Conceptualizing and Utilizing the Natural Environment: Critical Reflections from Imperial and Soviet Russia

Abstract

Slavonic and East European Review, 93, 1, 2015 Conceptualizing and Utilizing the Natural Environment: Critical Reflections from Imperial and Soviet Russia JONATHAN OLDFIELD, JULIA LAJUS and DENIS J. B. SHAW Introduction This special issue1 is broadly concerned with exploring the different ways in which Russian society engaged with the natural environment from the late seventeenth century through to the mid-to-late Soviet period. Viewed through the lens of Soviet collapse and associated discourses concerning the destruction of nature, it is tempting to conclude that Russia has little to teach us beyond serving as an example of the crude appropriation of natural resources and efforts to manipulate natural systems on a large scale, typically with limited concern about collateral environmental damage. Initiatives such as the Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature (1948– 53) and Khrushchev’s Virgin Lands Scheme, with their associated attempts to reshape the natural environment in order to advance the Communist Jonathan Oldfield is Reader in Russian Environmental Studies in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham; Julia Lajus is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics, St Petersburg, and Denis J. B. Shaw is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham. 1 The stimulus for this special issue was an international workshop held at the European University at St Petersburg in May 2013, funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (Ref: AH/G011028/1), Economic and Social Research Council (Ref: ES/ G027196/1) and the Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies (CRCEES). The authors wish to thank the funding bodies for their generous support and the other workshop attendees for their thought-provoking contributions to the general discussion. The assistance of the anonymous SEER reviewers and Barbara Wyllie is also gratefully acknowledged. J. OLDFIELD, J. LAJUS & D. J. B. SHAW 2 project, appear to be symbolic of a cavalier approach to the natural environment, underpinned by a strong belief in the primacy of society over nature. Such understandings have merit and remain influential within the context of environmental history scholarship.2 Nevertheless, a closer analysis, and one that moves beyond the generalities of the Soviet period, suggests a more complex and nuanced situation, characterized by efforts to analyse and regulate the utilization of available natural resources. Such sentiment is reflected in a smattering of recent critical reviews concerning Russian environmental history, all of which emphasize the need for more work in this area.3 Amongst other things, this literature encourages a deeper analysis of Russian attempts to inventorize the considerable riches of its land, water and marine resources, and parallel initiatives directed towards gaining greater understanding of the inner workings of the natural world and associated processes. As we shall see, such trends provided the framework for the establishment of relatively sophisticated systems of natural resource management embedded in the country’s regional and local economies. The enormity and diversity of Russia’s resource base ensures that it remains a topic of contemporary concern and debate. In recent decades, it is the political economy of Russia’s hydrocarbon resources that has tended to dominate discussion, and yet strategic assessments of mineral and natural resource reserves formed a key area of analysis for much of the Soviet period on both sides of the ideological divide.4 While such assessments remain of importance, recent scholarship in environmental history and related fields has moved in new directions, providing evidence of the range and complexity of historical environmental management 2 For example, the recently published introductory reader on global environmental history includes a chapter entitled ‘The Predatory Tribute-Taking State’ (Douglas R. Weiner, ‘The Predatory Tribute-Taking State: A Framework for Understanding Russian Environmental History’, in John McNeill and Alan Roe [eds], Global Environmental History: An Introductory Reader, London, 2013, pp. 283–319). See also the country review in the 2012 publication, A Companion to Global Environmental History, which is focused on the Soviet period (Stephen Brain, ‘Environmental History of the Soviet Union’, in J. R. McNeill and Erin S. Mauldin [eds], A Companion to Global Environmental History, Chichester, 2012, pp. 222–43...