The Legacies of Environmental Colonialism in Post-Soviet Culture and Activism

This paper examines how post-Soviet creative artists and activists from Russia and Central Asia are responding to the problematic environmental legacies of Soviet policies. While postcolonial theorists rightly examine environmental and climate justice movements within the framework of capitalism, post-Soviet societies have often been excluded from the narrative. I argue that post-Soviet creative works at the intersection of art and activism suggest that Soviet policies, despite their supposed indebtedness to Communist ideals, shared many traits of capitalist exploitation. In his novella The Dead Lake (2014), Uzbek author Hamid Ismailov explores the effects of the Semipaliatinsk Nuclear testing in Kazakhstan, a taboo topic until recently. Kazakhstani filmmaker Zhana Isabaeva’s feature film Bopem (2015) examines the disappearance of the Aral Sea as a result of Soviet over-production of cotton in Central Asia, while avoiding the binary coupling of the coloniser-coloniser and oppressor-appressed. Siberian authors and activists, such as Gennady Dyachkov and Eremei Aipin critique the exploitation of ethnic Siberian peoples, particularly the nomadic reindeer herders, from Soviet times to present day, exposing the problematic oil industry in the region. Ultimately, these artist-activists suggest that economic exploitation has been rooted in the racial inequalities of the Soviet empire, providing insights that help us nuance our understanding of both the Soviet/post-Soviet and global environmental movements.