Elena Tiedens, History Major, Named Gates Cambridge Scholar

1. Congratulations on earning a Gates Cambridge scholarship! Can you describe your research project, how you came to it, and how you anticipate continuing your work at Cambridge?   

My thesis project at UChicago is about nuclear-powered icebreaker boats in the transnational and Russian Arctic in the 1990s. At the fall of the Soviet Union, a range of historical actors repurposed Soviet-era nuclear icebreakers for several new uses – from environmentalism to luxury tourism. Tracing the history of the Russian nuclear icebreaker fleet in the 1990s, I thus define infrastructural repurposing as the act of redefining the material purpose of infrastructure with the goal of envisioning and enacting the future. In the 1990s Russian Arctic, these future envisionings attempted to remake the post-Soviet Arctic as a place of cosmopolitanism through global environmentalism and capitalist-integration with the West. However, beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, this sense of Arctic cosmopolitanism gave way to a re territorialized Arctic as the Russian Federation and state-owned oil companies repurposed nuclear icebreakers as handmaidens for state hydrocarbon extraction. 

This thesis grew out of my colloquium paper in the Professor Aaron Jakes’s class, The World the Suez Canal Made. For that course, I wrote specifically about how nuclear icebreakers came to define the Northern Sea Route through their roles as escorts for oil and gas tankers in the 2010s. After writing that paper, I knew I wanted to learn more about the icebreakers, the Russian Arctic, and the Soviet Union. In the two years since I wrote that paper, I began my study of Russian, added a minor in Russian and Eastern European studies, and tried to learn as much as possible about Soviet and Russian history, in addition to environmental history. For my thesis, I wanted to extent the history of the icebreaker into the past. Although I originally wanted to write about the icebreakers during the Soviet Union, I realized such a source base was not available to me, and the 1990s were indeed a very dynamic period for the icebreakers – and for the Russian Arctic as a whole. 

At Cambridge, I hope to continue my work on the infrastructure and energy history of the Russian Arctic. I am not sure whether I would like to continue with a broader survey of infrastructure and energy transition in the Arctic at the collapse of the Soviet Union – or a global history of the icebreaker, a central and disorientating infrastructure in defining the global Arctic from Canada to Russia. 

2. Your work on environmental history and the Artic seems especially urgent right now. How does your historical research support our understanding of the current climate crisis?  

The Arctic is a particularly interesting region to me because it has both seen the most severe warming of anthropogenic climate change and is increasingly viewed as a site of extraction. The Arctic has been in the news recently for both these reasons as Trump vows to “get” Greenland – among other reasons because he wants to extract Greenlandic minerals and assert American control over shipping routes opened by receding ice. He likely also revels at the opportunity to assert colonial control over Greenlandic people. 

My research addresses the Russian side of the formation of modern Artic. Much like Trump’s goals for Greenland, since the early 2000s, Putin’s Russia has used nuclear icebreakers to escort oil and gas tankers and to assert Russian state control over the Northern Sea Route. I hope eventually that my historical work will address the shared origins of the mineral and hydrocarbon extractive Arctic in Russia, the US, and across the world. I think infrastructure history in particular in valuable to illuminating how extractive regimes are built in the North – at a severe loss to the planet and to many of the people who live in the region. 

3. You earned a Straetz International Research Grant to conduct archival and oral historical research in Oslo and northern Norway. Please tell us more about the grant and the research you conducted. 

The Straetz International Research Grant enabled me to spend two months over the summer conducting research for my thesis in Norway. I spent the first month in Oslo, where I conducted archival research in the Norwegian National Archive. This archive has a very rich collection of a Norwegian environmental organization that was deeply involved in the Russian Arctic in the 1990s. In addition to their own documents, the collection also includes files from the organization’s Russian partners. While in Oslo, I conducted oral histories with Norwegian and Russian environmentalists who had been involved with the movement to remediate nuclear waste in the 1990s Russian Arctic. 

For the second half of my grant, I traveled above the Arctic Circle to Northern Norway. I was in both Tromsø and Kirkenes – a town six miles from the Russian border in the European far North. In Tromsø, I visited a regional archive that contained the corporate records of Norwegian companies that had contracted with Russian nuclear icebreakers during the Soviet Union. In Kirkenes, I interviewed one of the leaders of the transnational environmental movement in the 1990s Russian Arctic. Although the Tromsø regional archive was ultimately less valuable to my project that the national archive in Oslo, it was still invaluable to be in an environment closer to one in which my historical actors really operated. 

My mentor for my Straetz grant was my thesis advisor Professor Elizabeth Chatterjee. I’m so grateful for her help and support throughout my thesis-writing process. 

4. How has language study contributed to your ability to understand the environmental history of the Arctic? 

As a Russian and Eastern European studies minor, I have now been learning Russian for two years. Although I have a long while to go in my Russian, I have already seen its benefits in my research. I have used my Russian to skim through Russian-language sources for keywords and was able to exchange pleasantries with my Russian interviewees in Oslo. Of course, learning Russian is a constant process, and I am looking forward to improving my language skills. I will likely complete the Indiana Summer Language Workshop in Russian this summer and am also looking forward to continuing my study of Russian at Cambridge.

When I was in Norway on my Straetz grant, I also took Norwegian to better communicate with people there and to further my archival work. Although I only took Norwegian for two months, I found myself better able to identity and translate titles and headings in Norwegian language documents (thankfully, though, the majority of my sources for my thesis were in English – because of the internationalist bend of the environmentalist movement). Once I achieve a more functional level in Russian, I would really look forward to dedicating myself more fully to Norwegian or another language spoken in the Arctic.

6. What ancillary studies or projects have you undertaken to support your work? 

Outside of my coursework, my most significant ancillary project has been as a Research Assistant on the Capturing the Stars project with Professor Emily Kern. Not only did this experience thoroughly prepare me in the methods of archival research before my own trip to Norway, but I also learned about key trends in the history of science apart from environmental history. I think my research on how tourist networks facilitated the dispersal astronomical knowledge in the interwar period has contributed to my analysis of tourism in the Arctic context.

Also outside my coursework, I am the coordinator of the African Studies Workshop. Beyond facilitating my interest in the African continent (I also studied abroad in Senegal!), this experience has also proven invaluable in teaching me about the structure of academic workshops and discussions outside the classroom. 

7. While at Cambridge, you will study at the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI). What are you most looking forward to?

I am really looking forward to meeting my professors and fellow students at SPRI. It will be interesting for me to learn from people who have spent a lot of time thinking about polar regions from different perspectives. I have also heard that many MPhil students at SPRI spend a month or two conducting field work in the Arctic. I would absolutely look forward to returning to the Arctic, either to Norway, Finland, or another Arctic nation relevant to my work. This fieldwork would also be the first time I will be in the Arctic during the winter. Although I loved the Arctic in the summer, I would be excited to enjoy a different season and fulfill my long-time goal of experiencing the polar night.