ECOLOGY OF THE RURAL WORLD IN THE PERCEPTION OF PEASANTS

Abstract

The article considers environmental issues in rural areas of some Russian regions throughout the last century. The distinctive feature of this research is that the ecological history of rural areas is reconstructed through the reflections of peasants that are constantly involved and acting in the rural everyday life. The authors analyze a large number of narratives collected in the sociological expeditions during the last 25 years, and suggest to consider the environmental issues in rural areas in different historical periods not only as a continuous search of the societies for their place “in the family of nature” but also as a gradual enclosure of societies from nature. The authors divide the ecological history of Russian rural areas in the last century-early 21st century into four periods approximately equal in duration: “old” or “communal-individual” period (1929-1931); “new” or “collective-farm and state-farm”-from the beginning of collectivization to the late 1950s-early 1960s; “mature” or “late-collective-farm”-from the early 1960s to the early 1990s; “the newest” or “farmer-agroholding”-from the agrarian reforms of the 1990s-2000-s to the present time. The article presents a general picture of the social-environmental situation in a number of key regions of rural Russia during the first three periods. The authors believe that “the newest” or “farmer-agroholding” period in the ecological history of Russian villages needs a special study due to the radical changes determined by it.