Tashkent: Forging a Soviet City, 1930–1966

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RUSSIAN HISTORY “Stronski’s groundbreaking research presents a vivid portrayal of how leaders imagined and transformed one of the Soviet Union’s most important cities, which was designed to be a model for a postcolonial world.” —Jeff Sahadeo, Carleton University, Canada “This fascinating study details how Soviet planners used cities as blunt instruments to eliminate the landscapes of imperial Russia and reshape, modernize, and even homogenize traditional societies across the USSR. Stronski illuminates the dramatic and often brutal ways in which Tashkent was conceived and constructed as the population, communications, and cultural hub for a transformed Central Asia.” —Fiona Hill, The Brookings Institution “A superb piece of research that brings together urban history, social history , and debates about modernity and colonialism in the Soviet periphery. Stronski traces the multifaceted transformation of Tashkent from the 1930s to the 1960s, showing the impact of Soviet power and world war on the city’s physical and social environment. This is an important work on a region and period that have received far too little scholarly attention.” —Adrienne Edgar, University of California, Santa Barbara Paul Stronski tells the fascinating story of Tashkent, an ethnically diverse, primarily Muslim city that became the prototype for the Soviet-era reimagining of urban centers in Central Asia. Based on extensive research in Russian and Uzbek archives, Stronski shows how Soviet officials, planners, and architects strived to integrate local ethnic traditions and socialist ideology into a newly constructed urban space and propaganda showcase. Stronski analyzes how the local population of Tashkent reacted to, resisted, and eventually acquiesced to the city’s socialist transformation. He records their experiences of the Great Terror, World War II, Stalin’s death, and the developments of the Krushchev and Brezhnev eras up until the earthquake of 1966, which leveled large parts of the city. Paul Stronski is an independent scholar and lecturer who has taught at Stanford, George Mason, and George Washington universities. PITT SERIES IN RUSSIAN AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES CENTRAL EURASIA IN CONTEXT University of Pittsburgh Press www.upress.pitt.edu Cover photographs: (top) Old Tashkent, circa 1930s; (bottom) Chilanzar construction site, late 1950s or early 1960s. Courtesy Russian State Archive of Film and Photodocuments, Krasnogorsk, Russia. Cover design: Ann Walston              ISBN 13: 978-08229-6113-0 ISBN 10: 0-8229-6113-X ...