In dire straits: The struggle with industrial water pollution in the late Russian Empire (1870-1917)

该项目致力于工业污染的历史-现代世界最重要的环境问题之一。有毒或有潜在危险的废物对水的污染造成了大量当前的生态问题，从全球气候变化到当地景观的破坏。如何理解和管理环境污染在很大程度上取决于社会和文化因素：经济增长与公民权利的优先次序;国家权力与各种社会群体之间的相互关系。通过观察这些政策和话语随着时间的推移所采取的不同形式，历史研究可以提高我们对当前环境和社会进程的理解。水污染成为世纪欧洲工业增长和城市化最重要的问题之一，也是环境立法发展的主要驱动力。因此，与工业废物污染水的斗争的历史对于理解现代环境管理的起源非常重要。西欧国家（法国、英国和德国）的水污染历史已经得到了很好的研究，但许多地区仍然没有从这个角度进行探索。拟议的项目旨在阐明俄罗斯帝国的环境历史。现代史学往往将俄罗斯的水污染和环境运动的调查局限于苏联和后苏联时代，欧美学者对此研究得很好。然而，俄罗斯工业对环境的影响--以及防止这种破坏的努力--早在苏联时期就开始了。该项目将展示这些现象的更深层次的历史根源，并研究它们如何影响俄罗斯综合环境政策和立法的形成。该主题将从俄罗斯帝国晚期社会发展的角度来看待，从亚历山大二世的大改革开始，这为关于俄罗斯城市生活条件的广泛社会辩论创造了先决条件，并开启了政府与社会之间的对话。工业家、公民和官员在帝国各地区爆发的冲突局势中努力增进自己的利益。这些冲突构成了该项目的主要焦点，并将在欧洲和美国经验的背景下进行考虑，这些经验极大地影响了俄罗斯早期的环境管理，并提供了比较的视角。

The project is devoted to the history of industrial pollution – one of the most important environmental issues of the modern world. Water contamination with toxic or potentially dangerous wastes causes a great number of current ecological problems, from global climate change to destruction of local landscapes. How environmental pollution is understood and managed significantly depends on social and cultural factors: what priority is given to economic growth vs. citizens’ rights; the interrelations between state power and various social groups. By looking at the different forms that these policies and discourses take over time, historical research could improve our understanding of current environmental and social processes.Water pollution became one of the most important issues of industrial growth and urbanization in Europe in the 19th century, and was the main driver for the development of environmental legislation. The history of the struggle with contamination of water with industrial wastes is therefore quite significant for understanding the origins of modern environmental management. The history of water pollution has been well studied for Western European countries (France, Great Britain, and Germany), but many regions still have not been explored from this perspective.The proposed project aims to shed light on the environmental history of imperial Russia. Modern historiography often limits the investigation of water pollution and environmental movements in Russia to the Soviet and post-Soviet era, which is well studied by European and American scholars. However, the impact of Russian industry on the environment – and the efforts to prevent this damage – began long before the Soviet period. The project will show the deeper historical roots of these phenomena and examine how they influenced the formation of comprehensive environmental policy and legislation in Russia.The subject will be viewed from the perspective of social development of late imperial Russia, starting from the Great Reforms of Alexander II, which created the preconditions for wide social debates about living conditions in Russian cities and opened up dialogue between the government and society. Industrialists, citizens, and officials strove to further their interests in conflict situations that erupted in various regions of the empire. These conflicts form the main focus of the project and will be considered against the background of European and American experience, which greatly influenced early environmental management in Russia and offer a comparative perspective.