«ВСЕ СЕГОДНЯ О ПРИРОДЕ ДУМАЮТ»: ПОИСКИ АГЕНТНОСТИ В ПОЗДНЕСОВЕТСКОМ ЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКОМ ПЛАКАТЕ

Abstract

The article analyzes late Soviet posters related to environmental issues and places them in the context of environmental history in the Soviet era. Analyzing the Soviet posters, we can distinguish three distinct stages: 1) nature as an object of human effort; 2) nature as an object in need of protection from individual pests; and 3) nature as a value and subject. This change did not occur by itself but reflected an evolution of the perception of ecology in Soviet society. A close examination of the dynamics of posters reveals that nature was gradually but increasingly endowed with its own agency, maximizing this quality by the time of Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Poster authors increasingly allowed the environment to act on behalf of itself. This shift was the result of factors beyond that medium — a crisis of trust in state institutions and in the science that depended on them. In keeping with B. Latour’s thesis, the development of an independent nature image in posters testified to the need for establishing different principles of “politics of nature”, although this need (not perceived as such by its authors) began to be reflected in the “superstructure” and in the sphere of the environment’s representation. The growing importance of ecology, both in the USSR and internationally, called for new answers to global questions. Within the Soviet system, therefore, various power structures sought to develop a language for discussing ecology issues based on Marxist-Leninist principles.