“We retreated for a long time, silently...?” The Great Retreat of 1915 on the combat records of the units of the 7th Infantry Division of the 5th Army Corps

We consider one of the most difficult periods of the First World War for the Russian army – the “Great Retreat” of 1915. The behavior of the officer corps and soldiers of four regiments of the 7th Infantry Division of the Imperial Army in the conditions of a large-scale retreat in June–September 1915 is studied. In the course of the study, it is found that the events of those days are covered in regimental records very subjectively. Their compilers entered data with varying degrees of completeness and accuracy, and sometimes left serious gaps in the chronology of events. Nevertheless, the obtained facts allowed us to draw ambiguous conclusions about this event in our history. There is a place for the manifestation of all the human traits that can be revealed in war. Soldiers and officers, finding themselves in different situations, could show courage and bravery, cowardice and weakness, determination and uncertainty. However, the general description of what is happening convinces us that the people who found themselves in these conditions remained faithful to the oath and fulfilled the tasks assigned to them. The Great retreat “did not bury” the Russian imperial army, which continued the struggle and only the circumstances that occurred within the state in two years will put an end to the history of its existence.

Historicist Architecture and Stalinist Futurity

Architectural practice in the Stalinist USSR saw the sudden and rapid revival of historical forms and styles. One approach interprets this development as part of a reactionary shift in Soviet temporal culture, a “Great Retreat” across all spheres of social and political life. The rival conception sees in historicism an aesthetic of “timelessness” and “perfection,” which expressed Stalinism's self-characterization as an eternal, utopian present. This paper presents a third perspective, arguing that the revival of historicism stemmed, paradoxically, from a future-oriented impulse. This revolved around the charge that Stalinist architecture “immortalize the memory” of the era, to ensure posterity's gratitude and admiration. Accordingly, Stalinist architects drew upon supposedly enduring historical styles, which they expected to remain understandable to future generations. Further, time-tested traditional materials, forms, and decorative mediums were employed to ensure the physical durability of Stalinist architectural monuments. The paper concludes by situating this logic in the global context of interwar monumental architecture and considering some implications for our understanding of Stalinist temporality.