«New city» in US periodical press (at the instigation of Magnitogorsk, 1930s.)

Abstract

The Soviet project in the broadest sense of the concept attracted attention both at the time of its implementation, and now as the subject of close attention of modern researchers. During the period of forced industrialization, Magnitogorsk, a city which construction began in the steppes of the Southern Urals, was an example of a «new city» created on a new «empty» place, a city devoid of history and the past, a city where it is possible to build a new society. This is how Soviet propaganda presented the image of Magnitogorsk both within the Soviet Union and abroad. The magazine «USSR at the construction site» exported propaganda ideas and the image of the «new city» to the capitalist world. In this article, the authors analyze the problem of reflecting the history of the creation of Magnitogorsk in the US periodical press on the basis of a complex of various historical sources (office documents, sources of personal origin and periodicals), in line with an integrated approach and the method of «thick description». The main historical source in this work were the American newspapers «The Atlanta Constitution», «The Patterson morning call», «The modern view», «Nashville Banner», «Daily Free-Lance», «Reno gazette-journal», «Public opinion», «The Yonkers Herald», «The Cincinnati Enquirer», «News-Journal», The Decatur daily review», «California Eagle», «The Terrill Record», «The American Guardian», «The Times Dispatch», «Star-Phoenix», «The evening news», «The Kansas City Times», «The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle», «Santa Rosa Republican». The key conclusion of the authors is that the image of Magnitogorsk in the US periodicals was not homogeneous and largely depended on the ideological orientation of the publication itself. However, the range of problems that were reflected in the periodical press was diverse and included both issues of social and consumer services for first-time builders and the problems of engineering solutions in the implementation of the construction of a metallurgical enterprise.