The Two Arctics: Soviet Experiences, Propaganda, and Socialist Realism in the Far North

• In Event: Empire in the Way: Controlling and Liberating the Narratives of the Russian North

Abstract

This paper examines two cases of Soviet Arctic development: the mining settlement of Pyramiden on Svalbard, an archipelago in the Norwegian north, and Norilsk, a large industrial city in the Siberian tundra. Using at news articles, state documents and memoirs, it looks at the extent to which propaganda and state-sanctioned discourse about Soviet extractive activities in these locales reflected the realities on the ground to draw conclusions about differing Soviet Arctic experiences.

Author

• Alina Bykova, Stanford U