In the Name of the Great Work

Stalin's Plan for the Transformation of Nature and its Impact in Eastern Europe
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78920-502-2
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 10, 322 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 469 g

Reihe: Environment in History: International Perspectives

Beginning in 1948, the Soviet Union launched a series of wildly ambitious projects to implement Joseph Stalin’s vision of a total “transformation of nature.” Intended to increase agricultural yields dramatically, this utopian impulse quickly spread to the newly communist states of Eastern Europe, captivating political elites and war-fatigued publics alike. By the time of Stalin’s death, however, these attempts at “transformation”—which relied upon ideologically corrupted and pseudoscientific theories—had proven a spectacular failure. This richly detailed volume follows the history of such projects in three communist states—Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia—and explores their varied, but largely disastrous, consequences.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ol¿áková, Doubravka

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Umweltgeschichte & Umweltarchäologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

List of Tables

Abbreviations

Introduction: The Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature and the East European Experience

Paul Josephson

Chapter 1. Kafkaesque Paradigms: The Stalinist Plan for the Transformation of Nature in Czechoslovakia

Doubravka Olšáková and Arnošt Štanzel

Chapter 2. Untamed Seedlings: Hungary and Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature

Zsuzsanna Borvendég and Mária Palasik

Chapter 3. The Conspiracy of Silence: Stalinist Plan for the Transformation of Nature in Poland

Beata Wysokinska

Conclusion: Environmental History, East-European Societies and Totalitarian Regimes

Doubravka Olšáková

Name Index

Local Index

Subject Index

Über Autor(innen)

Ol¿áková, Doubravka
Doubravka Olšáková is a senior researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, where she leads a working group on environmental history. Her publications include the book Science Goes to the People! (2014), which examines mass indoctrination and the dissemination of science in communist Czechoslovakia.