This senior thesis research project is jointly funded by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. It is advised by Professor Terry Martin, but is otherwise independent work. Broadly, the project will study urban planning and city development in Siberia during the period of Trans-Siberian railway construction, roughly 1890-1921.

 

The investigation will use the town of Irkutsk as a primary case study, but it will also feature comparative points based on the consideration of other Siberian localities, including Vladivostok, Krasnoyarsk, and Novosibirsk. The main cites for archival and historical research on this trip are the State Archive of Irkutsk Oblast (GAIO), the Nauchnaya Biblioteka Imeni I. I. Molchanova-Sibirskogo of Irkutsk, and the Russian State Library. Using archival material, i.e. government correspondence and cartographic data, I plan to investigate how Siberian cities were constructed, planned, repurposed, and physically and culturally shifted in order to prepare for the new railway and adapt to the post-revolution Bolshevik government.

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None of this research would have been possible without the generous advice and support of my professors, advisors, and family members. It is to them that I dedicate this project.