Seminar of the Laboratory for the Environmental and Technological History and the presentation of the recently published book: Moon, David, Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Alexandra Bekasova, eds. Place and Nature: Essays in Russian Environmental History. Winwick, Cambridgeshire: The White Horse Press, 2021.

26 March 2021, 18:00 at the seminar of the Laboratory for the Environmental and Technological History (St. Petersburg School of Arts and Humanities HSE SPb)  – the presentation of the recently published book: Moon, David, Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Alexandra Bekasova, eds. Place and Nature: Essays in Russian Environmental History. Winwick, Cambridgeshire: The White Horse Press, 2021.Presenters: Alexandra Bekasova, Nicholas B. Breyfogle, Ekaterina Kalemeneva, Elena Kochetkova, Julia Lajus, David Moon and other authors. This collective monograph is one of the results of a networking project funded by the Leverhulme Trust (UK) carried out in 2013-2016, in which many researchers of the Laboratory participated. The project team carried out several research trips to different parts of Russia that are important for studying the history of the relationship between people and nature: the Solovetsky Islands, Lake Baikal, the Perm region and the Urals.

26 March 2021, 18:00 at the seminar of the Laboratory for the Environmental and Technological History (St. Petersburg School of Arts and Humanities HSE SPb) – the presentation of the recently published book:

Moon, David, Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Alexandra Bekasova, eds. Place and Nature: Essays in Russian Environmental History. Winwick, Cambridgeshire: The White Horse Press, 2021.

Presenters: Alexandra Bekasova, Nicholas B. Breyfogle, Ekaterina Kalemeneva, Elena Kochetkova, Julia Lajus, David Moon and other authors.

This collective monograph is one of the results of a networking project funded by the Leverhulme Trust (UK) carried out in 2013-2016, in which many researchers of the Laboratory participated. The project team carried out several research trips to different parts of Russia that are important for studying the history of the relationship between people and nature: the Solovetsky Islands, Lake Baikal, the Perm region and the Urals.

The methodology of the book is place-based learning: the authors based their analysis not only on historical documents, but also impressions from visiting unique places and meeting local experts.  The book presents a new perspective on the environmental history of the lands of the vast territory of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Particular attention is paid to the Russian North and Siberia and the Far East, rather than central Russia. The authors focus in particular on how people have interacted with “nature” and, in the process, transformed it into “environment”, or turned “spaces” into “places” by inscribing them with meaning. By analysing a series of particular cases, the authors emphasise the importance of the local context and the characteristics of individual places and spaces in understanding the relationship between humans and nature.

Part of The Introduction is available here: http://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/rcc_extract.pdf

A blog by the Editors: Exploration and Place in Studying Russia’s Environmental History may be reached here: https://whitehorsepress.blog/2021/01/26/exploration-and-place-in-studying-russias-environmental-history-2/

Please, join us!  The working language of the seminar is English.

The presentation will take place in a ZOOM-meeting format. Please fill in the registration form for the link.

Registration form.