“The right of the poor to unpoisoned air and water”: urban self-government in the fight against industrial pollution in late imperial Russia

The article deals with the activities of the urban self-government in the struggle with industrial pollution in the late Russian Empire. What mechanisms did it have at its disposal to oppose powerful industrialists and defend the interests of townspeople? Could townspeople, in turn, rely on the assistance of the city dumas to fight for their right to breathe clean air and drink clean water? Similar studies are quite common in foreign historiography of environmental history, but the Russian experience remains unclaimed. Based on the documentation of the city dumas, provincial boards, and higher departments of the Russian Empire, the authors examine the questions raised through several case studies. The confrontation between Kazan citizens and the Association of Chemical Factories “Ushkov and Company” shows that not always the state and local government acted as counterparts: constructive cooperation between them was possible, but systematic control over the sanitary condition of factories was not feasible without the appropriate efforts of the provincial administration. An example of a strong urban community and its potential to oppose powerful industrialists is shown in Tver: here, for several decades, the Duma supported litigations against the dumping of toxic waste into the Tmaka river and obtained two precedent-setting court decisions. But in the territories where big industry occupied a large share of the economy, such as Ivanovo-Voznesensk, the Urals, and Baku region, the situation could be opposite. Often the state and regional authorities demanded greater sanitary control, while the city council defended the interests of producers. This was particularly the case in Baku, where the Viceroy of the Caucasus decided to demolish all oil refineries and to build them outside the city limits, and the council was composed predominantly of representatives of industrial circles. Contemporaries from Ivanovo-Voznesensk and the Urals described pollution problems as very typical and habitual, and as such they rarely caused protests of the local population. The authors conclude that the urban reform was an important stage in the formation of Russian environmental policy: it created a public space for discussion, including sanitary issues, a dialogue between urban communities and the state power. Nevertheless, the role of city councils in the fight against pollution depended to a large extent on the social order and economic conditions prevailing in individual regions. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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