Time in 1:72 Scale

This chapter explores the scale model hobby in the USSR, focusing on models as objects that made manifest the historical imagination inherent in Soviet technopolitics. Models, especially when assembled in collections, challenged Marxist interpretations of history and helped organize the Soviet historical imagination along national lines. As with their prototypes, scale models were also affective but in a different way, because of their ability to showcase Soviet industrial and technological capabilities and to stand as a synecdoche for historical progress. The miniaturization of history in its particular technocentric and national understanding made models performative, as they organized history into a spectacle for the educated male gaze of Soviet model enthusiasts. The chapter also addresses the themes of the public space, performativity, and visuality.