Modernizing Russia in the Aeronautical Age: Technology, Legitimacy, and the Structures of Air-Mindedness, 1909-1939
"In addition to identifying the essential characteristics of Imperial and Soviet aeronautical culture, the dissertation offers new insight into the nature and direction of Russian society, culture, and politics in the years surrounding 1917. Through documentation of the interactive efforts of Imperial state officials and private citizens to raise public awareness of the importance of aviation, the dissertation contributes to the scholarly view that an emergent civic arena, independent from the tsarist state, was a salient feature of late Imperial Russia. In contrast, the Soviet approach to aeronautical modernization demonstrated the essential commitment of Party leaders towards a comprehensive program of forced modernization directed exclusively ""from above"" that sacrificed private associations and individual initiative in favor of centrally-planned collective action. Soviet officials' concurrent efforts to employ aviation as a symbol and instrument of the Party's scientific accomplishments, point to technological legitimacy as a constant and essential feature of Soviet culture."
Sociology, Social Structure and Development
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign