Soviet Geography Research Articles

Examination of curriculum development studies in former Soviet geography (2017-2022)

Bu çalışmanın amacı; 2017-2022 yıllar arasında eski Sovyet coğrafyasında yayınlanmış program geliştirme araştırmalarının incelenmesidir. Araştırmada nitel araştırma tekniklerinden doküman analizi yöntemi kullanılmıştır. Çalışmanın örneklemini 2017-2022 yıllar arasında eski Sovyet coğrafyasında 26 dergide yayınlanmış 28 makale oluşturmuştur. Makaleler betimsel yaklaşım çerçevesinde doküman incelemesi yapılarak incelenmiş ve her bir makale “Makale Sınıflama Formu” kullanılarak betimsel ve içerik analizine tabi tutulmuştur. Araştırma sonucuna göre, makalelerde en çok program değerlendirme konusu araştırılmıştır. Araştırmalarda nitel yöntemlere, araştırma deseni olarak da alanyazın derlemesi ve doküman incelemeye daha çok yer verilmiştir. Veri analiz yöntemi olarak da betimsel analizler daha çok tercih edilmiştir. Elde edilen sonuçların gelecek çalışmalara ışık tutacağı düşünülmektedir.

The Forgotten Soviet Geographer and Famous Writer Nikolai Nikolaevich Mikhailov (1905–1982). Experience of Internet Search and Bio-bibliographic Analysis

The article outlines a career path of a famous writer, novelist and writer-geographer, Nikolai Nikolayevich Mikhailov. It reveals that he was be a professional geographer, which previously hasn’t been recognized, who taught Economic Geography at Moscow universities, headed the Department of Economic Geography at the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers and received the degree of Candidate of Geographical Sciences for a book on the Far East published in 1940. The role of M. Gorky and his journal “Our Achievements” in the development of N. N. Mikhailov as a writer-geographer is demonstrated. The study of the memoirs of N. N. Mikhailov and the leading Soviet economic geographer N. N. Baranskii allowed to restore the episodes of the former’s activities in Alma-Ata during the evacuation, including the unsuccessful defense of his doctoral thesis in 1948. The role of the leading Soviet physical geographer, Director of the Institute of Geography, A. A. Grigoriev, in the defense of two dissertations by N. N. Mikhailov is established as well. His English-language books published abroad, unknown to Russian specialists in geography and history, are analyzed and introduced into scholarship. For the first time, the preface by the famous geographer and geopolitician Halford Mackinder, written for the first edition of the book by N. N. Mikhailov “Soviet Geography” (1935), is translated into Russian. That publication paved the way all the further English-language books of the author, which were practically the only sources of information for Western readers in the field of the grandiose changes on the geographical map of the country of the Soviets. On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the death of this remarkable writer and geographer, the articles puts forward proposals to perpetuate his name.

ТЕОДОР ШАБАД И ИЗУЧЕНИЕ СОВЕТСКОЙ ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКОЙ ГЕОГРАФИИ В США В ГОДЫ ХОЛОДНОЙ ВОЙНЫ

The focus of the article is the scholar and journalistic activities of American geographer Theodore Shabad during the Cold War. It is noted that from the very beginning of his scientific career Shabad was interested in the geography of the USSR, as well as in the current state of Soviet geography. He contributed much to the dissemination and popularization of the works of Soviet geographers among the Anglo-American peers in the 1950s–1980s. Shabad’s main research interest was the study of the industrial localization in the USSR, in particular, on the undeveloped territories of Siberia. Analyzing the Soviet policy of economic regionalization, he emphasized its internal incoherence. On the one hand, the Soviet policy towards regional self-sufficiency of administrative-territorial units led to the shrinkage of interregional economic relations. On the other hand, regional industrial specialization stimulated interregional interactions. The authors conclude that Shabad did much for the development of Soviet-American scientific relations as a journalist as well as a founder of several natural science journals, which in the 1960s–1980s published translations of articles by leading Soviet scholars in various fields of geography.

Scientific path of Viktor Borisovich Sochava and his contributions for landscape analysis

This paper is dedicated to the life of the Soviet geographer Viktor Borisovich Sochava (1905-1978), who contributed substantially to the geosystemic theory formation in the field of knowledge of Geography, Ecology, and Geosciences in general. The paper covers his academic trajectory and scientific production, pointing out V. Sochava’s main research and contributions for landscape analysis and evolution and development of these disciplines in theoretical and applied sciences. The main results of V. Sochava’s research are also presented throughout the text.

SANATORIUM-PREVENTION «MOUNTAIN WATER» (TO THE QUESTION OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE HEALTH RESORT BASE OF PRIMORSKY KRAI)

The article provides a mention of the Russian Soviet geographer and traveler V. K. Arsenyev about mineral springs in the Ussuri taiga, briefly outlines the history of the opening of a sanatorium in Gornovodny (Sandagou). The role of the command of the Vladimir-Olginsky military naval base of the Pacific Fleet in the opening of the sanatorium is highlighted (information from the book of the graduate of the Naval Medical Academy, captain of the medical service A. M. Kopanev was used), as well as the study and application in the treatment of patients with mineral water by a naval doctor the therapeutic department of the 18th Naval Hospital of the 750th Logistics Department of the Pacific Fleet, Lieutenant Colonel of the Medical Service I. F. Andreev. The main characteristics, chemical formula and chemical composition of mineral water from the Gornovodnoye spring are given. The medical base, profiles of diseases, accommodation, nutrition, recreation, summer and winter outdoor air temperatures are presented.

A Chicken Is Not a Bird, Mongolia Is Not Abroad: Late Socialist Mongolia in the Soviet Geographical Imagination

As the Mongolian People’s Republic became increasingly important to the Soviet Union’s foreign policy goals in the second half of the twentieth century, many Soviet specialists found themselves living and working in Mongolia for considerable amounts of time. Though this was technically a foreign posting, those specialists often did not consider it as such. As a then-popular saying put it, “a chicken is not a bird, Mongolia is not abroad” (kuritsa ne ptitsa, Mongolia ne zagranitsa). In this paper, I will use Soviet accounts of life in late socialist Mongolia to interrogate Soviet ideas of “the abroad”, placing Mongolia in a broader imagined geography of the socialist world and beyond. After surveying the meanings that the idea of “the abroad” (zagranitsa) held for Soviet citizens, I will show that Mongolia was simultaneously too familiar and too foreign in all the wrong ways to be classified as true zagranitsa. Drawing from the memoirs of Soviet expatriates living in a country that was separated from the USSR by an international border yet hauntingly familiar, I will explore the ways in which Soviet citizens’ imaginations of foreignness and distance diverged from those imposed by officially designated borders.

Analysis of the efficiency of the use of natural resources capacity of ukrainian consolidated territorial communities

The problems of efficient use of natural resources capacity in conditions of administrative and territorial reform show themselves the most at local level. That is why it is important to eliminate contradictions that emerge between population and economic entities on one side and territorial natural sector on the other side at the level of consolidated territorial communities (CTCs). Natural resources are the component of complex territorial natural systems. A certain combination of various types of natural resources or modifications of one type of resources within the integral system forms the territorial combination of natural resources. Therefore, the analysis of the use of natural resources capacity of communities is of utmost importance for forming of the CTCs’ development policy. The paper aims to analyze the natural resources capacity of CTCs, detect and substantiate the process of forming, use and maintenance of natural resources capacity of CTCs and to form the directions and measures to increase it. Methodology of research. The set tasks are accomplished by means of calculations groups of sub-indices: budget efficiency of the use of natural resources capacity; density of natural resources; provision with resources; rent payments. Findings. The use of natural resources capacity to fill the CTC’s budget is analyzed; density of natural resources at the territory of a CTC is determined; provision of a CTC’s population with natural resources is calculated; main aspects of rent payment as the main revenue to local budget are examined; reserves of increasing of natural resources capacity of communities are detected. Practical value. The paper proves that participation of residents in control over the use and protection of natural resources on their territory and complex assessment of natural resources based on cadaster data as information-analytical ground for making managerial decisions by CTC’s authorities on nature management are of the utmost importance for the development of communities. Keywords: administrative-territorial reform, budget, authorities’ decentralization, consolidated territorial communities, natural resources capacity, rent. REFERENCES 1. Shkuratova, І. І. (2011). Upravlinnya pryrodnoresursnym potentsialom v ekonomichniy systemi rehionu [Management of natural resources capacity in economic system of a region]. Visnyk Akademiyi mytnoyi sluzhby Ukrayiny. Seriya Derzhavne upravlinnya – Bulletin of the Academy of Customs Service of Ukraine. Series Public management, 1, 92–97 [in Ukrainian]. 2. Dmitriyevskiy, Yu. D. (1968). Prirodnyy potentsial i yego kolichestvennaya otsenka Sovetskiye geografy KHKHÍ MGK [Natural potential and its quantitative assessment. Soviet geographers XXI MGK]. Moscow: Nauka [in Russian]. 3. Reymers, N. F. (1990). Prirodopol'zovaniye: slovar'-spravochnik [Nature management: reference dictionary]. Moscow: Mysl [in Russian]. 4. Danylyshyn, B. М., Dorohuntsov, S. I., Mishchenko, V. S., Koval, Y. V., Novotorov, О. S., Palamarchuk, М. М. (1999). Pryrodno-resursnyy potentsial staloho rozvytku Ukrayiny [Ntural resources capacity of Ukraine’s sustainable development]. Kyiv: RVPS of Ukraine [in Ukrainian]. 5. Rudenko, V. P. (1993). Heohrafiya pryrodnoresursnoho potentsialu Ukrayiny [Geography of natural resources capacity of Ukraine]. Lviv: Svit [in Ukrainian]. 6. Shevchuk, L.T. (2001). Rozmishchennya produktyvnykh syl [Distribution of productive forces]. Lviv: Publishers. LNU them. Ivan Franko [in Ukrainian]. 7. Pavlov, V. I., & Lukin, S. O. (2002). Ekonomichnyy potentsial rehionu: diahnostyka ta realizatsiya [Economic potential of the region: diagnostics and realization]. Lutsk: Overhang [in Ukrainian]. 8. Klochkov, V. А. (1996). Opredeleniye prirodno-resursnogo potentsiala territorii kak element optimizatsii prirodo pol'zovaniya. Territorial'naya organizatsiya obshchestva i upravleniye v regionakh [Defining the natural resources capacity of a territory as na element of optimization of nature management. Territorial organization of society and management in the regions]. Voronezh [in Russian]. 9. Derevyaho, I. P. (2008). Analiz vosproizvodstvennykh protsessov v sisteme ustoychivogo razvitiya [Analysis of reproduction processes in the system of sustainable development]. Problemy sovremennoy ekonomiki – Problems of Modern Economy, 2(26), 45-52 [in Russian]. 10. Zhuk, P. V. (2013). Pryrodno-resursnyy potentsial ta pryrodnyy kapital u paradyhmi staloho rozvytku Karpat·skoho rehionu [Natural resources capacity and nature capital in the paradigm of sustainable development of Carpathian region]. Sotsialno-ekonomichni problemy suchasnoho periodu Ukrayiny – Socio- Economic Problems of Modern Period of Ukraine, 5(103), 48–57 [in Ukrainian]. 11. Hrynchyshyn, I., Bil, M., Popadynets, N., Leshchuh, I., Patytska, K. (2019). Theoretic interpretation of the components of territorial communities endogenous capacity. Organizational- economic mechanism of management innovative development of economic entities: collective monograph / edited by M. Bezpartochnyi, in 3 Vol. / Higher School of Social and Economic. – Przeworsk: WSSG, 2, 19–30 [in Poland]. 12. Supreme Council of Ukraine (2010). Podatkovyy kodeks Ukrayiny [The Tax Code of Ukraine] (Adopted on 2010, December 02, 2755-VI). Retrieved from https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/term/25651:59886 [in Ukrainian]. 13. Supreme Council of Ukraine (2016). Pro vnesennya zmin do Byudzhetnoho kodeksu Ukrayiny shchodo zarakhuvannya rentnoyi platy za korystuvannya nadramy dlya vydobuvannya nafty, pryrodnoho hazu ta hazovoho kondensatu [Amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine on the calculation of rents for the use of mineral resources for the extraction of oil, natural gas and gas condensate]: Law of Ukraine, adopted on 2016, December 20, 1793-VIII. Retrieved fro: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/main/1793-19 [in Ukrainian]. Published: 2020-03-26

Внесок Володимира Марковича Фрідланда в розвиток порівняльно-географічного підходу

The paper is devoted to the outstanding soviet geographer and soil scientist, Doctor of Geographical Sciences (1964), Professor (1968) Vladimir Fridland (1919–1983). A prominent place in his research works was taken by geospatial comparative-geographic studies. V. Fridland took part in many research projects in various parts of the world, including his motherland. From the actualistic and evaluative positions, the paper considers the important (at present) results from the seminal works of V. Fridland, which he had obtained using a wide range of methodological tools and research techniques, including comparative-geographical approach. V. Fridland also made an important contribution to the formation and development of natural geography. He enriched theoretical, methodological and applied aspects not only of soil science, but of geography in general. In his work of 1956, the scientist convincingly, in a concise comparative form and causal relationship, highlighted the natural conditions of the USSR and outlined their foreign analogues. In his influential work of 1964, V. Fridland had investigated the weathering processes, types of weathering, genesis and geography of soils in Northern Vietnam. In the 1970s, the pioneering scientist created a new research area – the doctrine of the structure of soil cover. Through field research in many regions of the Earth, the scientist has used and improved the approaches and methods of many natural sciences, including comparative one. V. Fridland successfully and productively used in scientific research almost the entire range of comparative-geographical methods. V. Fridland was the first one in the soviet geography to identify comparative method as an approach.

ЭПОХА И ЕЕ ТВОРЕЦ (К 90-летию Ю.В. МЕДВЕДКОВА), "Известия Российской академии наук. Серия географическая"

Yuri Medvedkov was one of the most glittering figures in the Soviet geography of 1960–1970. He was one of the standard-bearers of the quantitative and theoretical revolution. He brought in the geography not only the extremely valuable results and methods of modeling, but much more strict way of thinking, which is peculiar to the exact sciences. The level of theoretical thinking in geography has decreased significantly over the last half century and we are sorely behind the level of the Dr. Sci. thesis of Yu. Medvedkov. Medvedkov has created in1974 intheInstituteofGeographythe Laboratory of human ecology, which became for several years one of the most vibrant centers of geographical thought in our country. In 1972, Medvedkov was deprived by the arbitrary of power to return toGeneva, where he headed the Laboratory of ecology of WHO. After this he was deprived of the opportunity to travel abroad. Such a problem finally forced him to submit in 1981 the statement on emigration. He was excluded from the scientific community until his emigration in 1986.

Werth, Paul W. The Tsar's Foreign Faiths: Toleration and the Fate of Religious Freedom in Imperial Russia (review)

REVIEWS 545 Geographers should concentrate on understanding the laws involved in solar radiation, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere in this view. While Grigor´ev explicitly saw his project as developing physical geography in a Marxist direction, he ended up being displaced by rivals from his position at the top of the disciplinary hierarchy in 1951. His ouster belonged to a larger set of ideological battles that shook Soviet scientific communities in the final years of Stalin’s reign. The final innovative concept of Soviet geographers came from Vsevelod Anuchin, who proposed the idea of a geographical environment. Anuchin was responding to a long-standing question about the relationship between nature andsocietyamongSovietgeographersandproposed‘geographicalenvironment’ asawaytounifyphysicalandeconomicgeography.Ageographicalenvironment entailed the increasingly large portion of the physical-geographical envelope that had been modified by humans. Though this idea was controversial when it was first suggested, initial opponents such as the Innokentii Gerasimov, who directed the Institute of Geography of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from 1951 to 1985, came around to the cause of a unified geography and offered their own avenues for achieving this aim. Oldfield and Shaw have done a great service by parsing out these geographical concepts, explaining their distinctions and elaborating their relationship to broader trends in the country’s history. The volume is indispensible for scholars of Russian environmental thought. Department of History Andy Bruno Northern Illinois University Werth, Paul W. The Tsar’s Foreign Faiths: Toleration and the Fate of Religious Freedom in Imperial Russia. Oxford Studies in Modern European History. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2014. xv + 288 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. £65.00. In this erudite and deeply-researched book, Paul Werth explores the curious paradoxofastatethatidentifieditselfalmostentirelywithonereligion—Russian Orthodoxy — and yet not only tolerated other faiths, but provided them with a measure of protection and state recognition. This can be partly explained as a pragmatic adjustment of state policy to the reality of the empire’s diversity, what Jane Burbank has described as an ‘Imperial Rights Regime’. However, tsarist toleration of ‘foreign faiths’ was based on more than just grudging necessity: religious toleration was seen as a positive and laudable characteristic of Russian statecraft. In this book Werth is engaging with a growing literature on SEER, 94, 3, july 2016 546 the interaction between non-Orthodox religious hierarchies and communities and the Russian Imperial State, most notably weighty monographs by Robert Crews and Mikhail Dolbilov, but his agenda is at once more comprehensive and more cautious than theirs. Werth’s study is organized both thematically and chronologically, but his approach is comparative throughout, looking at how shifts in official policy might simultaneously affect the Armenian and the Catholic Churches, or the repercussions of an event such as the Polish Revolt not just for the Empire’s Catholics, but for its Muslims. While, as he modestly says, he does not analyse Central Asia, the Grand Duchy of Finland or the Kingdom of Poland in as much depth as he would have liked, Werth’s attempt to see tsarist religious policy ‘in the round’, and to chart changes over a very long nineteenth century (c.1760–1917) largely succeeds, and allows him to make connections, see patterns and draw conclusions in ways that studies focused on a single region or confession could not. Werth is not pursuing a grand thesis — he uses Crews’s concept of the ‘confessional state’, but carefully differentiates Russian policy towards Islam in time and place. He also draws telling comparisons with other Imperial and European States, notably the equally multi-confessional Habsburg and Ottoman domains, showing that it was change in this wider sphere, and in particular the evolution of the concept of ‘freedom of conscience’, which transformed perceptions of Russia’s regime of ‘religious toleration’. When initiated by Catherine the Great this had stood up well to comparison with Europe’s other religious regimes (Catholics, for instance, were in many ways better off in Russia than they were in Britain until emancipation in 1829), but by the early 1900s contextual change made it seem like another aspect of tsarist Russia’s backwardness and oppressiveness (pp. 122–27). What provides the book with a focus...

Geography and the great victory: A story from the wartime life of “pacific” academic geography

Based on an analysis of materials from the “List of Works of the Institute of Geography, USSR Academy of Sciences, Conducted during World War II (1941–1943)” and numerous works in geographical publications commemorating the 40th and 50th anniversaries of the Great Victory, the paper considers the contributions of scientific geographers to military geographical support of the army and the home front. Quantitative and qualitative estimates for the volume of cartographic and reference materials are given, prepared at the Institute of Geography, including direct participation in works by I.P. Gerasimov and K.K. Markov. A hypothesis is proffered that, owing to the wartime departure from the ideological war again “Denism” and “Hettnerism,” Soviet geography was able to return to its country-specific essence, a landscape approach, and industrial-statistical direction in economic geography, which helped to actively create the military-cartographic and military-reference materials needed for the front and rear, including maps—landscapes of the front and rear, passability maps, location of the population, industries, natural resources, the mobilization potential of territories, etc. It is shown that each of the directions of the institute’s activity during the war was substantially developed in the postwar years.

A Russian geographical tradition? The contested canon of Russian and Soviet geography, 1884–1953

The paper defines a ‘geographical canon’ as those texts and authors which have been regarded as authoritative by geographers active at particular points in time. The focus is on the development of a geographical canon in Russia and the Soviet Union between the establishment of the first university geography departments in the 1880s and Stalin's death in 1953. A key 1949 meeting of the Academy of Sciences, held at a crisis point in Soviet history, is initially highlighted. The meeting's purpose was to define a canon or list of ‘founding fathers’ for each of the Soviet sciences, including geography, accenting the Russian provenance of each science. In geography's case, the ‘founding father’ selected was the eminent soil scientist, V. V. Dokuchaev (1846–1903). The paper discusses Dokuchaev's scientific achievements and questions why he was considered such an important figure by the geographers of the late Stalin era. It then analyzes some of the key works of a number of prominent geographers of the pre-revolutionary and Stalinist periods to discover how far Dokuchaev's work was emphasized. The main finding is that, although Dokuchaev and his school did have an indirect influence on geographical work from early on, only from about 1930 was his importance emphasized whilst that of the Germans was largely erased by Stalinism. The conclusion is that the geographical canon defined in 1949 was less a genuine attempt to describe the history of the discipline than a response to the priorities of the late Stalin era.

Mastering Nature through Science: Soviet Geographers and the Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature, 1948–53

Mastering Nature through Science: Soviet Geographers and the Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature, 1948–53

Картографування інформаційних образів регіонів України за матеріалами ЗМІ

Considered formation of imaginative cognition geographical space in the works of foreign and Soviet geographers. Defined the concept of geographical figure and image of territory and geographical factors and approaches to formation figures of territories in human mind. Informative and image reality is formed the best by media and special manipulation of public opinion is used often. The series of cartographic geoimages informative figures of regions of Ukraine is established using cartographic method of research based on the materials of national news on state channels.

Mastering Nature through Science: Soviet Geographers and the Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature, 1948–53

Mastering Nature through Science: Soviet Geographers and the Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature, 1948–53

Soviet geographers and the Great Patriotic War, 1941–1945: Lev Berg and Andrei Grigor'ev

The significance of the Second World War for Soviet geography was somewhat different from that in much of the West. In the USSR, as a result of the 1917 Russian Revolution and, more particularly, of Joseph Stalin's ‘Great Turn’ implemented in 1929–1933, geographers were faced with pronounced political and economic challenges of a kind which arguably only confronted most Western geographers with the onset of war. It is therefore impossible to understand the impact of the war for Soviet geography without taking into account this broader context, including events during the turbulent post-war years. The paper will focus on the experiences of two prominent geographers who played a major role in the developments of the era including their responses to the revolutionary circumstances occurring from the late 1920s, their activities and experiences during the war, and the debates and conflicts they engaged in during the post-war crisis. Some of the more significant contrasts with geographical developments in Western countries during these years will be emphasized.

Climate modification and climate change debates among Soviet physical geographers, 1940s–1960s

This review provides an insight into some of the main themes characterizing the work of Soviet physical geographers concerning climate during the decade following the Second World War. Post‐1945, pressure was placed upon geography via the state and the Academy of Sciences to ensure that its activities were of practical use to the development of the socialist economy and this was particularly evident in the case of work related to climate and climate modification. The review is divided into four main sections. First, it provides an understanding of the range of work carried out by physical geographers with respect to climate and related phenomena in the late 1940s and 1950s. Second, it focuses on the work of geographers and climatologists in relation to the heat and water balance at the earth's surface, which attracted considerable attention within geographical circles as well as more broadly within Soviet science during the 1950s. Third, it reflects upon the way in which Soviet geography utilized its understanding of climate systems in order to participate in national schemes concerned with the modification of the climate and the transformation of nature. Finally, the review highlights the maturing of climate modification debates among geographers and cognate scientists during the late 1950s and early 1960s with the emergence of competing discussions over the potential for human activity to result in both positive and negative consequences for the global climate system. WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:513–524. doi: 10.1002/wcc.242This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > Disciplinary Perspectives

Formation of paradigmatic theory of regional economy

This paper reviews the evolution of scientific ideas about the regional economy as an independent direction of economic knowledge. The growing interest of scientists, university lecturers and specialists to the regional economy is noticed. The authors pay special attention to the origins of the regional economy, the contribution of Russian scientists to the disclosure of the content and nature of economic regionalization of the country as well as highlight the role of Soviet geographers and economists in developing the theory of clusters and the study of challenges to the rational distribution of production forces. It is emphasized that the new scientific discipline — regional economy — was born in the acute scientific discussions between Soviet geographers and economists, particularly regarding the subject of investigation. The conclusion is substantiated that so far in economic science four major views on the subject of understanding and interpretation of the regional economy were formed. The authors pay attention to the fact that at present there is a further extension of the subject of the regional economy, mainly over the border of the material space and location of productive forces. The paper concludes that the formation of a modern paradigm of regional economy should be based on several basic principles, among which are the following ones: consideration of the regional economy as an evolving complex structural discipline; territoriality as a dominant feature of any research in the regional economy; the imperative of any study that claims to belong to a regional economy is not only to establish general patterns of development and organization of economic life in the territory, but also the identification of its regional (local) specific.

Scientific, Institutional and Personal Rivalries among Soviet Geographers in the Late Stalin Era

Scientific, institutional and personal rivalries between three key centres of geographical research and scholarship (the Academy of Sciences Institute of Geography and the Faculties of Geography at Moscow and Leningrad State Universities) are surveyed for the period from 1945 to the early 1950s. It is argued that the debates and rivalries between members of the three institutions appear to have been motivated by a variety of scientific, ideological, institutional and personal factors, but that genuine scientific disagreements were at least as important as political and ideological factors in influencing the course of the debates and in determining their final outcome.

Encountering soviet geography: oral histories of British geographical studies of the USSR and Eastern Europe 1945–1991

This paper considers the history of British geographical studies of the USSR and Eastern Europe 1945–1991, presenting material from a research project which has included thirty-two oral history interviews. Oral history is an especially fruitful research methodology in this context due to the distinct issues of formality and informality involved in researching the Soviet bloc. After discussing the nature of the subdiscipline and the Cold War context, including the role of the British state in shaping the field, the paper considers the role of formal academic meetings and exchanges, and the place of unofficial spaces of encounter in the formation of an intellectual culture. The paper concludes by reflecting on the merits of oral history in studies of the production of geographical knowledge.