BaltimoreBrian's Blog

Last Updated: 3:25 AM GMT on May 21, 2013 — Last Comment: 2:55 PM GMT on May 23, 2013

	The impact of Cold on Russia

Posted by: BaltimoreBrian, 4:26 PM GMT on January 25, 2012

I've been invited to an interesting conference (I've been active in websites on weather and military history for a while.) I'm slooooowly gathering together my material on Napoleon's march into Russia and back. It's threatening to turn into a book, but I'm paring it down.

Anyway, here is the conference and schedule. I've been to a couple of conferences like this before, and they are interesting and fun!

Here is the website for the conference and a detailed description is below:

------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- -------------------

Conference: Frost, Ice, and Snow - Cold Climate in Russian History -
Moscow 02/12

German Historical Institute (DHI Moscow); Rachel Carson for Environment
and Society (RCC)
16.02.2012-18.02.2012, Moscow, Nakhimovskii prospekt 51/21 (INION) German
Historical Institute

Conveners: Julia Herzberg (RCC), Ingrid Schierle (DHI,Moscow), Andreas
Renner (University of T=FCbingen) & Klaus Gestwa (University of T=FCbingen)

Russia was and remains especially associated with cold. The discourses
about the Russian cold stem from existential experiences. Due to its
geographical location, cold was a constant cultural challenge, a
phenomenon that influenced actions, everyday experiences, and
mentalities, and determined both external and self-perceptions. Focusing
on the factor of climate, this conference will discuss and connect new
approaches to Russian environmental history.

------------------------------------------------- -----------------------
Thursday, February 16
10:00 - 10:30 Welcome and Introduction
Nikolaus Katzer (DHI Moscow), Julia Herzberg (RCC Munich)

10:30 - 13:30 Session1: Mundane and Exceptional Times
Chair: Andreas Renner (T=FCbingen)

Svetlana A. Rafikova (Krasnoiarsk)
Siberian Frosts and the Everyday Adaptation Practices of City Dwellers

Katarzyna Chimiak (Warsaw)
Challenging Crisis: Human Strategies of Adaptation and Survival during the
Winter of 1946/1947 in Dnepropetrovsk, L=F3dz, Essen, and Manchester

Discussion

Coffee break

Anthony J. Heywood (Aberdeen)
Transport for War in a Cold Climate: Russia's Railways, July 1914 - March
1917

Aleksandr L. Kuz'minykh (Vologda)
The Wehrmacht and the Russian Winter: the Influence of Climate on German
Servicemen on the Front and in Soviet Captivity (1941-1956)

Discussion

13:30 - 15:00 Lunch

15:30 - 18:00 Session 2: Coping with Cold
Chair: Erki Tammiksaar (Tartu)

Andy Bruno (Urbana-Champaign)
Tumbling Snow: Avalanches in the Soviet North

Marc Elie (Paris)
Winter Sports, Ice Sciences, and Avalanches in Soviet Central Asia,
1950s-1980s

Discussion

Coffee break

Aleksandr V. Anan'ev (Moscow)
Heroes of the Ice: Two Masculine Identity Scripts of the Soviet
Era-Hockey Player and Polar Explorer-and their Actualization at the Start
of the Twenty-First Century

Aleksei D. Popov (Simferopol')
Winter Tourism in the Soviet Union: School of Courage, Competitive Brand,
National Pastime

Discussion

18:00 Conference dinner

Friday, February 17
09:30 - 12:30 Session 3: Changing Climates
Chair: Carolin F. Roeder (Harvard)

Julia Lajus (St. Petersburg), Sverker S=F6rlin (Stockholm)
Cryo-Connections, Political Friendship and the Prospects of an Ice-Free
Arctic, 1928-1955

Paul Josephson (Waterville)
Soviet Efforts to Transform Nature in the Russian Northwest (Arkhangelsk
and Murmansk provinces, Karelian Republic)

Discussion

Coffee break

Jonathan Oldfield (Glasgow)
Conceptualisations of Climate Change amongst Soviet Geographers from ca.
1945 to the early 1970s

Denis J. B. Shaw (Birmingham)
The Subarctic: A Classic Study of the Tundra

Discussion

12:30 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 17:50 Session 4: Civilizing Coldness
Chair: Marc Elie (Paris)

Ekaterina A. Degal'tseva (Biisk)
Sibirsk as a Concentrated Concept of Russian Cold (a Case Study of the
Nineteenth Century)

Nataliia N. Rodigina (Novosibirsk)
From the Country of Cold and Darkness to the Promised Land: the Role of
the Climate in the Construction of Siberia's Image in the Russian
Magazine Press of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Ian W. Campbell (Davis, CA)
The Nomad Who Came in from the Cold: Zhut and Civilizational Difference in
the Late Nineteenth Century

Discussion

Coffee break

David Saunders (Newcastle)
Commerce and Technology in the Development of the Russian Arctic
(1862-1921)

Erki Tammiksaar (Tartu)
Russian South Pole Expedition in the Context of Political Interests of the
Russian Empire and the Soviet Union

Discussion

Coffee break

17:50 - 19:00 Session 5: Imagining Coldness
Chair: Julia Herzberg (Munich)

Oksana Bulgakova (Mainz)
Global Warming

Roman Mauer (Mainz)
The Aesthetics of Cold and National Trauma in Film: Escape from a
Siberian POW Camp

Discussion

Saturday, February 18
09:30 - 11:30 Session 6: Metaphors and Narratives
Chair: Roman Mauer (Mainz)

Anna A. Kotomina (Moscow)
Presenting the Theme of Cold Climate to a Popular Audience in Public
Readings, 1890-1910

Susanne Frank (Berlin)
Permafrost as a Metaphor of Memory in Russian GULAG Literature (Pavel
Florenskii, Varlam Shalamov)

J. P. Schovanec (Alfortville)
Frost as a Spiritual Experience: Written Accounts of Foreign Detainees in
Stalinist Camps

Discussion

Coffee break

11:30 - 12:40 Session 7: Representations Between Science and Politics
Chair: Paul Josephson (Waterville)

Pey-Yi Chu (Princeton)
Mapping Permafrost Country: Visualizations of Frozen Earth in Russian Histo=
ry

Carolin F. Roeder (Harvard)
A Creature of the Cold War: Soviet Science and the Snowman

Discussion

12:40 - 13:30 Concluding Session
Klaus Gestwa (T=FCbingen)
Concluding Remarks

Discussion

------------------------------------------------- -----------------------
For questions, please contact:

Julia Herzberg
Rachel Carson Center
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit=E4t M=FCnchen
Leopoldstrasse 11a
80802 M=FCnchen
julia.herzberg[at]carsoncenter.lmu.de

or

Ingrid Schierle
German Historical Institute
Nakhimovski Prospekt 51/21
117418 Moscow
ingrid.schierle[at]dhi-moskau.org

Website of the Rachel Carson Center
-02-16/index.html>

View (9) Comments For This Post

Updated: 4:33 PM GMT on January 25, 2012

Permalink | A A A

	Blog closed until hurricane season

Posted by: BaltimoreBrian, 6:38 AM GMT on January 18, 2012

I'll be back hurricane season. It's just not as much fun to blog when it's the middle of the night for everyone back in the USA. Had to shut down my mail too.

Carry on.

Permalink | A A A

About BaltimoreBrian:

Recent Photos:

BaltimoreBrian's Wunder Photos

Previous Entries for 2013: