Jenna’s Reviews > The Oak and the Larch: A Forest History of Russia and Its Empires > Status Update

Ch 9 - Platonov’s Among Animals and Plants, machines need more care than nature but at end returns to nature to return to father. But this made me think, living things have agency and are more tolerant or forgiving or resilient, innate things do require a different level of sensitivity as they tend to be less forgiving.

The berries and larch and Tiaga as metaphor for the resilience of the people.

Tension between Prometheanism and Conservationism. Culture and progress. Nature as factory and fully instrumentalized. Conservation tied to industrialization and modernization. Forests had to earn their existence. (Ch 8)

Chapter 8 - Soviet view of nature favoured it shaped to serve human purposes and work. Intentional and purposeful, not wild and disorganized.