Archaeological fantasies: Constructing history on the Moscow metro

The Moscow metro has long been acknowledged as one of the most spectacular technological and cultural achievements of the early Stalinist period. Among the numerous station designs produced during the 1930s, Ploshchad Revoliutsii, or Revolution Square, stands out as one of the most monumental and most striking. This article explores the synthesis of architectural and sculptural decoration at this station in the context of debates within the contemporary historical and scientific communities. It proposes that the decorative scheme deployed at Ploshchad Revoliutsii station alludes to concepts of evolution to justify an ideological construction of Soviet history.