The forest is one of the prevailing symbols of Russia and its former imperial holdings: from the Baltic to the taiga to the Pacific. But how has the forest informed Russia’s sense of itself and its place in the world? This is the question at the heart of Sophie Pinkham’s new book, The Oak and The Larch: A Forest History of Russia and its Empires: a cultural and environmental history about the role of the forest in making and resisting the Russian and Soviet states, stretching from the Bronze Age to the war on Ukraine.
This week, Sam invites Sophie onto the pod to discuss the forest on film. How have filmmakers related to the Russian forest and what do their films tell us about Russian and Soviet colonialism and environmentalism? Sam and Sophie explore all this, as well as pagans, geologists, and partisans, with reference to cinematic classics including Andrei Tarkovsky, Akira Kurosawa, and Larisa Shepitko.
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