Archival documents of the State Committee for Nature Protection of the USSR as a source on the environmental history of Russia in the late 1980s - early 1990s

Abstract

The article examines and analyzes a set of archival documents of the State Committee for Nature Protection of the USSR (Goskomprirody of the USSR), which covers the events and processes that occurred in the relationship between the Soviet state, society and nature at the turn of the 1980s-1990s. In the domestic historiography this subject is still poorly studied, so the main source on the environmental history of the perestroika period are archival documents. The most informative in this respect are the materials of the USSR Goskompriroda, which are stored in the fonds of the Ministry of Nature Management and Environmental Protection of the USSR (F. 709) of the Russian State Archive of Economics (RSAE). The purpose of the study, the results of which are presented in the article, is to analyze the structure of this fund, which consists of 661 storage units, and to review the content of its inventories. The materials in them are grouped by dates and belonging to the structural subdivisions of the State Committee. The main part of them (599 items) is concentrated in inventory 1. The chronological framework of the complex of documents of the USSR State Committee for Nature Protection is limited to four years (1988-1991), during which the socio-economic and political situation in the country changed significantly. There have been changes in the content and directions of development of the state environmental policy, the essence of which is reflected in the materials of the agency that formally managed the entire system of nature management and environmental protection in the USSR during the perestroika period. These include: official and office records of the USSR State Committee for Nature Protection, its correspondence with central and regional authorities; parliamentary requests and answers to them; materials of the state environmental expertise; information on activities to promote environmental knowledge; statistical data; documents on international cooperation with foreign organizations on environmental issues; reports on the work of the USSR reserves, and much more. For specialists in the environmental and social history of Russia in the Soviet period, the most valuable are the storage units containing letters from citizens and public organizations addressed both to the chairman of the USSR State Committee for Nature Protection and to the highest authorities. They contain appeals, proposals and requests, and characterize the environmental situation in various regions of the country. The study of these letters, as well as the documents testifying to the response to them on the part of state bodies, allows us to analyze the level of development of environmental consciousness of the country's population and the peculiarities of relations between the authorities and society in the field of nature protection. The documents of the USSR Goskompriroda represent an extensive and diverse source base for studying the environmental history of Russia in the Soviet period. Their further research and introduction into scientific turnover will contribute to the development of this branch of historical science.