Moscow architects and professional accommodation to Soviet power: Defining the limits of professional authority, 1867-1930

This dissertation examines the development of the Moscow Architectural Society and the profession's interaction with the soviet state. Like the liberal professions in nineteenth-century Russia, Moscow architects were critical of the role state building programs played on the development of Russian architecture. However, as architects became active in urban affairs, rather than opposing the tsarist state, they worked within the bureaucratic structures of municipal and national government. Rather than advocating direct participation in legislative decision-making, architects sought public and state recognition of their professional authority. Politically, this translated into recognition of their expertise as artists and technicians and their right to counsel the state on housing, city planning, and cultural enlightenment. Professionally, architects sought to distinguish themselves from the other building trades, especially civil engineers, by gaining professional control over architectural education and by retaining the curricular differences between artistic and technical education.; The limited political and professional goals of Moscow architects eased their transition to soviet power, especially during the early years of the New Economic Policy. The state, like the tsarist government, retained associations into the lower levels of the state's education administration set a precedent for mutual compromise and interaction. After 1925 this relationship was severely challenged by the state's growing need for construction engineers and the increasing influence over education exerted by the Supreme Economic Council, which defined architecture as an industrial rather than a fine art. In matters of professional education, architects sought to retain recognition as arkhitektor-khudozhnik in a world where identity and influence were increasingly defined in terms of party loyalty. In trying to preserve their professional identity, architects sacrificed artistic innovation and professional authority to state control.