The Russian Cold

Cold has long been a fixture of Russian identity both within and beyond the borders of Russia and the Soviet Union, even as the ongoing effects of climate change complicate its meaning and cultural salience. The Russian Cold assembles fascinating new contributions from a variety of scholarly traditions, offering new perspectives on how to understand this mainstay of Russian culture and history. In chapters encompassing such diverse topics as polar exploration, the Eastern Front in World War II, and the iconography of hockey, it explores the multiplicity and ambiguity of ?cold? in the Russian context and demonstrates the value of environmental-historical research for enriching national and imperial histories.

?For a country that celebrates the victory of General Winter, the lack of scholarly examination on the cold, and climate in general, is an obvious lacuna in Russian studies. Herzberg and her colleagues are to be commended for breaking ground on the topic. The mix of history of science with cultural and gender studies offered in this volume challenges scholars across the field to consider how the cold impacts their own studies. We can hope this volume marks the beginning of a new field worth exploring.? ? Slavonic and East European Review

?Overall, the collection of chapters is full of insight and serves as a welcome and original introduction to this chilling topic.? ? Eurasian Geography and Economics

?This collection foregrounds one of Russia?s most distinctive natural features: the cold. Together the contributions advance comparative climate history in new directions by attending not only to place, period, and politics, but to an even more fundamental condition of the human experience.? ? Andy Bruno, Northern Illinois University

?This diverse collection provides interesting and important studies on how the cold climate in Russia was experienced, studied and imagined by various actors in different periods of its history.? ? Alla Bolotova, Aalto University