Cultural landscapes of a Siberian city: Experience of historical and cultural studies
Authors:   South Ural State Humanitarian Pedagogical University, Zagrebin Sergey S. 
Published: December 2024

The article presents a review of a collective monograph by Siberian researchers who have been successfully studying the phenomenon of a city for many years. The authors of this monograph identify and systematize the basic components of the urban cultural landscape. The review places emphasis on the efficiency of interdisciplinary research practices used by the authors to provide a representative description and theoretical insights into social and cultural hallmarks of Siberian cities during the Soviet period of the national history. As a theoretical model of research, the authors use the typology of culture as the basis for determining certain macrotypes, such as “pre-revolutionary city”, “Soviet city”, and “modern city”. Under the “Soviet city” the authors distinguish seven cultural and historical types, mapped with the main periods of the Soviet history. Based on the elaborated typology, the authors have created the structure of the monograph, with the problematics building around the analytical understanding of the cultural and historical type called “Late Soviet city”. Chapter 1, “Global Urbanism and the Soviet Model of Urbanization: Impact on the Soviet Cultural Landscape” defines the theoretical and methodological focal points of the study. In their study of the urbanization problem, the authors select a multifactor approach, with a focus on four trends in the development
of urban landscape: world-wide, Russia-wide, Soviet, and regional Siberian model, each model mapped with each specific city. Chapter 2, “Cultural Landscape and Cultural Infrastructure of Million Cities: Novosibirsk and Omsk” includes an analytical description of urban landscapes in the course of their historical and cultural development. The authors of the monograph reveal and analyze the system interconnections between geographic position, social and cultural traditions, state ideology, and cultural innovations that re-design the streetscape of large Siberian cities. Chapter 3, “Cultural Landscape and Soviet Inhabited Space of Medium and Small Siberian Cities” focuses on the analysis of the above trends in relation to small Siberian cities (Ishim, Tara, Isilkul), reaching to a conclusion on the dominance of a tradition in the overall innovation trend of development of small towns. Chapter 4, “Festivities in the Cultural Space of a Soviet City” provides an analysis of the festive culture as a factor of integration of cultural landscapes. The authors note that the festive space of Siberian cities was determined both by internal factors (architectural style, landscape, ethnic and confessional specifics) and external factors, such as politics and ideology. The monograph ends with a summary of the study. The authors point out the historical continuity of the urban culture, with a superimposition of the new Soviet culture, along with its visual hallmarks and new ideological content, on the pre-revolutionary infrastructure. The reviewer makes a conclusion that the monograph under review presents a panoramic picture of the development of Siberian cities in the Soviet period of the national history.