A Team of Scientists from Tyumen State University Spoke about the Environmental History of the USSR
A team of historians from Tyumen State University discussed the development of the ecological paradigm in the USSR with their European and American colleagues and explained the transition of the Soviet people from the utilization of natural resources to seeing themselves as a part of nature. The annual summer convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) took place at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia) on June 14-16, 2019.
The attitude of the society and its individual members to the environment changes with time. The studies of the ecological paradigm in our country help see current issues in a new light. The shift in people's attitude to the environment in the times of the USSR was of global scale. The reports in the section "Nature as a Battlefield: Soviet Scientific-Technological Projects from an Ecological Perspective" covered these changes. The chairman of the section was Alexander Sorokin, the head of the Department of Russian History of Tyumen State University.
"Having focused on both Soviet and world ecology, our group tried to analyze the history of the environment not only from the point of view of its utilization, but also in view of its influence on social and technical developments", commented the scientists.
The Soviet economic system was based on strict norms and plans, according to which resources were distributed among the republics of the USSR. This specific situation made nature a cultural war site, something that should be conquered and transformed. At that time only economic effects were taken into consideration, and little attention was paid to environmental issues. However, in the late age of Socialism the "new man" armed with science started to understand it is not only a transformer of the nature, but a part of it. According to Mikhail Piskunov, a senior lecturer of the Department of Russian History, Soviet people and the state deliberately included the nature in their daily life.
Alexander Sorokin made a brief introduction on the topic "The Ecological Idea and Utilization of Natural Resources in the Agenda of Siberian Universities". In his speech he analyzed the development of the ecological agenda and its implementation in the mission and actual areas of focus of Siberian universities throughout their history.
Mikhail Piskunov presented a report entitled "Environmental Awareness of Novosibirsk Academic Town". The report covered historical and environmental aspects of the late Soviet project of building academic towns in Siberia. These towns are satellites of large cities (Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, and Murmansk) and consist of scientific and research institutes of the Academy of Science as well as residential properties for their employees. According to the researcher, the peculiarity of the academic town near Novosibirsk lied in the forest incorporated into its structure. The Soviet government widely discussed the architectural concept of green cities, and the experience of academic towns was supposed to be extrapolated to the city planning in general by 1980. However, the resignation of Khrushchev in 1964 put an end to this process. Novosibirsk academic town also was one of the first in the country to start its own environment protection movement that fought against the construction of a paper plant at Lake Baikal and a hydroelectric power plant in Katun, as well as against the reversal of Siberian rivers. These facts confirm that the residents of green towns and cities are more environmentally conscious.
The study of Tyumen historians shows the changes in the attitude of the Soviet people to the environment and the shaping of modern environmental awareness. The research of this topic requires detailed analysis of different points of view. An interdisciplinary seminar on Environmental Humanities for the representatives of social, liberal, and natural sciences started in Tyumen State University in April. Its purpose is to fully define ecological issues faced by the modern society and to outline solutions for them. The environmental history studies were supported by a grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the French Foundation Maison des Sciences de L'homme. Team members from France represented Mark Eli and Paul Josephson represented Centre D'études Des Mondes Russe, Caucasien Et Centre-européen (CERCEC) at Paris School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS).
Provided by University of Tyumen
