Vladimir Arsen'ev and Whales in Russia's Revolutionary Far East

Abstract

This article examines the contributions the famous Far‎Eastern writer Vladimir Arsen'ev made to the development of the‎Russian/Soviet whaling industry in the 1920s. During that time‎Arsen'ev worked as a “specialist for marine mammal hunting”‎for Dal'rybokhota.‎He studied the whales of the Russian Far East‎and helped craft the Far Eastern Republic's policy toward its subjects‎who wanted to start whaling. As someone with a deep knowledge‎of imperial-era environmental destruction and conservation,‎Arsen'ev‎helped develop measures designed to protect the region's‎Indigenous people and fur-bearing animals while strengthening‎Russian sovereignty. He also advocated the wholesale slaughter‎of killer whales and ultimately failed to restrain destructive commercial‎whaling. However, in addition to adding a new chapter to‎Arsen'ev’s biography, his ideas about whales and whaling help us‎better understand the Far East's environment history and especially‎the way imperial-era‎ideas around conservation survived into the‎Soviet period.