The project explores relationships between modern technologies, their emergence and use, and social and cultural change in Ukraine under Soviet rule (1922-1991). During this period, all production facilities were nationalized, technologies and their development were subject to centralized planning, and the Soviet state defined pathways for the distribution of goods. This system, radically distinct from market economies, both provided the foundations for specific Soviet designs of technological systems and encompassed, and potentially obscured, a much more complex reality, involving conflicting visions of technological development held by various lobby groups and arising from divergent points of view. The ideological frontier between "East" and "West" did not prevent the frequent transfer of Western technological innovations and solutions nor their implementation; the result was an often striking uniformity in global technological developments. In the meantime, under the radar of official ideology, citizens of the Soviet Union, including the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, practiced their own culture of the use, modification, and repair of technologies, which both helped to fill the gaps in supply of state-produced goods and, at times, gave rise to discontent and resistance.

The project rests on the idea that technologies are not "neutral" entities, but rather socially constructed. Technologies come into being through sets of complex social activities which entail and entangle political decisions, public debate, individual motivations and values, and institutions of knowledge production. Over time, technological systems stabilize, and the social decisions embedded in their design re-iterate and gain the appearance of infrastructure, characterized by perceived objectivity and neutrality. Our planned exploration of human-technology relationships through the lens of the unique historical experience of Soviet Ukraine will draw attention to this sociogenesis of technologies and, in so doing, contribute substantively to research on the Soviet Union and to global science and technology studies.

In several subprojects conducted by individual researchers, our project will study a variety of small- and large-scale technologies, including photographic cameras and home laboratories; tape recorders and sound systems in home settings; bicycles, motorcycles, cars, and railroads; and biomedical technologies in healthcare facilities. Our analysis will consider how the use of modern technologies affected social and cultural processes throughout Ukraine’s Soviet period. Three key approaches will undergird the project’s work: First, each of the subprojects examines state policies alongside the use of technologies in everyday life, enabling them to thoroughly explore social and cultural transformations across societal macro, meso, and micro levels. Second, the project’s researchers will place local cultures of technology use in transnational and global contexts, encompassing processes of technology transfer between "East" and "West". Third, they will take account of both the formal and informal production of knowledge and illuminate continuities and discontinuities in expertise through political shifts and across Ukrainian regions.

The metaphor of "testing" (випробування in Ukrainian) we use in the project’s title may be understood in several ways, depending on the level of analysis applied to it. At a macro level, the Soviet Union was a large-scale experiment in building a new society, an experiment which led, in particular, to a very distinct form of the production, distribution, and use of technologies; thus the Soviet Union was a long-term experiment (test) with technologies and their social applications. At a meso level, the Soviet experiment challenged (tested) various different groups of Ukrainian citizens during specific phases of Soviet Ukraine’s history. The incorporation of Ukrainian territories into Soviet rule implied profound changes in citizens’ day-to-day practices; they found themselves required to engage with new goods, technologies, and technological infrastructure, which at times offered new opportunities, but at times had a great cost in effort and suffering. At a micro level, there is the matter of Soviet-produced goods, which, especially in the USSR’s final decades, were known to have technical flaws due to insufficient testing at production sites. Consumers therefore had to test these goods after purchase and modify their parts to achieve smooth functioning. In other words, the testing of Soviet technologies was a duty imposed on consumers essentially to cover up design flaws.