The Plough that Broke the Steppes

Moon, David

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556434.001.0001

Cited by 78 publications

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“…As many Russians had realized already in the late nineteenth century, deforestation, plowing, and other agricultural practices had led to irrevocable changes in steppe environments, changes which might alter the climate itself. 129 By the time "places for taking the kumys cure" were recognized as uniquely beneficial to Soviet workers' health, many of those places were not what they once were. Although the railroads had made kumys more accessible, they had also led to the disappearance of the "virgin covil steppes" supposedly essential to the production of good kumys.…”

Section: Steppe Realitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Steppes to Health: How the Climate-Kumys Cure Shaped a New Steppe Imaginary

Peterson¹

2022

Slavic rev.

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This paper examines the rise of the “climate-kumys cure” in late imperial Russia and how it shaped perceptions of the steppes as a “curative place.” By positing that kumys (fermented mare's milk), a traditional food produced by steppe nomads, interacted with unique qualities of the steppe climate—including aromatic air, abundant sunshine, cool forest groves, rich feathergrasses, and brilliant wildflowers—to cure tuberculosis patients of their symptoms, the climate-kumys cure produced an imaginary of the steppes that contrasted with traditional Russian views of the steppes as barren, monotonous, and even dangerous. Knowledge about the steppe climate produced by proponents of the climate-kumys cure harmonized with Soviet medical professionals’ ideas about forging workers’ bodies and restoring their minds. An understanding of the steppes as healthy, however, did not stop the spread of disease, nor did it lead to preservation. Even as the climate-kumys cure rose in popularity, the steppes that had given rise to kumys were vanishing.

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Section: Steppe Realitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Steppes to Health: How the Climate-Kumys Cure Shaped a New Steppe Imaginary

Peterson¹

2022

Slavic rev.

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“…48 Likewise, the zemstva succeeded in establishing almost no new forests despite frequent encouragement to do so, although there was some success in encouraging peasant communes to plant shrubs near their fields. 49 Thus the tsarist government devised, in an improvised manner, an enlightened plan to ensure that the Cossacks were supplied with sufficient timber, which then slowly transformed into a program to safeguard the southern steppe from ecological degradation. The conflicting interests produced notable results, but nonetheless only partial success.…”

Section: The Creation Of Military Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

In Single File

Brain¹

2016

monderusse

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Russian railroads and the Russian army as environmental protection agencies, 1858-1917 Les chemins de fer et l'armée russes, des agences de protection de l'environnement en ordre de marche, 1858-1917 Stephen Brain 1 The most effective soil conservation agencies in the Russian south at the end of the tsarist period were the Russian Army of the Don and the Vladikavkaz railroad. These were, to be more precise, the only state institutions implementing soil conservation measures in the Russian south at that time. The army and the railroad had no rivals, aside from the Russian Forest Department, which only maintained experiment stations on the steppe. These experiment stations did not actually carry out the work of propagating forests, but instead studied the best methods for establishing new forests in semi-arid conditions. (The Agricultural Society of Southern Russia had some success in establishing forests in the Russian south, but only by advising large landowners. 1) The work of propagating state forests was left to the Cossack Army of the Don, and to a much lesser degree, the Vladikavkaz railroad. For reasons ideological, practical, and economic, the imperial government chose to work through intermediary groups and private agencies rather than via direct action, with significant long-term effects on soil conservation efforts in the twentieth century.

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“…European Russians were at home in the forest, depending on it for sustenance and livelihood. 29 These are peasant woods, imagined by cultural arbiters for consumption by a literate elite. They retain "cultural associations" despite the growing scientization of the forest.…”

Section: The Forest and Steppe In Global Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest and Grassland: Recent Trends in Russian Environmental History

Dills¹

2013

Global Environment

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More and more historians are turning their attention to Russia’s environment. New research on the territories forest and grasslands demonstrate the ways this scholarship challenges traditional narratives of Russian history, that often sees it as unique or exceptional, and shows how the Russian experience has global significance for environmental history. As environmental history progresses from its roots in local and regional American stories to the global and comparative scale, scholars of Russian environmental history are uniquely positioned to shape debates about nature, culture, and identity. Historians of Africa, Asia, and the Americas and transnational subjects such as the forest will find common points of understanding in stories of a Russia that sought to forcibly transform nature and alternatively, sought to mitigate anxiety about environmental degradation through a range of scientific and culturally distinct solutions. A new group of scholars trained as environmental historians promise to contribute to a revision of Russian historiography and assure a central position in global conversations about nature and the human place within it. Finally, the author urges scholars to assess the pre-Revolutionary era in more depth and calls for an integration of urban and environmental methods in Russian environmental historiography.

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The Plough that Broke the Steppes

Cited by 78 publications

References 0 publications

Steppes to Health: How the Climate-Kumys Cure Shaped a New Steppe Imaginary

Steppes to Health: How the Climate-Kumys Cure Shaped a New Steppe Imaginary

In Single File

Forest and Grassland: Recent Trends in Russian Environmental History

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