; Ideal Soviet Person; Sputnik; Cold War; Stalinism
ID Code:985739
Deposited By: Ashley Lanni
Deposited On:05 Feb 2020 02:42
Last Modified:05 Feb 2020 02:42
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