The USSR at the International Hygienic Exhibition in Dresden (1930): Healthcare as "Soft Power"

The paper aims to study the USSR's participation in the International Hygienic Exhibition in Dresden in 1930 in the context of Soviet and German history. We examine the preparation of the Soviet pavilion and work of the exhibition, as well as the perception of the Soviet exposition by the German press and evaluation of the exhibition by Soviet officials. The article is based on archival materials from the fund of People's Commissariat of Health of Soviet Russia in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF, F. A482): correspondence of the People's Commissariat of Health regarding the preparation and conduct of the exhibition, orders, minutes of meetings, reports, clippings from the German press, and so on. From the outset, the USSR's exposition was conceived as an international political action, and, as a result, it became more a political manifestation than an event in the field of hygiene. The 1930 Dresden exhibition showed a difference in the political and scientific agendas of different countries. If Germany organized the exhibition to demonstrate its scientific and technological superiority in the field of hygiene, the USSR used hygiene merely as an instrument of political propaganda in the international arena. German press praised the artistic design of the Soviet pavilion, noting the role of Lazar Lissitzky. At the same time, observers of German newspapers did not believe the charts of mortality and morbidity rates in the USSR and believed that the USSR demonstrated non-existent achievements.