Hunting in Imperial Russia: State Policy and Social Order in L. P. Sabaneev's Writing

Abstract

This article uses L. P. Sabaneev's writing as a lens through which to examine hunting in imperial Russia. I argue that Sabaneev's narration of the history of hunting in Russia, his description of hunting practices and his arguments for stronger conservation laws and greater state enforcement of those laws illustrate the relatively unusual, among European societies, status of hunting for imperial Russian elites. In brief, Russian sport hunters recognized the continuing importance of productive hunters in Russia, which, unlike many of the European states with which Russian elites were familiar, maintained enormous swathes of wilderness. While adapting technology and forms of hunting from societies to the west, in Sabaneev's account, Russian elites ignored the status obsessions connected with hunting for other European elites. Moreover, Sabaneev's arguments, in the Hunting Gazette, for greater attention to conservation on the part of the government, as the proper representative of all people, combined his ardent monarchism with the scientific and collectivist arguments often associated with progressive thought. The juxtaposition of these views found wide popularity, complicating our sometimes simplistic understandings of class and political tensions in late imperial Russia.