Jonathan D. Oldfield; Denis J. B. Shaw. The Development of Russian Environmental Thought: Scientific and Geographical Perspectives on the Natural Environment. xi + 196 pp., illus., maps, tables, bibl., index. London/New York: Routledge, 2016. £95 (cloth).
2017; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 108; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1086/690781
ISSN1545-6994
Autores Tópico(s)History of Science and Natural History
ResumoPrevious articleNext article FreeJonathan D. Oldfield; Denis J. B. Shaw. The Development of Russian Environmental Thought: Scientific and Geographical Perspectives on the Natural Environment. xi + 196 pp., illus., maps, tables, bibl., index. London/New York: Routledge, 2016. £95 (cloth).Nils Roll-HansenNils Roll-Hansen Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreRussian geography is special for two reasons: the physical vastness of the country and its revolutionary history. Jonathan Oldfield and Denis Shaw give a thorough description of Russian physical geography from the late nineteenth century through the revolution and most of the Soviet period. Vasily V. Dokuchaev (1846–1903) was the founder of the Russian tradition of landscape zones with characteristic climate, geology, flora, and fauna. Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) described the vertical sequence of ecological zones from sea level to the high mountains. The special Russian challenge was variability in the horizontal dimension from north to south and from west to east.Five consecutive historical chapters are framed by an introduction on the status of research and the questions addressed and a short conclusion. The book presents Russian geography as a synthetic and highly interdisciplinary scientific enterprise including social as well as natural science. The broad interdisciplinarity typical of eighteenth- to early twentieth-century Russian pioneers continued into the development of international climate science in the decades following World War II. The professed method of the authors is to see “science as a situated practice” (p. 3). Through the empirical historical chapters they develop a picture of scientific continuity through revolution and social upheaval in the Soviet period. In contrast to an earlier emphasis on the malign influences of the state on Soviet science, this book shows how the state enabled the development of genuine and practically useful science. The Development of Russian Environmental Thought is based mainly on published sources. For the period after World War II, especially, it makes very good use of Russian-language sources, primary as well as secondary literature, to give novel insight and understanding.Interest in natural resources as the basis for social progress shaped the thinking of Dokuchaev and his school. This also fit with Soviet ambitions of rapid industrialization and modernization. While the Bolshevik Revolution made a break in social and political history, science received an extraordinary boost from the new regime. The Western image of devastating intellectual repression has truth for the humanities and social sciences and for parts of the natural sciences, Lysenkoism and the suppression of classical genetics being the salient example. But the Bolsheviks genuinely believed in science. Their worry was political heresy, and Stalin’s measures were grotesque.Soviet science policy stressed practical usefulness. This emphasis on applied science gave room for legitimate political and economic steering of science. Oldfield and Shaw present Russian geography as an example of how scientific autonomy could nevertheless be upheld to a substantial degree.The career of Lev S. Berg (1876–1950) exemplifies the continuity between tsarist and Soviet science. Berg was academically well established before the 1917 revolution and went on to play a central role in the postrevolutionary grand expansion of research activities. Internationally, he is best known for his studies of fishes. He is also famous for his anti-Darwinian theory of nomogenesis: that the evolution of species is determined primarily by internally directed mutations. But it was through the development of Dokuchaev’s ideas about natural zones that Berg had his great formative influence on physical geography in Soviet Russia. Despite repeated and stern criticisms of its ideological deficiencies and flaws, Berg’s treatise Landscape-Geographical Zones of the U.S.S.R. maintained its position as an indispensable and authoritative textbook from the first edition in 1930 till the last in 1947.Andrei A. Grigor’ev (1883–1968) was Berg’s rival. Their disagreement was over methodology, philosophy, and policy rather than over substantial scientific claims on the theoretical and factual level. While Berg described and systematized different kinds of landscape, Grigor’ev sought understanding in terms of general physical-geographical processes. During Stalin’s “Great Break” around 1930 he adapted to the climate of political activism, and with good contacts in the central government he soon emerged as the leading figure of Soviet geography.The Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature announced in October 1948 was a vision of radical change of the landscape and became a test for the practical usefulness of physical geography. Extensive protective forest belts were to counteract drought, erosion, and other agricultural and ecological problems. A technique of “nest planting” was reportedly designed by Lysenko to draw on solidarity and cooperation between seedlings to help their survival. After a few seasons the failure was undeniable. Grigor’ev left his position as director of the Institute of Geography in 1951, and in 1953 the plan was officially abandoned.Forceful criticism was raised not least by forest scientists headed by Vladimir N. Sukachev (1880–1967), internationally known for his ecological concept of biogeocenosis. He simultaneously criticized Lysenko’s theories about evolution and heredity. Apparently it was only because of Stalin’s death and support from the new top leader, Khrushchev, that Lysenko kept his position for another decade.Oldfield and Shaw show how the history of Soviet science cannot be understood only in sociological terms—as ideological controversy, political suppression, competition for resources, personal rivalry, and so forth. That history also features genuine scientific investigation and debate. A prime witness is Lev Berg. His career—including a posthumous Stalin Prize in 1951—indicates that there was more understanding and respect for scientific autonomy under Stalinism than has often been assumed. It seems that the August 1948 victory of Lysenkoism in genetics was the exceptional case. In most of the other politically charged “discussions” toward the end of Stalin’s regime genuine science survived quite well. The situation of science under Stalinism was perhaps not so fundamentally different from that under liberal capitalism. Further historical comparison can enhance our general understanding of the social role and responsibility of science. This substantial book by Oldfield and Shaw is well suited to stimulate a productive, down-to-earth approach to the history of science in the Soviet period. Notes Nils Roll-Hansen is Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Oslo. His research interests include the history, philosophy, and politics of biology, especially early classical genetics, eugenics, and environmental science. He is the author of The Lysenko Effect: The Politics of Science (Humanity, 2005). 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