{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/129303"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/129303","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Spiritual nourishment: The virgin lands campaign and the emergence of the Soviet people","abstract":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2025-10-19 without embargo terms","abstract_html":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2025-10-19 without embargo terms","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Kelly, Sonia"],"institution":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.A.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Russian, E Eur, Eurasian St","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Whittington, Anna","Randolph, John"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-05-06","date_published":"2025-05-06","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:04Z","subjects":["Virgin Lands Campaign","Soviet people","Kazakhstan","Nikita Khrushchev","Soviet Union"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2025 Sonia Kelly"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129303","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Whittington, Anna","Randolph, John"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Kelly, Sonia"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2025-05-06","2025-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Russian, E Eur, Eurasian St"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.A."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Virgin Lands Campaign","Soviet people","Kazakhstan","Nikita Khrushchev","Soviet Union"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2025 Sonia Kelly"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129303"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2025-10-19 without embargo terms","The student, Sonia Kelly, accepted the attached license on 2025-05-01 at 19:02.","The student, Sonia Kelly, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2025-05-01 at 19:05.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2025-05-06 at 16:41.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22164 on 2025-10-19 at 18:11:31","The Virgin Lands Campaign aimed to bring 50 million hectares of new land under cultivation in Siberia, the North Caucasus, and (primarily) Qazaqstan. The campaign is widely understood to have been initiated by Nikita Khrushchev in 1953 both as a way of addressing food and material shortages in the Soviet Union and as part of his consolidation of power after Stalin’s death; it is also often interpreted as a failure because harvests began to stagnate in the virgin lands in the mid-1960s. This thesis argues that an important motivation for the scope of this campaign was Khrushchev’s interest in transforming Soviet society, particularly by improving material and spiritual wealth and by encouraging the emergence of the Soviet people. Migration, cultural initiatives, and the presence of a permanently settled community in the virgin lands all contributed to the Russification of the territory, and propaganda narratives promoted these cultural shifts as signs of the rise of the Soviet people. The virgin lands, which were proposed to become the Soviet Union’s sixteenth union republic, and which would have been the first union republic to lack a titular nationality, epitomized the denationalization of territory. These sociocultural shifts in the virgin lands, and the social shifts that the campaign facilitated in the rest of the Soviet Union, demonstrate that the campaign was a crucial element of post-war Soviet society."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Spiritual nourishment: The virgin lands campaign and the emergence of the Soviet people"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Whittington, Anna","Randolph, John"],"dc:creator":["Kelly, Sonia"],"dc:date":["2025-05-06","2025-05"],"dc:description":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2025-10-19 without embargo terms","The student, Sonia Kelly, accepted the attached license on 2025-05-01 at 19:02.","The student, Sonia Kelly, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2025-05-01 at 19:05.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2025-05-06 at 16:41.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22164 on 2025-10-19 at 18:11:31","The Virgin Lands Campaign aimed to bring 50 million hectares of new land under cultivation in Siberia, the North Caucasus, and (primarily) Qazaqstan. The campaign is widely understood to have been initiated by Nikita Khrushchev in 1953 both as a way of addressing food and material shortages in the Soviet Union and as part of his consolidation of power after Stalin’s death; it is also often interpreted as a failure because harvests began to stagnate in the virgin lands in the mid-1960s. This thesis argues that an important motivation for the scope of this campaign was Khrushchev’s interest in transforming Soviet society, particularly by improving material and spiritual wealth and by encouraging the emergence of the Soviet people. Migration, cultural initiatives, and the presence of a permanently settled community in the virgin lands all contributed to the Russification of the territory, and propaganda narratives promoted these cultural shifts as signs of the rise of the Soviet people. The virgin lands, which were proposed to become the Soviet Union’s sixteenth union republic, and which would have been the first union republic to lack a titular nationality, epitomized the denationalization of territory. These sociocultural shifts in the virgin lands, and the social shifts that the campaign facilitated in the rest of the Soviet Union, demonstrate that the campaign was a crucial element of post-war Soviet society."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129303"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2025 Sonia Kelly"],"dc:subject":["Virgin Lands Campaign","Soviet people","Kazakhstan","Nikita Khrushchev","Soviet Union"],"dc:title":["Spiritual nourishment: The virgin lands campaign and the emergence of the Soviet people"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Russian, E Eur, Eurasian St"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.A."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:04Z"}