abjection, 2, 3, 15, 60, 120, 125, 127
Academy of Sciences, 92–93, 107, 155n10
Adorno, Theodor W., 69
aesthetics: of “dirty literature,” 49–61; discourse of pollution and purification, 61–67; pastoral, 51–52, 122–24; systematization of, 50, 52, 59, 62, 67
agrarian life, 2–4. See also peasantry; rural life; serfdom
agricultural chemistry, 9, 23, 34–45. See also mineral exchange between humans and environment; natural sciences; soil science
agriculture: capitalist, 45–48, 99, 131; compared to mining, 120–21; deserts and, 104–5; environmental thought and, 6; industrial, 70; metabolic economy of, 15, 105; plant nutrition, 36; as technological revolution, 132; transcorporeal body and, 37. See also hydroengineering projects; irrigation systems; soil fertility; tractors
agroecological systems, 5
agronomy, 23, 30–31, 34, 38, 44, 97, 126. See also soil science
Aksakov, Ivan, 17
Alier, Joan Martinez, 42
All-Russian Society for Conservation, 101
alterity, 3, 68. See also Asiatic restoration; ethnic outsiders/others
Amu Darya River, 7, 92–93, 102, 106–7, 110, 111
anti-Semitism, 29–30, 33, 46. See also Jews
Antonovich, Maksim, 23–24, 27, 34
Aral Sea, 92, 102, 107, 153n59, 159n78
Aristotle, 76
Asiatic mode of production (AMP), 75–77, 107–9, 142n107, 152n45. See also modes of production
Asiatic restoration, 72–73, 75, 78–84, 90. See also oriental despotism
assimilation, 2, 43, 59, 91, 106, 111
Avdeenko, Aleksandr, 66
backwardness, 3, 9, 13, 31, 69, 70–73, 75, 105
Bakhtin, Mikhail, 69–70, 150n4
Bassin, Mark, 14
Bauman, Zygmunt, 120
Beketov, Andrei Nikolaevich, 39
Beketov, Nikolai Nikolaevich, 38, 39
Belinskii, Vissarion, 12, 19, 20, 25, 27, 50, 61, 147n33; natural school and, 52–53, 55, 57–59
Berry, Wendell, vii
biology, study of, 23
black soils, 163n5. See also chernozem
Blaikie, Piers, 121
Blok, Aleksandr, 21
Blut und Boden, German discourses of, 33, 37
Bodenständigkeit (native soil), 8, 14
bodies: exchanges between material world and, 6–7, 121; materialist view of, 41; minerals and, 36–37; sacrificed for Soviet construction, 10, 72, 80, 83, 88–90. See also human remains
bogatyr (folk hero), 116–17, 123
Bolotov, Andrei, 51
Bolsheviks, 3, 9, 47, 50, 61, 68–71, 75–77, 83, 88, 90, 114. See also Marxism; socialism; Soviet Union
bones as fertilizer, 45–46. See also human remains
botanical metaphors and analogies, 13, 18, 22, 25–27, 30, 32
boundaries between nature and culture, 5–6, 9, 51, 53, 65
Bozhko, Andrei Nikolaevich, 132
Brezhnev, Leonid, viii, 114–15, 136n10
Bukharan Emirate, 80
Bulgarin, Faddei, 52, 54, 148n33
burial, 15, 46, 62, 82, 90, 133; grave ash, 84–85. See also human remains
canal construction, 73, 76, 78–90, 106–7. See also hydroengineering projects; irrigation systems
capitalism: agricultural exports and, 45–48, 131; environmental crisis and, 99; global neoliberal, 130; nature and, 101; private property and, 62–63
Carr, E. H., 48
Caspian Sea, 92, 102, 107, 153n59
Central Asia: European views on, 85; Russian colonization of, 27. See also Asiatic mode of production (AMP); Asiatic restoration; Kazakhstan; nomadism; Turkmenistan; Virgin Lands campaign (1953–1964)
chernozem (black earth), 30–31, 46, 111, 115, 130–31, 163nn4–5
Chernyshevsky, Nikolai, 8, 33, 35, 40–42, 47, 60
Chinggis Khan, 157n51
city-country exchange, 35, 43–44, 47–48, 146n61, 148n48
clay, 10, 70–71, 78, 85–86, 89, 92, 103–4, 159n86
collectivization, 1–2, 4, 9, 50, 61–63, 117
colonization: of borderlands, 91; extraterrestrial, 132; native soil and, 29; “special settlers” and, 151n25; theft of national nutrients, 45–47; transplantation and, 8, 18–19, 26–27; virgin land and, 114, 128–29
contamination, 6, 55–56. See also pollution
countryside. See city-country exchange; pastoral genre
criminals, reform of, 73–74, 82–83, 158n76
Cronon, William, 6
cultural landscape (Kulturlandschaft), 15
culture and nature: hygienic boundaries between, 51, 53, 65; material exchanges between, 1–6, 36–37, 42–44, 47–48; native soil movement and, 20–29; as transplantation, 18–19. See also nature
Cuvier, Georges, 25
Danilevskii, Nikolai, 24–29, 33, 44, 141n76
Davis, Diana K., 154n2
death, 6, 14, 55–56, 63; bodies sacrificed for Soviet construction, 10, 72, 80, 83, 88–90. See also burial; human remains
defecation, 62, 65, 117. See also excrement
deforestation, 30
deposits of history, 31, 69–70, 78, 85, 108
deserts and desertification, 30, 76, 79–80; artificial soil and, 132; as “Asian,” 99–100; utopia and, 110–11; as wasteland, 91–112
devstvennye stepi (virgin steppes), 115
dialectics, 69, 81–82, 101, 105, 111–12, 152n54
Di Palma, Vittoria, 91
Dirlik, Arif, 94
dirt (griaz), 4, 49–67; aesthetic systematization and, 50, 52, 59, 62, 67; as extrasystemic element, 50, 59, 62, 65; gold and, 58–59, 64, 148n41; materialism and, 57–58; metaphorical use of, 49, 53, 55, 58–61, 64, 67; mimetic function of, 9, 49, 53–55, 59; moral disorder and, 55–56, 60, 148n51; natural school and, 52–58, 62–66; pochva and, 41, 56 (see also native soil); realism and, 9, 49–50, 67
“dirty literature,” 9, 49–50, 52–62, 65
disorder, 50; moral, 49, 55–56, 60, 130, 148n51; narrative, 54
Dokuchaev, Vasilii, 31–32, 38, 98, 131, 142n113, 156n31
Dostoevsky, Fedor, 142n103; Liebig and, 35, 39, 46, 144n22; native soil movement and, 3, 8, 11, 20, 27, 29–33, 139n40
Douglas, Mary, 50, 58, 62, 65, 146n3
Dowler, Wayne, 20
drought, 32, 80, 96–100, 128, 157n39
dust, 84–85, 99, 124–25, 156n31
Dzhulmukhamedov, Ablaikhan, 115
economic exchange: soil and, 42–45, 130–31. See also capitalism; socialism; workers
Egypt, 75
Elie, Marc, 128
Elina, Olga, 143n2
empiricism, 8–9, 14, 22, 25, 37, 59, 66
Engelgardt, Aleksandr Nikolaevich, 35, 38, 44–45, 47, 146n61
Engels, Friedrich, 35, 43, 47, 101
England, soil crisis in, 45–46
environment: agrarian thought and, 6; climate change, 30, 32; crises, 99, 130; policies on, 47, 101–2; Virgin Lands campaign, 127–28
environmental determinism, 103
environmental humanities, 1, 7–8
Eralash (journal), 56
ethnic outsiders/others, 29, 91. See also alterity; nomadism
Eurasia: collective traumas of, 2; Russian cultural myths and, 4–5. See also Central Asia
Europe: historical development, 110; imports of Russian grain, 45–46; Peter the Great and, 27; politics in, 25, 39; as rootless, 28
excrement, 62–63, 104–5, 156n25. See also defecation; manure
fallow lands, 114–15. See also virgin land
famine, 32, 80, 128, 132–33, 142n115, 156n31
feminization (of nature), 118–21, 123, 127, 150n15
fertility, virgin land and, 114, 117–18, 123, 124, 127. See also soil fertility
fertilization, 26, 28–29, 69, 76, 146n60
fertilizers, 18, 34, 36, 42–48
feudalism, 77. See also serfdom
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 12
First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, 61, 64–66, 92–95
First All-Union Conservation Congress, 101
Five-Year Plan (first), 9, 70, 94, 99
folk culture, 17, 22, 28; knowledge of soil conditions, 31–32; as primitive past, 69–70
food scarcity, viii, 3, 132–33, 163n7. See also famine
forced labor, 74, 75, 82–83, 158n76
fossils, 69
Frede, Victoria, 39
free trade, 48
gardening state, 120
Gellner, Ernest, 108
gender roles, 119. See also feminization
generic pollution, 49–50, 53–55
gentry: pastoral values and, 51–52; peasantry and, 53; rootlessness of, 17
georgic mode, 54
German scientists, 25, 144n16. See also Herder, Johann Gottfried; Liebig, Justus
German states, political revolutions in, 39
Gidroproekt, 151n26
Giessen Chemical Institute, 34, 38, 39
Gilburd, Eleonory, 117
Gladkov, Fedor, 64
Gogol, Nikolai, 12, 32, 50, 52–54, 58, 64; Dead Souls, 49, 52–55, 58, 130
Goldstein, Amanda Jo, 13
Gorbunov, Kuzma, 64
Gordin, Michael, 39
Gorky, Maxim, 2, 61, 63–64, 66, 73–74, 93, 99–100, 106–7
Great Reforms, 50
Green Revolution, 34
griaz. See dirt
griazefil’stvo (love of dirt), 53, 59–61
Grigorev, Apollon, 12, 20–24, 138n1
Grigorovich, Dmitrii, 55–57, 148n33
Grigoryan, Bella, 54
Gunther, Hans, 61
Hegel, G. W. F., 12, 26, 58, 76, 106
Heine, Heinrich, 82
Herder, Johann Gottfried, 8, 12–13, 20–23, 25–27, 31, 32, 37, 46, 60, 64, 68, 90, 139n23, 140n60, 143n119; Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man, 13–19
Hesiod, 123
Hindus, Maurice, 1
historical development, 106; agricultural chemistry and, 40–42; Asiatic past and, 9, 72–78; dialectical change and, 81–82; European, 110; Marxist theories of, 95–96, 109–10; universal laws of, 14, 32, 72. See also national development; sediment
historical materialism, 102
historical teleology, 129
History of the Construction of the Belomor Canal, 73–74
humanities, environmental, 7–8
human remains, 42, 82, 85, 105. See also bodies; burial
humus theory, 36
Husserl, Edmund, 69
hybridity, 64
hydroengineering projects, 73, 74, 78–88, 102, 106–12, 151n26, 152n57. See also canal construction; irrigation systems
identity, 10, 25, 67. See also Russian national identity; Soviet national identity
Ilenkov, Pavel Antonovich, 38, 44
Ilenkov-Engelgardt method, 44
Industrial Revolution, 45
intellectuals: chemists, 38–39, 143n14; native soil movement, 8, 20–29
intelligentsia: native soil movement and, 8, 17, 20; old Bolsheviks and, 61; pastoral and, 52; science and, 39
In the Virgin Lands (Na zemliakh tselinnykh, 1955), 115–16, 118–19
Irigaray, Luce, 127
irrigation systems: construction of, 76, 79, 80, 83, 84–88 (see also canal construction); in deserts, 92, 96–97, 107–10; destruction of, 157n51; sexual motifs and, 118. See also hydroengineering projects
Ivan Brovkin in the Virgin Lands (Ivan Brovkin na tseline) (film), 119
Jasien´ski, Bruno, Man Changes His Skin (Chelovek meniaet kozhu), 72, 84–88
Jews, 14; as threat to soil, 29–30, 33, 46–47. See also anti-Semitism
Josephson, Paul, 128, 135n9, 162n71
Joyce, James, 65
Kalmuks, 124
Kant, Immanuel, 13
Kara-Kum Canal, 159n78
Kara-Kum Desert, 4, 10, 91–96, 99, 102, 105, 107–11, 155n11
Karamzin, Nikolai, 16, 18–19, 21, 27
Karatygin, Petr, 58
Karmen, Roman, 92
Kazakhstan, 4, 10; famine in, 128; friendship of nations and, 119, 126; virgin land and, 113–15, 118–26
Khrushchev, Nikita, 10, 113–16, 121, 162n71
Klein, Joachim, 51
Kornienko, Natal’ia, 155n11
Koselleck, Reinhart, 69
Kropotkin, Petr, 98
Kunichika, Michael, 68
Kviatkovskii, P., 116
labor: osvoenie (assimilation), 91, 105, 115, 154n3; socialist, 69–72, 105. See also forced labor; monumental labor projects; workers
land, 15; state nationalization of, 77
land reclamation (melioratsiia), 10, 70, 73–74; in deserts, 93–99, 110
language: debates about pollution and purification, 61–67; national identity and, 25; spontaneity-consciousness dialectic, 69
Lawes, John Bennet, 42
Lenin, Vladimir, 3, 7, 41, 77, 82, 97; Engelgardt and, 146n61; Liebig and, 47–48, 146n60
Levitov, Aleksandr, 59
Liebig, Justus, 6–7, 105, 144n22; Lenin and, 47–48, 146n60; mineral economy and soil metabolism theory, 8–9, 35–38, 42–48, 121, 132; organic chemistry and, 34–35; as Russian cultural icon, 39–42; in Russian intellectual history, 38–39; on theft of mineral resources, 43–47
literary realism, 9; dirty literature and, 49–50, 61. See also socialist realism
literature: artistic process and pollution/purification metaphors, 59, 64, 67; norms, 49–50
local environments, 93–95, 99, 106, 109–10, 114, 144n16
Malenkov, Georgii, 121, 161n39
Malthus, Thomas Robert, 47
manure, 18, 44, 58–59, 62–63, 65–66, 131, 139n40, 142n103
Marx, Karl: on Asiatic mode of production (AMP), 75–76; on changing nature, 73–74; ecological economics on virgin nature, 118, 120–21; Liebig and, 35, 36, 42–43, 47, 121; sediment as historical accumulation and, 68, 82; social metabolism theory, 9, 158n71
Marxism: Jameson on, 155n13; models of socially mediated material flows, 7; stagnation and, 108; theories of development, 95–96, 109–10; virgin nature and, 120–21. See also socialism
Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, 69
Masing-Delic, Irene, 84, 152n57
materialism: ontology of human life, 40; Platonic, 127; radical politics and, 39–42, 44, 50; soil science and, 33–38; Western, 41
materiality: abject, 5; form and, 127; purification of, 58–59; redemption and, 10; resistance of, 124–29; of soil, viii, 1–3, 5–8, 21
matter (materiia), 4, 8, 34–48; colonial theft of national nutrients, 45–47; Liebig as Russian cultural icon, 39–42; Liebig in Russian intellectual history, 38–39; Liebig’s mineral economy, 35–38; models of soil and social economy, 42–45; Soviet policy and metabolic flows, 47–48
McKibben, Bill, 133
McNeill, J. R., 136n32
melioratsiia. See land reclamation
Mendeleev, Dmitrii Ivanovich, 38
“men of the sixties,” 23, 33, 38, 40–41
Menshutkin, Nikolai Aleksandrovich, 38
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 69
Mesopotamia, 79
Mill, John Stuart, 76
mineral exchange between humans and environment, 6, 132; geophagia and, 95; soil metabolism and, 8–9, 35–38, 42–48
Ministry of Agriculture, 131
Mitchell, W.J.T., 5
modernity, 1–3, 69, 90, 131–33, 135n9. See also soil science
modernization, 2–3, 5, 20, 69–72, 78, 90–92, 120
modes of production, 95, 114. See also Asiatic mode of production (AMP)
monoliths, 9–10, 72, 75, 78–81, 83, 88
Montesquieu, 76
monumental labor projects, 9–10, 72, 75, 88, 90, 110
Moon, David, 30
moral disorder, 49, 55–56, 60, 130, 148n51
Morgan, J. R., 51
Moscow−Kara-Kum−Moscow motor rally, 92, 155n4
Moscow-Volga Canal, 78–84, 107
mother-earth (Muttererde), 14–15
Narkomzem. See People’s Commissariat of Agriculture
narrative disorder, 54
national decline, 130
national development, 2, 72; gravesites and, 90; native soil movement and, 11–33; natural environment and, 12–19; patriotism and, 18. See also historical development; Russian national identity; Soviet national identity
national difference, 8, 12, 14, 33, 60
nationalist ideologies, 12, 29, 72
native soil (pochva), 4, 8, 11–33, 41, 49; cultural-historical types and, 25–26; dirt as inversion of, 56; fetishization of, 8, 16, 20, 29; grammar of, 24; intelligentsia’s separation from, 20; organic nation and, 60 (see also organic nation); Romantic nationalism and, 10, 12; soil metabolism and fertilizers, 44; threats to, 29–33; Virgin Lands campaign and, 114
native soil movement (pochvennichestvo), 4, 8, 10–11, 20–29
natsmeny (national minorities), 74–75
naturalism, 9, 50, 57–58, 64–65, 117, 148n35. See also French naturalism; natural school, Russian
natural school, Russian, 9, 50, 52–58, 148n41
natural sciences, 23, 25, 32, 37. See also agricultural chemistry
nature: conquest over, 100–101; dialectics of, 101; feminization of, 118–21, 123, 127, 150n15; meaning and, 3; transformation of, 73–74; war with, 71, 95, 98, 100, 102, 110. See also culture and nature
NEP, 48
Nevakhovich, M. L., 56–57, 148n33
Newlin, Thomas, 51
Nizhnyi Novgorod, 80
nomadism, 95–96, 103, 106, 108; desertification and, 98; rootlessness and, 30; virgin land and, 114. See also Turkic nomads
Noneshvili, Iosif, 118
nov’/novina (new land), 115
Odoevskii, Vladimir, 47
OGPU (Unified State Political Directorate), 73, 86, 88
organic chemistry, 34
organic criticism, 20–23, 140n60
organicism, 13
organic nation, 11–33, 37, 41, 60, 64, 68. See also native soil movement
oriental despotism, 10, 72, 75, 76–77, 79–81, 83, 84, 88, 107, 108
Orthodox religion, 20
Osbourne, Thomas, 95
osvoenie (assimilation), 91, 105, 115, 154n3
otlozhenie. See sediment
Panferov, Fedor, Bruski, 61–66, 149n65
Pan-Slavism, 33
Paperny, Vladimir, 106
Paustovsky, Konstantin, 69
Pavlenko, Petr, 89
peasantry, 1–3; backwardness and, 69; fertilizers and, 44–45; folk knowledge of soil conditions, 31–32; gentry and, 53; idealization of, 8; as morally contaminated, 55–56. See also folk culture; rural life; serfdom
People’s Commissariat of Agriculture (Narkomzem), 10, 86, 93, 96–99, 107
People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), 73
perekovka (psychological reforging), 9
Permitin, Efim, 66
Perun (mythic figure), 118
Petersburg Miscellany, The (1846), 55
Peter the Great, 11, 18–19, 27, 77, 106–7
philosophical materialism, 8
Physiology of Petersburg, The (1845), 55
piatichlenka (five-stage model of development), 77, 152n45
Pilniak, Boris: The Naked Year, 80–81; The Volga Falls to the Caspian, 72, 78–84
Pisarev, Dmitrii, 33, 43–44, 47, 59–61
Pisemskii, Aleksei: “Leshii,” 148n48; “The Simpleton” (“Tiufiak”), 59–60
“Planet Virgin Land” (song), 113
Platonov, Andrei, 3, 91, 93–112, 156n25, 157n51, 157n54, 158n76, 158nn70–71; on famine, 132; as land reclamation engineer, 10, 93–99, 106–7, 155nn9–12; soil metabolism and, 7; works: The Blue Depth (Golubaia glubina), 96; Dzhan (Soul), 10, 93–96, 102–12, 153n59, 153n94; “The Ethereal Tract” (“Efirnyi trakt”), 97; “The First Ivan” (“Pervyi Ivan”), 100, 157n39; The Foundation Pit, 70–71; “The Hot Arctic” (“Goriachaia Arktika”), 96, 102, 105, 109; “The Locks of Epifan” (“Epifanskie shliuzy”), 99, 100, 106–7; “Markun,” 101; “The Motherland of Electricity” (“Rodina elektrichestva”), 97; “On the First Socialist Tragedy” (“O pervoi sotsialisticheskoi tragedii”), 96, 100, 103–4, 110; Sharmanka (The Barrel Organ), 158n66; “Story about Many Interesting Things,” 156n29; “Takyr,” 104; “The Teacher of the Sands” (“Peschanaia uchitel’nitsa”), 99
pochva. See native soil
pochvennichestvo. See native soil movement
Poggioli, Renato, 52
Pohl, Michaela, 128
Pokrovskii, M. N., 46
pollution, 49–50, 53–55, 59–67; artistic process and, 59, 64, 67; socialist realism and, 61
Ponomareva, Svetlana, 110
Populist movement, Russian, 44
positivism: dirt and, 57–58; materialism and, 35, 37, 40–41, 60
Prometheanism, 7, 95–96, 99–101, 112, 132
Provincial Committee on the Artificial Irrigation of Arid Lands, 97
Pryde, Philip, 121
radical politics: Liebigian agricultural chemistry and, 35; materialism and, 39–42, 44, 50
Raubsystem, 42
realism, 50, 64–65. See also literary realism; socialist realism
resource extraction, 109, 120–21
revolution, 2, 4, 10, 35, 39–42, 46, 63–70, 76–77, 83–84, 88
rituals, 15, 17, 58–59, 61–67, 133
Rodchenko, Aleksandr, 73
Romanticism: aesthetic idealism and, 9; interpretations of nature, 37
rootedness and rootlessness, 8, 17, 28, 30, 33. See also nomadism
rural life: dirt and, 9, 49–67; fetishization of, 8 (see also native soil); modernization and (see modernization); pastoral genre and, 51–52. See also agrarian life; peasantry; serfdom
Russian national identity, 8–9, 115; native soil movement and, 11–33, 49
Russo-Turkish War, 29
Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail, 18
sand, 89–90, 104, 108, 111, 124–25
Sary-Kamysh Lake, 107, 110, 111
Sawer, Marian, 77
Schiller, Friedrich, 21
Schlegel, Friedrich, 12
Schlüter, Otto, 15
sediment (otlozhenie), 4, 9, 68–90; despotic “Asiatic” past and socialist future, 73–90; Fergana Canal and, 89–90; as historical accumulation, 68–73, 108; Moscow-Volga Canal and, 78–84; Vakhsh Canal and, 84–88
Selvinskii, Ilia, 117
Serafimovich, Aleksandr, 64, 66
serfdom, 8, 14–15, 40, 50–51. See also peasantry; rural life
Serres, Michel, 15
sexual freedom, 115, 118, 121–22
Shaginian, Marietta, 64
Shakespeare, William, 59
silt, 78, 84–85, 87, 90, 108, 110, 111
Silverman, Kaja, 127
Slavophiles, 8, 11, 17, 20, 28, 33, 50
Smith, Adam, 76
smychka (unification of city and countryside), 35, 47–48
socialism: environmental policy and, 101–2; oriental despotic past and, 88 (see also oriental despotism); at periphery, 94–96; productivity of soil under, 3. See also Marxism; Soviet Union
socialist realism, 9, 50, 95; naturalism and, 66; pollution discourse and, 61, 67; as primary form of socialism, 127; symbols and tropes in, 116. See also literary realism
soil, 1–10; cultural myths of, 2–5, 7; as milieu, 60; as object of social relations, 3, 5, 133; Russian grammatical cases, 24; symbolic life of, 8–10. See also dirt (griaz); matter (materiia); native soil (pochva); sediment (otlozhenie); virgin land (tselina); wasteland (pustyr’)
soil classification maps, 146n57
soil fertility: artificial soil and, 131–33; capitalist robbery of, 43–47, 130–31; conservation of, 128; depletion, 30–31, 35, 42, 43–44, 47, 116; dust and, 99; famine and, 156n31; fertilizer and, 42–48 (see also fertilizers); management of, 32 (see also soil science); silt and, 87, 111; social inequality and, 103
soil metabolism, 7–9, 35–38, 42–48
“soil question,” vii, 11, 35, 39
soil science, 30–32, 34–48, 163n8; agricultural exports and, 45–48, 131; artificial soils, 131–32. See also agricultural chemistry; agronomy; technology
Soldatov, Vladimir, 132
Soloukhin, Vladimir, 118, 161n40
Solovev, Vladimir, 30–32, 80, 96, 98–100, 156n29
Soviet national identity, 4, 9–10, 150n21; construction on Asian soil, 68–90
Soviet Union: grain shortage, 113–14; ideological impurities and, 62, 64; legitimacy of, 76; materialism and, 7; modernization, 69–72, 78, 90–92, 120; space program, 113, 128–29, 132, 160n1. See also Bolsheviks; Marxism; socialism; Virgin Lands campaign (1953–1964)
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 109
Stalin, Joseph, and Stalinism, 84, 89, 95, 113–14, 119–20, 160n8
Stawkowski, Magdalena, 128
steppe erosion, 32
Stoffwechsel (metabolism), 36, 43, 46, 73. See also Liebig, Justus
Stolypin period, 46
Strakhov, Nikolai, 20, 23, 24–25
sukhovei (desert wind), 98
Sumarokov, Aleksandr, 51
Tanner, Jennifer, 57
“Taras Bulba,” 32
technology, 100–101, 109, 127, 161n39; artificial soil and, 131–33. See also hydroengineering projects; soil science; tractors
Terras, Victor, 20
territorial invasion, 130. See also colonization
Theocritus, 51
Tolstoi, Aleksei, 65
Tolstoi, Lev, 32
tractors, 70, 122–23, 125–27. See also technology
transcorporeality, 6–7, 37, 133
transplantation (colonization), 8, 18–19, 26–27
tselina. See virgin land
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt, 6
Tsipursky, Gleb, 160n6
Turgenev, Ivan, 8, 21, 35, 40–41, 55, 147n25
Turin, Viktor, 70
Turkic nomads, 91, 103, 118, 123–24, 157n54. See also nomadism
Turkmenistan, 4, 94, 102–3, 105, 109, 110, 154n4. See also Kara-Kum Desert
Turksib (1929), 70
Ukrainian soil, theft of, 130–31
United States: as agrarian republic, vii; Dust Bowl catastrophe, 99; grain exports, 46
urban life. See city-country exchange
Urlandschaft, 15
Uspenskii, Nikolai and Gleb, 59
USSR in Construction (journal), 73, 92
utopian dreams, 1, 3, 159n96; agricultural chemistry and, 39; artificial soil and, 132–33; labor and, 42; technological, 80–81, 95, 110–11
value, labor theory of, 120–21
values and lifeways, traditional, 3
Vanpaemel, Geert, 144n16
vegetative, organic nation as, 17–18
Verdery, Katherine, 90
vernacular socialism, 94–95, 109–12
vernacular terms for soil types, 31–32, 142n113
Vernadsky, Vladimir, 7
Viliams, Vasilii, 121
Virgil, 51
virgin land (tselina), 3–4, 10, 88, 113–29; compared to wasteland, 111; degeneration and, 28; feminine passivity and, 118–21, 123, 127, 150n15; first furrow trope, 117–27; in late Soviet cultural imaginary, 115–17; literary criticism and, 116–17; Marxist ecology and, 120–21; resistance of the material, 124–29; sexual motifs and, 115, 117–19, 121–24; symbolic value of, 114–16
Virgin Lands campaign (1953–1964), 10, 113–29; ecological impact of, 127–28, 162n71; Soviet youth and, 160n6; visual representations of, 124–29
Volga-Don Canal, 106
Volkish movements, 33
Volksgeist, 14, 19, 22, 23, 25, 56, 60
Voskresenskii, Aleksandr Abramovich, 38
Vucinich, Alexander, 143n14
Vygotskii, Lev, 69
war with nature, 71, 95, 98, 100, 102, 110
waste, 42, 63; nature as, 156n25; nourishment and, 104–6. See also defecation; excrement; manure; mineral exchange between humans and environment
wasteland (pustyr’), 4, 10, 91–112; definitions of, 91; development of deserts, 92–96 (see also deserts and desertification); dialectics of nature, 99–106; land reclamation, 96–99; Soviet hydraulic works, 106–12. See also hydroengineering projects; irrigation systems
Weber, Max, 2
Weiner, Douglas, 101
Westernization, 20. See also capitalism; Europe
Winiwarter, Verena, 136n32
Wittfogel, Karl, 75
workers: political consciousness of, 107–8; as political subjects, 73–74; reform of, 86. See also labor