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SUMMARY:Little Corners of Freedom\, Green Dictatorship\, and the Sublime i
 n the Late-Soviet Nature Reserve  - Mariia Koskina (Joint Centre for Histo
 ry and Economics\, Cambridge) 
DTSTART:20260203T170000Z
DTEND:20260203T180000Z
UID:TALK242638@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr AM Price
DESCRIPTION:Near the modern metropolis of Krasnoyarsk on the Yenisei River
  in Eastern Siberia rise dramatic ventifacts—the syenite "Stolby" ("pill
 ars")—amid taiga forest. Known to Russian travellers since the eighteent
 h century\, the area was a site of trapping and gold fever before the Sovi
 et state institutionalized protection in 1925. This talk argues that the S
 tolby Reserve\, though conceptualized as a "temple of taiga\," was inheren
 tly part of an urban sublime. Increasingly encroached upon by the expandin
 g industries of the postwar period\, the reserve gained significance as a 
 patch of "pristine" Siberian nature. In this respect\, it resembled other 
 Soviet zapovedniki. What set Stolby apart\, however\, was its internal div
 ision between an "aesthetic" zone—intended for the recreation of Soviet 
 workers—and a "wild" zone subject to a stricter protection regime. Build
 ing on the legacy of pre-Soviet climbing enthusiasts and the celebrated cl
 andestine meetings of revolutionaries near Stolby—imagined as taking pla
 ce beyond the authorities' watchful eye\, under the protection of nature i
 tself—late-Soviet Siberian urbanites developed a distinctive subculture.
  This community venerated the rocks and practiced bottom-up nature protect
 ion\, even assuming informal authority to discipline its own members and t
 ourists for littering and other careless behavior. This story nuances the 
 experiences of autonomy through engagement with nature that Douglas Weiner
  identified in Soviet reserves as "little corners of freedom" (1999) and s
 hows how these "corners" accommodated more than just professionals and the
  Soviet intelligentsia. 
LOCATION:Seminar Room 5\, Cripps Court\, Magdalene College
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