The phrase “the Soviet century”, which refers to the hundred years following the Russian revolution of 1917, is generally understood to be about the political sphere – at home and beyond. Quite how that translates into the material world though is best appreciated through a deep dive into the Soviet city.
From Moscow to Magnitogorsk, Soviet urban spaces have long provided crucial insights into the nature of the socialist project and its connections with the wider world.
German historian Karl Schlögel’s 2018 book, Soviet Century: Archaeology of a Lost World, newly translated from the German into English by Rodney Livingstone, shows in painstaking archaeological detail how the socialist project transformed the spaces in which Soviet citizens lived.
