Continuity and change: (re)constructing environmental geographies in late Soviet and post‐Soviet Russia

Environmental studies conducted worldwide often overlook the knowledge traditions of the locales where they are conducted. Addressing this issue, I investigated the geographic journal literature of late Soviet (1980–1989) and post‐Soviet (1990–2003) Russia. Notable trends are increasing criticism of environmental and resource management in Russia and a (re)turn to pre‐socialist Russian theorizations of society–nature interactions. Specifically, the noösphere, ethnogenesis and geosystems are trends in the literature that signify how Russian geographers (re)construct environmental knowledge. For non‐Russian geographers working in Russia, awareness of these trends situates place‐based knowledge relative to multiple cultures (ethnic, scientific) and time periods, promoting cross‐cultural understanding of different traditions of geographic inquiry.