Environment and Society in Soviet Estonia, 1960–1990 : An Intimate Cultural History

This Element investigates how natural environments and social ideas and circumstances were intertwined in fundamental ways. Various aspects of Estonian environmental thought and practices are analyzed as tied to local, intimate environments, while being at the same time connected to the global circulation of ideas.

Russia''s twenty-first-century military aggression has inspired calls for re-thinking the Soviet era and its aftermath – in particular, for drawing attention to the non-Russian parts of the (former) USSR. At the same time, the present era of anthropogenic climate change urges us to consider the global and planetary implications of local actions. This Element combines these two scholarly impulses to consider Soviet Estonian society between the 1960s and the 1980s: it investigates how natural environments and social ideas and circumstances were intertwined in fundamental ways. Estonian intellectuals cared deeply about their local environments, but they also took inspiration from environmentalist works of global importance. Various aspects of Estonian environmental thought and practices are analyzed as tied to local, intimate environments, while being at the same time connected to the global circulation of ideas, sometimes in dialogue with Soviet centers in Russia.