Abstract
Over the 19th century there was a long-running debate in the Russian Empire over whether the
steppes of today's southern Ukraine and southern Russia had ever been forested, or whether they
had long been open grasslands.
The clergyman-turned-scientist Ivan Palimpsestov and others believed that the steppes had once
been covered in trees. They relied heavily on descriptive writings by people who had visited the
steppes in past centuries. They argued that the trees had been removed by the Tatar and Mongol
nomadic pastoralists, who had controlled the steppes prior to the start of large-scale Slav,
agricultural settlement in the 18th century, and by the Slav settlers.
The counter-argument was put forward by a number of scientists, for example Karl Ernst Baer and
Vasilii Dokuchaev. They used a wider range of sources and methodologies to reconstruct the past
environment of the steppes, including descriptive accounts, place names, and, crucially, analysis
of the soil. By 1880s Dokuchaev had demonstrated conclusively that the organic matter in the
black earth (chernozem) which covered most of the steppes had been formed from decomposed
grasses. Trees had been restricted to small islands in the steppes. Thus, the paper will examine the
development of 'modern' science in the Russian Empire.
The debate also concerned the economic development of the region. The imperial government
sought to transform the steppes from semi-arid grasslands sparsely populated by nomadic
pastoralists into a productive agricultural land inhabited by large numbers of Slav farmers. Once
the steppes had been conquered militarily, however, the Slav, agricultural settlement was hindered
by shortages of trees and moisture. The settlers needed trees to supply timber for constuction and
firewood, but is was also widely believed - on both sides of the debate - that woodland made local
climates less extreme and moister. The point of Palimpsestov's argument was that if the steppes
had once been covered in trees, they could be reforested, and the woodland would have a
moderating influence on the climate, making it more suitable for arable farming. Dokuchaev shared this wider aim, but sought to provide a solid scientific basis for the sustainable agricultural
development of the steppes, including plans for limited aforestation. Thus, the paper will
investigate the role of plans for economic development in the debate.
The debate, it will be argued in this paper, also concerned the identity of the steppes. The
heartland of the Russian state and settlement lay in forested lands around Moscow. Over the 19th
century, there was considerable anxiety among educated Russians over the growing pace of
deforestation throughout Russia. Thus, forests were important to Russians' sense of identity,
together with their ethnicity, language, religion and predominantly agricultural way of life. Thus
the paper will consider the extent to which those who argued the steppes had once been forested
were trying to give them a 'Russian' identity prior to the Russian conquest and Slav, agricultural
settlement of the region.
Original language | English |
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Pages | 206-209 |
Number of pages | 3 |
Publication status | Published - 2003 |
Event | 2nd International Conference of the European Society for Environmental History - Prague, Czechoslovakia Duration: 3 Sep 2003 → 7 Sep 2003 |
Conference
Conference | 2nd International Conference of the European Society for Environmental History |
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City | Prague, Czechoslovakia |
Period | 3/09/03 → 7/09/03 |
Keywords
- russian history
- russian steppes
- 19th centiry
- russian empire
- economic history