Russian natural science and society: explorations of the links between scientific conception, practice and the state during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

The panel was developed in collaboration with colleagues from the UK and Russia.

This session was broadly concerned with exploring the development of expertise related to the natural and social sciences in Russia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a particular focus on the applied nature of such expertise and associated conceptualisations of the diversity of imperial space and patterns of human interaction with the environment. More specifically, the session was characterised by three main areas of enquiry:

  • the emergence of regional conceptions of Russian territory grounded on developments in the natural sciences;
  • the systematization and growing professionalization of scientific knowledge at both national and local levels;
  • the nature and character of developing links between scientific practice, local government and provincial society more generally.

Oldfield’s paper (Natural science conceptions of Russian territory during the late tsarist period) examined the work of natural scientists, including the pedologist V.V Dokuchaev (1846-1903) and the plant geographer G.I. Tanfil’ev (1857-1928), and their attempts to formulate a zonal understanding of Russian territory based on climate, vegetation and other natural factors. The following paper by Loskutova (Mapping regions, understanding diversity: Russian economists confront natural scientists, ca. 1880s-1910s) developed this theme by considering the influence of advances within the natural sciences on Russian economists and statisticians and consequent ways in which such advances helped to shape regional conceptualisations of economic development and the impact of environmental factors upon the economy at the local level. Fedotova’s paper (Hessian fly instead of bustard; weeds instead of feather grass?) maintained the local level focus in order to trace emerging scientific understandings of problems related to the expansion of agricultural settlement in the southern steppe areas of the empire. Taken together, the three papers provided insight into the growing understanding of Russia’s natural territory within scientific, government and civic circles during the late tsarist period and the development of relevant expertise and associated technical infrastructure at the local level.

 

First published: 21 June 2011

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