HIST 381XTaming the Russian Empire

Catalog

HIST38X/RUSS 380B - Taming the Russian Empire Professor Heather DeHaan Fall 2022 Course Description: This survey of human-nature interactions retells the story of Russian and Soviet empire through the lens of environmental history. Starting with Kievan Rus', it reframes how we narrate the formation of the empire, the Soviet experiment, the Cold War, and the geopolitics of the present by placing the natural environment in a central role. It not only shows how Russians altered their environment, but how nature itself shaped events. Course topics include the pursuit of furs in Siberia, raw material pursuits and colonial expansion, the conquest and settlement of Crimea and the Pontic Steppe, the rise of scientific management, how Soviet authorities ruled diverse peoples through nature (e.g. through collectivized agriculture and the GULAG economy), the Cold War, Chernobyl, the late Soviet environmental movement, post-Soviet oil and green energy politics, and the environmental consequences of the current war in Ukraine.