Zitationsvorschlag
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Dieses Werk steht unter der Lizenz Creative Commons Namensnennung - Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 4.0 International.
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5 Vladimir Arsen’ev, the Russian Far East, and Origins of Soviet Whaling in the North Pacific Ocean
Abstract The Far Eastern author Vladimir Arsen′ev is well known in Russia for his eloquent works of autobiographical fiction, such as the classic Dersu Uzala. This chapter details a far less known part of Arsen′ev’s autobiography, one with arguably much greater consequence for the environmental history of the North Pacific: his stint working as a fisheries official in Soviet Vladivostok in the 1920s. In that capacity, Arsen′ev oversaw the beginning of the Soviet Union’s whaling industry, which in subsequent decades would become environmentally ruinous. Arsen′ev helped inaugurate Soviet whaling, but he also offered important cautions based on his own experience and his deep knowledge of the North Pacific’s history of overexploitation of marine mammals. This story helps understand better the origins of Soviet whaling and Arsen′ev’s own environmental ethos, which also featured in his literary work.
Keywords environment, revolution, whales, Japan, Indigenous
