3 | 1 | 2023 Framing Environments in Russia: Critical Reflections on Ecology, Culture and Power

Abstract

in the area of Russian ecocriticism, considering the economic and political value of fossil fuels in the Soviet and post-Soviet period, is represented by recent research on oil and its multiple interconnections with the development of Russian cultural identity (e.g. Rogers 2015; Etkind 2020; Porter, Vinokour 2023). Finally, on the basis of the cited studies, in 2020 Alec Brookes and Elena Fratto edited the monographic issue "Anthropocene and Russian Literature" of the journal Russian Literature, aimed at rethinking the otherthan-human in Russian literature considering the geological impact of humankind in the Anthropocene.Given these premises, the special issue "Framing Environments in Russia: Critical Reflections on Ecology, Culture and Power" originates from our intent to stress the raising importance of ecocritical theory and environmental ethics in contemporary research involving Russia and the Soviet Union. The idea of framing does not imply here an attempt to further delimit the other-than-human, this time through the cultural lens of the ecological thought. On the contrary, framing is understood in its meaning of expressing, constructing, developing new flourishing perspectives on Russian natural environment, in order to show its complexity, as well as its deep interconnections with human experience. To this end, great emphasis has been put on the agency of the other-than-human, conceived not only as an object of cultural conceptualizations, but mainly as active matter penetrating, transforming and reshaping physical and mental landscapes. Besides, the multidisciplinary approaches taken by the authors of this issue highlight the urgency to re-think social structures and hierarchical logics of power in order to preserve both cultural and natural environments. As observed by Wendy Wheeler, Environmental damage […] means both damage in nature and damage in culture; these are not, essentially, different things. Environmental literacy must be understood to encompass natural, social, cultural and, by implication, emotional literacy also. (2006, 155) All ten essays included in this special issue address the conceptualization of the natural environment in Russia by engaging with a diverse range of cultural expressions which encompasses activist prose, fiction, poetry, art, and cinema.Since the nineteenth century, human identities in Russian literature have been depicted as inextricably intertwined and creatively interdependent with natural forces, which, in turn, play a crucial role as agents of transformation. The opening contribution, written by J. Alexander Ogden, analyses Nikolay Nekrasov's poem Red-Nose Frost (Мороз, Красный нос Moroz, Krasnyj nos, 1863