The nature of Soviet power. Environmental history of the Arctic. Bruno E.

In the XX century, the Soviet Union turned the Kola Peninsula-the once remote outpost of the Russian Empire-into one of the most populated, industrialized, militarized and polluted areas of the Arctic. This transformation had a significant impact on the Soviet experience of regional development. Interaction with the world of nature, on the one hand, brought industrial advantages, and on the other hand, it limited the possibilities of radical socialist transformations, since nature itself acted as a participant in the communist project. In the book of Andy Bruno, Soviet environmental history is considered in a comparative perspective as part of the global aspiration of modern states for endless economic growth.

Studying the history of the construction of railways, the formation of mining and processing industries, the technology of smelting nickel and copper, reindeer husbandry and energy production in the region, the author simultaneously studies Soviet cultural ideas about nature, development plans, life experience and ways socially -economic adaptation to the reality of the physical world and its change. Before the reader of the book, the history of two interconnected processes appears: while the Soviet government remade nature, nature remade Soviet power.

Andy Bruno - Professor of the Faculty of History of the University of North Illinois, USA.