Authors

Victoria Fomina¹;  ¹ University of St Andrews, UK

Discussion

This paper draws on the case of Komsomolsk-na-Amure–one of the largest industrial bases in the Russian Far East–to explore processes of memory and identity-making in Soviet-era planned cities. Built in the 1930s, Komsomolsk’s mythos has historically been defined by heroic images of its founders (pervostroiteli)–members of the Communist Youth League who travelled from all over the USSR to construct an urban socialist utopia in the taiga. Widely celebrated as a ‘new industrial frontier,’ Komsomolsk enjoyed high levels of publicity during the Soviet era, with the ‘feats’ of its young creators being immortalized in the all-Union press and mass culture. However, following the collapse of the USSR, the city faced severe economic turmoil, curtailment of industrial production, and waves of outmigration. In this paper, I draw on archival data and media analysis to explore how the collective local identity of Komsomolchane, was forged amid successive waves of ethnically diverse labor migration and outline the challenges involved in securing the continuity of this proud local identity in post-Soviet era. I argue that the tropes of ‘selfless labor’ and overcoming hardship–from battles with the unforgiving climate to material difficulties–emerged as key strategies in memorial discourse for countering symbolic and economic devaluation of Far Eastern manufacturing cities since the eclipse of socialism.