Landscapes of Exploration: Space and Nature in the Russian Empire's Borderlands

Abstract

Working on this project I follow the expeditions to the Altai mountains, the Land of Seven Rivers (Zhetysu, Jeti-Suu), and the Central Tian-Shan which were led by Russian geographers, botanists, geologists, and glaciologists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, shifting from a macro- to a micro-optic perspective, looking up at the towering snow-capped mountains and searching for tiny flowers in the steppe. This project reconstructs the landscape of the Russian empire’s borderlands and analyzes human-nature relations, conceptualizing them as ‘environmental subjectivity’, examining how mountains, rivers, lakes, glaciers, steppe, and forest were seen and understood, affecting colonization strategies and the future transformation of the region. It provides a complex interdisciplinary analysis of the expeditions’ findings and representations of Siberia and Central Asia in maps, photographs, herbariums, and travelogues. I deploy the tools of Digital Humanities, identifying subjects and objects of exploration, knowledge production and dissemination, ‘blank’ spaces, missing narratives, and the environmental transformation of the region in the process of Russian colonization. The project’s digital component includes a collection of ArcGIS StoryMaps with integrated web maps and data to visualize research and give readers an opportunity to travel virtually, following the steps of the Russian explorers.