Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling

"I cannot judge whether it’s really a secret history or not, because before I came across this book, I knew absolutely nothing about whaling, whether Soviet or not. It was all an undiscovered country to me. I did congratulate myself on the good fortune of being on the jury, because it gives you access to books on topics which you would never ever have read on your own. Now, I understand a little bit—about the parts of the whale, for example. I have learned a few new words in the process, that were not within the previous limits of my experience. But if you want my impression of the book as a political scientist, it is the same story of a state eager to make money. Specifically, to have something which can be sold to the West for hard currency which the Soviets could then use to buy things we could not produce ourselves. It begins to make me think that finding something to sell was the entire raison d’être of the Soviet Union’s existence—be it wood, be it grain, be it gold, be oil and gas, or whales. It seems to have been the rationale for many things, which we are used to explaining in a different, much more roundabout way. What this author calls the tragic Soviet experiment (a phrase which I think applies to more things than just whaling) was about the predatory use of nature—like the predatory use of its own populace, like the predatory use of everything—and this led to destruction. The whaling was as anti-ecological as you can imagine. It was run by people who did not give a thought to anything resembling sustainability, not even to preserving their own resource base. They never thought about it. Again, I’m harping on about the same theme. But I do think that the further away we get from Soviet times, the more it stands out in its unprecedented inhumanity, including to whales. I haven’t read it but I hope I will get the chance. He’s an author who is always worth following. There was another book which I wanted on the shortlist, Alexander Etkind’s Russia Against Modernity , which was published in April. It’s a short one, more of an extended article than a book, which makes it even more readable. Etkind is a well-known thinker. He’s currently at the Central European University in Vienna. He was in Florence for many years. He is the author of Internal Colonization: Russia’s Imperial Experience . It’s his term, actually. This book is about Russia’s war as a war against modernity, an attempt to stop time. That is also an overreach. This is a war that cannot be won—and should never have been waged in the first place. Tickets are now on sale for this year’s Pushkin House Book Prize Award Ceremony, to be held on Thursday, 15 June, 2023 in London."