The City as a Collective Housing: Mission of Professor M.D. Zagryatskov. 1930s

Abstract

The article highlights the work of one of the leading experts in the field of urban planning and development M.D. Zagryatskov. His views were formed at the beginning of the XX century. An outstanding lawyer, a staunch supporter of the ideas of "municipal socialism", rejected by the Soviet regime, M.D. Zagryatskov was largely deprived of the possibility of full professional realization, and his fundamental monographs remained unpublished. The author of the article analyzes the characteristics of the works of M.D. Zagryatskov, that were dedicated to the city and published in the professional press in the 1930s. The special nature of these publications, which was not typical for the 1930s, is revealed: despite the richness of information on foreign urban planning, they were not aimed at specific pragmatics of urban planning. Despite a critical attitude to foreign experience, M.D. Zagryatskov saw grounds for criticism not in ideology, but in insufficient use of the capabilities of the city government system. The development of this system in Russia was interrupted after the October Revolution. For a number of reasons, the local Soviets did not have sufficient power to really influence the state of urban affairs. Within the framework of the New Economic Policy, M.D. Zagryatskov made many practical proposals for improving the situation, but they remained unrealized. With the change in state policy, the scientist was forced to confine himself to a kind of "educational mission". It is shown that a deep scientific analysis of foreign practice from the economic, legal, organizational, and historical points of view gave M.D. Zagryatskov the opportunity to conduct a hidden dialogue with the realities of Soviet urban planning, and to point out the alikeness of many problems. The difficult circumstances of M.D. Zagryatskov's life and scientific path are revealed. Through his works he did a lot for the development of administrative and financial law but remained "unreliable" until his death in the 1950s. The author claims that without studying the scientific views and human destinies of outstanding specialists of the widest spectrum who influenced the urban planning process in the USSR, its full-fledged history can hardly be written.