Mapping the Soviet: Cartography, Culture and Power from Lenin to Stalin, 1917-53

苏联政权非常重视地理空间，认为地理空间是决定革命后国家成败的一个因素，并因此重视空间知识和表现的构建和控制。地图在肯定和宣传共产主义世界观方面发挥了至关重要的作用：1926年，一位访问莫斯科的外国游客指出，这张地图几乎和列宁的肖像一样接近成为俄罗斯新的标志性邪教的中心。同样，该政权认识到准确的调查和地图对于国家建设、战略规划和经济发展的重要性。苏联的地图学分为两个方向：一个是关于空间的“神话创造”，另一个是构建一个关于太空的“科学”描述。尽管苏联地图具有“标志性”的地位，但它在历史研究中还没有引起人们的广泛关注。该项目首次对苏联地图学的政治、社会、经济、文化和美学层面进行了综合分析。除了加强对苏联历史的学术理解外，它还将有助于更好地理解地图绘制的作用--被理解为一种科学技术和社会文化实践--以及现代世界的地图。它的主要学术成果将是一部专著。我的目标也是利用我的研究来加强公众对20世纪地图学的更广泛的理解，以及我们可以从地图中学到什么，关于塑造我们现代现实的科学-文化联系。为此，我会在较早前与大英图书馆合作的基础上，根据大英图书馆的大量地图藏品举办展览，并辅之以活动计划和资源，以促进公众参与和支援学校课程的相关部分。第一个重点是苏联地图政策的制定、规划和生产。它特别考察了苏联测绘机构内部以及测量员和地形师、大地测量员和地理学家、艺术家和行政人员、学者、士兵和秘密警察之间的矛盾和冲突，这些分歧塑造了革命后地图绘制的发展。它探讨了苏联地图在重新想象世界和重新创造自我和社会方面的关键作用，这些都是革命愿望的核心。我认为，苏联政权利用地图文化创造和灌输了一种新的空间愿景，不仅包括重新配置的政治领土，还包括与社会和谐相处的再生自然，包括人性。地图制作本身，作为一个结合了科学、技术和艺术的过程，成为理性方法和审美冲动合成的隐喻和典范，而理性方法和审美冲动是革命现代主义和全球现代性的更普遍特征；阅读地图的能力成为文化的象征--尽管除了最普遍的地图之外，所有地图都被隐藏起来。这项研究主要基于最近解密的俄罗斯档案材料。除了有关政策、人事、规划和生产的官僚文件外，这些收藏品还提供了对以下主题的丰富见解：地图设计、象征和内容；地图和地球仪的教学；地图保密和审查；地形探险和实地工作；妇女在制图中的作用；与外国地图组织的互动；以及政治控制和恐怖。这项研究还基于对大量电子地图、地图册和地球仪的批判性分析；地图制作和地图阅读手册；以及文学、电影、图形艺术(特别是政治海报)、摄影、建筑和城市规划、明信片和邮票等文化媒体中的制图图像和典故。

The Soviet regime attributed huge importance to geographical space as a factor which could make or break the post-revolutionary state and accordingly to the construction and control of spatial knowledge and representation. Maps played a crucial role in affirming and propagating the communist worldview: 'the map is almost as close to becoming the centre of the new Russian iconic cult as Lenin's portrait', noted a foreign visitor to Moscow in 1926. Equally, the regime recognized the importance of accurate surveys and maps for state-building, strategic planning and economic development. Soviet cartography bifurcated in two directions: one concerned with spatial 'myth-making', the other with constructing a 'scientific' account of space.Despite their 'iconic' status, Soviet maps have not yet attracted significant attention in historical research. This project offers the first integrated analysis of the political, social, economic, cultural and aesthetic dimensions of Soviet cartography. As well as strengthening scholarly understanding of Soviet history, it will contribute to a better appreciation of the role of map-making - understood as both a scientific-technical and socio-cultural practice - and of maps in the modern world. Its main academic output will be a monograph. I also aim to use my research to enhance wider public understanding of 20th century cartography and of what we can learn from maps about the science-culture nexus that moulds our modern reality. To this end, I shall seek to build on earlier collaborations with the British Library to organise an exhibition drawing on their vast map collections, accompanied by an events programme and resources to promote public engagement and to support delivery of relevant parts of the school curriculum.The monograph will have two parts. The first focuses on Soviet cartographic policy-making, planning and production. It examines, in particular, the contradictions and conflicts which the bifurcation between 'culture' and 'science' (or between 'ideology' and 'technology') produced within Soviet mapping agencies and among the surveyors and topographers, geodesists and geographers, artists and administrators, scholars, soldiers and secret policemen who shaped the development of post-revolutionary map-making.Part two places Soviet cartography in its cultural context. It explores the crucial role of Soviet mapping in the re-imagining of the world and re-creation of self and society that were at the heart of revolutionary aspirations. I argue that the Soviet regime used 'map culture' to create and inculcate a new vision of space that encompassed not only reconfigured political territories but a regenerated nature, including human nature, brought into harmony with society. Map-making itself, as a process combining science, technology and art, became both metaphor and model for the synthesis of rational method and aesthetic impulse that characterised revolutionary modernism and global modernity more generally; and the ability to read maps became a symbol of culturedness - even while all but the most generalised maps were hidden from view.This study is mainly based on recently declassified materials from Russian archives. As well as bureaucratic documents on policy, personnel, planning and production, the collections offer rich insights into, among other themes: map design, symbolism and content; teaching with maps and globes; map secrecy and censorship; topographical expeditions and fieldwork; the role of women in cartography; interactions with foreign mapping organisations; and political control and terror. The research is also grounded in critical analysis of a huge range of sheet maps, atlases and globes; of handbooks of map-making and map-reading; and of cartographic imagery and allusions in cultural media including literature, film, graphic arts (especially political posters), photography, architecture and urban planning, postcards and postage stamps.