Routes of Reenactment: Propaganda, Cultural Production, and Experiential Geography on Trains Beyond the 1920s

• In Event: Visual Culture in Central Asia I: Repetition and Reenactment

Abstract

This paper explores the role of trains as reenactments of historical and ideological narratives. While briefly discussing how trains functioned as reenactments of “conquest” both before the revolution and with the 1920s propaganda trains (agitpoezd), my focus is on later iterations—particularly agitational work and locomotion at industrial sites like Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) and contemporary trains commemorating Soviet industrialization. It examines how these mobile performances shaped spatial transformations and staged historical memory through archival research, periodicals, and interviews with participants from Central Asia involved in the cultural service on these trains. By analyzing the agitpoezd as a durational performance, the paper investigates its political, cultural, and personal significance in the ongoing reenactment of Soviet industrial and wartime histories.

Author

• Anel Rakhimzhanova, New York U