Annual Report 2009-2010

The Landscape Concept in Russian Scientific Thought, c1880s – 1991

AHRC award reference number: AH/G011028/1

Jon Oldfield, University of Glasgow, UK

Denis Shaw, University of Birmingham, UK

Brief overview of activities

The project aims to critically explore the emergence and development of the landscape concept in Russian scientific thought c1880s-1991. Landscape science played a particularly significant role in Soviet geographical thought and practice. Nevertheless, Soviet understanding rested on a deep and complex historical hinterland, which encompassed the work of late 19C/early 20C Russian natural scientists such as V.V. Dokuchaev, G.I. Tanfil’ev, A.N. Krasnov etc., the ideas of foreign (particularly German/Prussian) natural scientists including most notably Alexander von Humboldt, as well as the exploratory work of earlier generations of Russian and German scientists e.g. D.G. Messerschmidt and S.P. Krasheninnikov. The original proposal outlined 8 distinct research questions designed to facilitate a critical examination of the noted emergence and development of the landscape concept in Russia remaining sensitive to the formative role of contextual factors such as the changing nature of educational/professional structures, the influence of the state and associated ideological commitments, as well as broader socio-cultural factors particular to Russia/Soviet Union.

During year one, attention was directed to research questions 1-4 covering:

  • The early development of landscape science (1880s-1915) - including in-depth analysis of the original work of Dokuchaev concerning soil and natural zonation and related work authored by Russian geographers, geobotanists and pedologists e.g. G.I. Tanfil’ev, A.A. Kruber, S. Korzhinskii. In addition, the early writings of L.S. Berg related to landscape science (dating from 1913) were examined. Additional materials dating from the Soviet period were collected. These cover the work of L.S. Berg and his colleagues as well as the competing ideas of A.A. Grigor’ev who advanced the notion of a ‘single, physical-geographical process’.
  • Expeditionary and empirical work of the Russian Academy of Sciences during the 18th and 19th centuries which helped to lay the foundations for later zonal and landscape understandings of the natural world.
  • Work of Alexander von Humboldt and others related to vegetational zonation.
  • Emergence of geography as a distinct scientific discipline in late tsarist Russia and associated conceptual concerns (e.g. work of D.N. Anuchin, A.N. Krasnov etc.)
  • Library work (including bibliographic work) was carried in London (British Library), Helsinki (National Library of Finland, Slavonic Collection) and St. Petersburg (National Library of Russia, Main bldg). In addition, the Slavonic collections of the University of Glasgow and University of Birmingham were also accessed.

Conference attendance:

GEES Workshop, University of Birmingham 23/1/11

Workshop: ‘Historical Studies of Russian Landscapes and Environments,’. Organised in connection with this project and an EU Marie Curie Fellowship, tenable at the University of Birmingham.

The following papers were delivered:

  • Jon Oldfield, Dokuchaevian soil science tradition and the emergence of landscape science in Russia
  • Denis Shaw, Some 18th century Russian perceptions of the living environment.

For further information on the workshop visit: GEES

ICCEES International Conference, Stockholm, 26-31/7/10

The following paper was delivered:

  • Denis Shaw, Utility in Natural History: some Eighteenth-Century Russian Perceptions of the Living Environment. View Paper 

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, London, 1-3/09/10

The following paper was delivered:

  • Jon Oldfield, Practical and theoretical contributions of V.V. Dokuchaev to the emergence of landscape science in Russia. View Abstract 

Annual Meeting of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia, Hoddesdon, January, 2011

The following paper was delivered:

  • Denis Shaw, Utility in Natural History: some Eighteenth-Century Russian Perceptions of the Living Environment View Paper 

Related conference papers:

We organised a full panel at the 2009 1st World Congress of Environment History in Copenhagen which took place in August 2009:

Panel Title: Popular, cultural and scientific interpretations of the Russian landscape in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

  • Alexandra Bekasova, The Experience of Landscape through a Coach Window: Travel Practices, Guidebooks, and National Identity in Russia. The First Half of the 19th Century
  • Tatiana Liubina, Russian Nobility Provincial Estates of the 19th and early 20th centuries: Managerial Practices, Landscape Transformations, and Cultural Perceptions
  • Jon Oldfield, V.V. Dokuchaev and the emergence of landscape science in Russia
  • Denis Shaw, Concepts of Landscape and Natural Region in Russian and Western Physical Geography, c 1900-1950

Published papers:

Shaw, DJB, 2010, ‘Utility in Natural History: Some Eighteenth-Century Russian Perceptions of the Living Environment,’ Istoriko-biologicheskie issledovaniya [Studies in the History of Biology], St Petersburg, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 35-50.

Papers/writing in preparation:

  • Russian zonal understandings of nature, late 19C-early 20C.
  • Emergence of modern biogeographical studies in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Book:

Oldfield, J and Shaw, DJB, provisional title: Russian Environmental Thought, 1880-1991, contract with Routledge, provisional publication date 2012/13