The book revolves around two modernist opera theatres-designed by two leading femalearchitects-that stand on the Soviet periphery, in Lithuania and Belarus: the Opera and BalletTheatre in Vilnius (1962-74) by Nijole Buciute and the Comic Opera in Minsk (1973-81) by OxanaTkachuk. The book reconstructs the history of how each theatre was commissioned, planned, andbuilt; it also uses their contextualization as a means to examine the contemporary political andcultural events that had been unfolding on the stages of the Republics prior to and at the time ofthe theatres' creation. The book looks at how modernist architecture co-created and conveyed theself-imaginaries of the "new nations" of Belarus and Lithuania. By addressing the long-neglectedprocesses of nation-building within the Soviet Union and the way built environments were involvedin this, it helps comprehend the forces that propelled the Soviet Union towards its collapse, whileplacing architecture's entanglement with them centre stage.Oxana Gourinovitch, PhD TU Berlin, is an architectural historian, architect, and curator. Thepublication is based on her PhD thesis, which was awarded the Tiburtius Prize in 2021. The publicationis supported in part by the Graham Foundation's publishing grant.
