Denis J. B. Shaw

Landscape Science: A Russian Geographical Tradition

Abstract The Russian geographical tradition of landscape science (landshaftovedenie) is analyzed with particular reference to its initiator, Lev Semenovich Berg (1876–1950). The differences between prevailing Russian and Western concepts of landscape in geography are discussed, and their common origins in German geographical thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are delineated. It is argued that the principal differences are accounted for by a number of factors, of which Russias own distinctive tradition in environmental science deriving from the work of V. V. Dokuchaev (1846–1903), the activities of certain key individuals (such as Berg and C. O. Sauer), and the very different social and political circumstances in different parts of the world appear to be the most significant. At the same time it is noted that neither in Russia nor in the West have geographers succeeded in specifying an agreed and unproblematic understanding of landscape, or more broadly in promoting a common geographical conception of human-environment relationships. In light of such uncertainties, the latter part of the article argues for closer international links between the variant landscape traditions in geography as an important contribution to the quest for sustainability.

Revisiting sustainable development: Russian cultural and scientific traditions and the concept of sustainable development

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (26 August–4 September 2002), held in Johannesburg on the tenth anniversary of the first Earth Summit, provides the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the sustainable development concept. This paper uses the case study of the Russian Federation to explore the relationship between official interpretations of sustainable development and alternative understandings concerned with the betterment of humankind, which draw on Russias cultural and scientific heritage. It is suggested that there is much to be gained from reopening the sustainable development debate to incorporate such cultural particularities, both at the national and international levels.

Russia's Involvement in the International Environmental Process: A Research Report

The paper surveys Russias engagement, both in terms of policy formulation and implementation, with the main initiatives outlined at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Although coverage extends through the entire period from 1992 to present, a particular focus is on recent developments under the Putin administration, a period characterized by an ostensibly utilitarian approach to environmental management. Russias response to the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) is assessed in the broader context of the countrys problems in effecting major environmental policy changes.

The Soviet Urban General Plan and Recent Advances in Soviet Urban Planning

The Soviet urban general plan is a physical plan document which guides the development of the city for periods of up to 30 years. Recently, however, the general plan has been the object of much criticism in view of its evident failure to guide urbanisation and urban development in the required manner. One basic reason for this is the dislocation between physical and economic planning, and this in turn derives from several features of the Soviet planning system, including the priority which is given to economic planning, the different agencies responsible for the two types of planning, and the different time-spans and control mechanisms employed. Policy has recently concentrated on the need to ensure co-ordination in urban development and to develop comprehensive planning for cities.

V.I. Vernadskii and the development of biogeochemical understandings of the biosphere, c. 1880s–1968

General notions of the biosphere are widely recognized and form important elements of contemporary debate concerning global environmental change, helping to focus attention on the complex interactions that characterize the Earths natural systems. At the same time, there is continued uncertainty over the precise definition of the concept allied to a relatively limited critique of its early development, which was linked closely to advances in the natural sciences during the late nineteenth century and particularly, it is argued here, to the emergence of biogeochemistry. In the light of this, the principal aim of the paper is to explore the development and subsequent dissemination of biogeochemical renderings of the biosphere concept, focusing primarily on the work of the Russian biogeochemist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii (1863–1945). The paper identifies four key moments which, it is argued, help to explain the development and subsequent dissemination of a biogeochemical understanding of the biosphere. First, we draw attention to the particularities of St Petersburgs natural-science community during the late nineteenth century, arguing that this was instrumental in providing the basis for Vernadskiis future work related to the biosphere. Second, we consider the ways in which Vernadskiis ideas concerning the biosphere were able to move to the West during the first half of the twentieth century with specific reference to his links with the French scientists Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Edouard Le Roy, and the US-based ecologist George Evelyn Hutchinson. Third, we reflect more purposefully on matters of reception and, in particular, the emergence of a set of circumstances within Western ecological science after 1945, which encouraged a positive engagement with biogeochemical understandings of the biosphere. Finally, we examine the 1968 UNESCO-sponsored Biosphere Conference, which represented the first time the biosphere concept was employed at the international level. Furthermore, this event was in many ways a high point for a specifically biogeochemical approach, with the subsequent popularization of the biosphere concept during the course of the 1970s helping to broaden the discourse markedly.

PROBLEMS OF UKRAINIAN INDEPENDENCE

The paper surveys a complex of challenges faced by the Ukrainian people in efforts to forge an independent Ukrainian state. These include charting an independent course within the new CIS, the allocation of former all-Union assets on Ukrainian territory, relations with minority ethnic groups (particularly Great Russians) in Ukraine, and potential territorial claims by neighboring states. Among economic problems faced by Ukrainian leaders are the need for reduced dependency upon energy imports, for structural change and renovation of aging industrial infrastructure, and for maintenance of favorable terms of trade with foreign countries and the former Soviet republics.

Geographic and Historical Observations on the Future of a Federal Russia

A paper assessing prospects for the future of federalism in Russia investigates geographic and other factors that historically have either promoted or inhibited the unity of the Russian state. Among the major factors complicating the process of forging a new federal relationship among Russias central government, republics, and oblast-level units, the paper focuses on the question of the Russian states legitimacy, the only partial character of democratization, limited experience with constitutional federalism, and contradictions between individual and ethnic rights. 2 tables, 19 references.

Scientific, Institutional and Personal Rivalries among Soviet Geographers in the Late Stalin Era

Abstract Scientific, institutional and personal rivalries between three key centres of geographical research and scholarship (the Academy of Sciences Institute of Geography and the Faculties of Geography at Moscow and Leningrad State Universities) are surveyed for the period from 1945 to the early 1950s. It is argued that the debates and rivalries between members of the three institutions appear to have been motivated by a variety of scientific, ideological, institutional and personal factors, but that genuine scientific disagreements were at least as important as political and ideological factors in influencing the course of the debates and in determining their final outcome.

‘A strong and prosperous condition’ — the geography of state building and social reform in Peter the Great's Russia☆

Abstract The point is often made that the rise of the modern state in Europe provided models which have been influential, if not actually copied, across much of the rest of the world. In Russia during the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725), not only was the tsar aware of the European experience of state building, but consciously strove to base many of his political and social reforms on European models. Peter aimed at sweeping reform of the Russian state and society in the attempt to bring them into the modern world. The paper argues that the reforms were necessarily geographical, involving an attempt radically to reconstruct the countrys economic and social geography. The focus is upon the spatial implications of reform, including the founding and development of the city of St. Petersburg as an experiment in social reconstruction. In the event, Peters success was only partial, and the end product quite different from the models which had influenced his reforms. It is argued that this relative failure derived not only from the widespread resistance to reform but also from geographical, social and cultural circumstances peculiar to Russia. Greater scholarly sensitivity to the social and cultural contexts in which state building occurs might stimulate more cross-cultural and comparative perspectives and enrich this important area of social theory.

THE SETTLEMENT OF EUROPEAN RUSSIA DURING THE ROMANOV PERIOD (1613-1917)

This paper compares and contrasts Russian frontier experiences on the northern and southern parts of the European plain during the Romanov era (1613-1917). Both were “open” frontiers, in Turners sense of a frontier as the “hither edge of free land,” but their environments and the settlement processes which affected them were very different. It is suggested that the character of a frontier society is decisively influenced by the process whereby settlers must adapt to their new environment, the features which attract them to that environment, and the character of the pre-existing inhabitants. The northern frontier formed part of what Meinig has called a “boreal riverine empire” with a harsh environment, to which paradoxically the Russians found it relatively easy to adapt, the great attraction of fur-bearing animals and reasonably benign relations with native peoples. By contrast, the southern frontier was a “frontier of exclusion,” following Lattimores phrase, with hostile indigenes, a natural environmen...