Totalitarian architecture is a term utilized to refer to "the officially approved architecture of dictatorships, over-centralized governments, or political groups intolerant of opposition, especially that of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Soviet Union, Communist China, etc. As an international style, it often drew on simplified Neoclassicism, and sculpture based on 19th century realism and Classicism for massive oversized State monuments." [2] [3] . Such architecture was intended to support the leaders and the ideology of the regime. [4]
Beyond Neoclassicism, which is not unique for totalitarian systems, [5] [6] the descriptions of the totalitarian architecture sometimes focus on brutalism, often in the context of Le Corbusier and his associations with Benito Mussolini. [7] Other authors have upheld brutalism and socialist realism as modernist art forms which exist beyond simply being physical manifestations of totalitarian ideology. [8] [9] Though many architects and architectural historians believe that significant similarities exist in the planning and construction of buildings within totalitarian regimes, it is frequently not considered a unique architectural style. [10] [11]
The term "totalitarian architecture" appears in the scientific literature to compare architectures of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Stalinist Soviet Union, all of which are characterized by large monumental forms and ideological orientation. [3] Much of the study on architecture under totalitarian regimes and the related terminology was developed after the Second World War as people began to reconcile with extant buildings that invoked totalitarian ideals long after the associated regimes had collapsed. [12] Redevelopment of cities involving large-scale demolition of previous buildings was often executed by totalitarian regimes as a way of physically reshaping society to the desires of the nascent totalitarian states and their leaders. [13]
Architect and architectural historian Dmitry Khmelnitsky wrote that the concept of totalitarian architecture is usually associated with Stalin's neoclassicism and that it "strives to symbolize an abstract idea by architectural means. Usually, this is the idea of the greatness of statehood and power." [14] Elizaveta Likhacheva , art historian and director of the Shchusev Museum of Architecture, has described the totalitarian architecture as a common terminology, but hardly a distinct well-defined architectural style. [15] No true definition exists of a single unified style of "totalitarian architecture," and the term is generally considered as a descriptor of the broad trends within the architecture of totalitarian regimes in Europe rather than as a school of architecture in and of itself. [10] [11]
The imperial style of Japan is sometimes also grouped under the label of totalitarian architecture. [16] [17] However, art historian Yu Suzuki argued that the totalitarian style in Japan was not nearly as uniform as in Germany or Italy due to the lack of direct control over architects. [17]
As all architecture is inherently a product of the society in which it was constructed, the architecture of totalitarian regimes can be used to glean information on the ethos and desires of its creators, making it a popular subject for analysis by architectural historians. [18] The architecture of totalitarian regimes is often viewed in terms of how it manifests dominant state propaganda. [4] [19] [20] While the architecture of fascist Italy, Germany, Portugal, and Spain often invoked notions of racial supremacy, colonialism, and Christian supremacy, Stalinist architecture (such as the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy) frequently emphasized the successes of the Soviet Union in building new society. [12]
The goals of totalitarian regimes in constructing memorials to their leaders and the aesthetic qualities of religious architecture are often compared, such as Lenin's Mausoleum invoking the shape of the Pyramid of Djoser. [21] Other tombs‘ architectural typologies, such as Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum, have also been described as examples of architecture promoting communism as a political religion. [21] [22] [23] [24]
The Times columnist Ben Macintyre wrote that "Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini and Saddam all imagined vast cities constructed in their own honour. Stalin's Palace of the Soviets was to be higher than the Empire State Building. Hitler's Reich Chancellery was a deliberately theatrical statement, with towering brass doors 17ft high and the Führer's 4,000 sq ft 'study.' In 1984 , written in 1948, George Orwell left a prescient description of the sort of totalitarian architecture that would soon dominate the Communist bloc, imposing and hideous: the Ministry of Truth, an "enormous, pyramidal structure of white concrete, soaring up terrace after terrace, three hundred metres into the air." [25]
The remnants of the architecture of European totalitarian regimes can be seen as a part of European cultural heritage. According to the Council of Europe, "studying the architecture of Europe's totalitarian regimes...is a way to enhance the European identity in its unity and diversity. The idea of Europe originated from the wounds of World War II and the fall of Fascism and Nazism. It entered a new phase after the downfall of Communism, opening the way to a broader and more comprehensive idea of a Europe based on fundamental values such as political liberty, freedom of expression and assembly, democracy and the rule of law." [26] The European cultural organization ATRIUM collects photographs of abandoned buildings which have outlived the regimes that constructed them and "that still stand as monuments to another time." [27]
A number of buildings and memorials created by totalitarian regimes have been demolished, especially in Poland and Ukraine, based on legislation such as The Law on the Prohibition of Propagation of Communism or Any Other Totalitarian System Through The Names of All Public Buildings, Structures and Facilities. [28] [29] A demolition of the Palace of Culture and Science in Poland was debated. [30]
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist governments throughout the 20th century. It was developed in Russia by Joseph Stalin and drew on elements of Bolshevism, orthodox Marxism, and Leninism. It was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War, as well as the Communist International after Bolshevization.
Stalinism is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin. Stalin had previously made a career as a gangster and robber, working to fund revolutionary activities, before eventually becoming General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Stalinism included the creation of a one man totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, forced collectivization of agriculture, intensification of class conflict, a cult of personality, and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which Stalinism deemed the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time. After Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Thaw, a period of de-Stalinization began in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused the influence of Stalin's ideology to begin to wane in the USSR.
Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and controls the public sphere and the private sphere of society. In the field of political science, totalitarianism is the extreme form of authoritarianism, wherein all socio-political power is held by a dictator, who also controls the national politics and the peoples of the nation with continual propaganda campaigns that are broadcast by state-controlled and by friendly private mass communications media.
Soviet and communist studies, or simply Soviet studies, is the field of regional and historical studies on the Soviet Union and other communist states, as well as the history of communism and of the communist parties that existed or still exist in some form in many countries, both inside and outside the former Eastern Bloc, such as the Communist Party USA. Aspects of its historiography have attracted debates between historians on several topics, including totalitarianism and Cold War espionage.
Stalinist architecture, mostly known in the former Eastern Bloc as Stalinist style or socialist classicism, is the architecture of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, between 1933 and 1955. Stalinist architecture is associated with the Socialist realism school of art and architecture.
Alexey Victorovich Shchusev was a Russian and Soviet architect who was successful during three consecutive epochs of Russian architecture – Art Nouveau, Constructivism, and Stalinist architecture, being one of the few Russian architects to be celebrated under both the Romanovs and the communists, becoming the most decorated architect in terms of Stalin prizes awarded.
Neo-Stalinism is the promotion of positive views of Joseph Stalin's role in history, the partial re-establishing of Stalin's policies on certain or all issues, and nostalgia for the Stalinist period. Neo-Stalinism overlaps significantly with neo-Sovietism and Soviet nostalgia. Various definitions of the term have been given over the years. Neo-Stalinism is being actively promoted by Eurasianist currents in various post-Soviet states and official rehabilitation of Stalin has occurred in Russia under Vladimir Putin. Eurasianist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, an influential neo-Stalinist ideologue in Russian elite circles, has praised Stalin as the “greatest personality in Russian history”, comparing him to Ivan the Terrible who established the Tsardom of Russia.
Postconstructivism was a transitional architectural style that existed in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, typical of early Stalinist architecture before World War II. The term postconstructivism was coined by Selim Khan-Magomedov, a historian of architecture, to describe the product of avant-garde artists' migration to Stalinist neoclassicism. Khan-Magomedov identified postconstructivism with 1932–1936, but the long construction time and vast size of the country extended the period to 1941.
The Pantheon, officially also called the Monument to the Eternal Glory of the Great People of the Soviet Land, was a project to construct a monumental memorial tomb in Moscow, Soviet Union. The tomb was planned to serve as the final resting place for prominent communist figures along with the remains of Communists who had been buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. According to the plan, Vladimir Lenin's embalmed body would be transferred from Lenin's Mausoleum to the new Pantheon.
Sheila Mary Fitzpatrick is an Australian historian, whose main subjects are history of the Soviet Union and history of modern Russia, especially the Stalin era and the Great Purges, of which she proposes a "history from below", and is part of the "revisionist school" of Communist historiography. She has also critically reviewed the concept of totalitarianism and highlighted the differences between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in debates about comparison of Nazism and Stalinism.
Red fascism is a term equating Stalinism and other variants of Marxism–Leninism with fascism. Accusations that the leaders of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era acted as "red fascists" have come from left-wing figures who identified as anarchists, left communists, social democrats and other democratic socialists, as well as liberals, and among right-wing circles both closer to and further from the centre.
The Black Ribbon Day, officially known in the European Union as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism and also referred to as the Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, is an international day of remembrance for victims of totalitarianism regimes, specifically Stalinist, communist, Nazi and fascist regimes. Formally recognised by the European Union, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and some other countries, it is observed on 23 August. It symbolises the rejection of "extremism, intolerance and oppression" according to the European Union. The purpose of the Day of Remembrance is to preserve the memory of the victims of mass deportations and exterminations, while promoting democratic values to reinforce peace and stability in Europe. It is one of the two official remembrance days or observances of the European Union, alongside Europe Day. Under the name Black Ribbon Day it is an official remembrance day of Canada. The European Union has used both names alongside each other.
The Vilnius Declaration was a declaration adopted by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) during the 18th annual session of its parliamentary assembly, that took place in Vilnius from 29 June to 3 July 2009.
Various historians and other authors have carried out a comparison of Nazism and Stalinism, with particular consideration to the similarities and differences between the two ideologies and political systems, the relationship between the two regimes, and why both came to prominence simultaneously. During the 20th century, comparisons of Nazism and Stalinism were made on totalitarianism, ideology, and personality cult. Both regimes were seen in contrast to the liberal democratic Western world, emphasising the similarities between the two.
The European Parliament resolution of 2 April 2009 on European conscience and totalitarianism was a resolution of the European Parliament adopted on 2 April 2009 by a vote of 533–44 with 33 abstentions, in which the European Parliament condemned totalitarian crimes and called for the recognition of "Nazism, Stalinism and fascist and Communist regimes as a common legacy" and for "an honest and thorough debate on their crimes in the past century." The resolution also called for several measures to strengthen public awareness of totalitarian crimes.
Gigantomania is the production of unusually and superfluously large works.
The Seventy Years Declaration was a declaration initiated by the American academic Dovid Katz and the Australian academic Danny Ben-Moshe, and released on 20 January 2012 to protest the policies of several European states and European Union bodies concerning the evaluation, remembrance and prosecution of crimes committed by communist dictatorships in Europe, specifically policies of many European countries and the EU treating the Nazi and Stalinist regimes in Eastern and Central Europe as equally criminal. Presented as a response to the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism initiated by the Czech government in 2008 to condemn communism as totalitarian and criminal, it explicitly rejects the idea that the regimes of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler are morally equivalent, i.e. the totalitarianism theory that was popularized by academics such as Hannah Arendt, Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski and became dominant in Western political discourse during the Cold War, and that gained new popularity in many new EU member states after the end of communism, resulting in international resolutions, establishment of research institutes and museums, and the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism. The declaration also states that communist regimes did not commit genocides, citing the 1948 Genocide Convention which restricts genocide to mass killings related to ethnicity, race, nationality, or religion. The declaration claims that the Holocaust was unique, a subject of some debate. The declaration was signed by 70, mostly leftist, parliamentarians from Europe. It was released on the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin.
De-Stalinization comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power, and his 1956 secret speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", which denounced Stalin's cult of personality and the Stalinist political system.
Stripped Classicism is primarily a 20th-century classicist architectural style stripped of most or all ornamentation, frequently employed by governments while designing official buildings. It was adopted by both totalitarian and democratic regimes. The style embraces a "simplified but recognizable" classicism in its overall massing and scale while eliminating traditional decorative detailing. The orders of architecture are only hinted at or are indirectly implicated in the form and structure.
Nazi architecture is the architecture promoted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime from 1933 until its fall in 1945, connected with urban planning in Nazi Germany. It is characterized by three forms: a stripped neoclassicism, typified by the designs of Albert Speer; a vernacular style that drew inspiration from traditional rural architecture, especially alpine; and a utilitarian style followed for major infrastructure projects and industrial or military complexes. Nazi ideology took a pluralist attitude to architecture; however, Hitler himself believed that form follows function and wrote against "stupid imitations of the past".
Totalitarian architecture. Generally it might be defined as architecture created in frames of totalitarian State activity & under its strict control, due to its thorough character of the policy in order to strengthen & spread its ideology.
Totalitarian architecture, for instance, utilised specific propagandistic and symbolically loaded icons for its purposes"
Totalitarian architecture was supposed to achieve political benefits thanks to some perceptional codes, consciously hidden in it.
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