Archipelagos of Warmth. Soviet Mining on Svalbard and the Challenge of Arctic Cold

Frey, Felix (23 August 2019). Archipelagos of Warmth. Soviet Mining on Svalbard and the Challenge of Arctic Cold (Unpublished). In: 10th Biennial conference of the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH). Tallinn. 21. - 25.08.2019.

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When Soviet workers arrived on the Norwegian island of Svalbard in 1931, their main task was to mine coal for the burgeoning industries in the USSR’s northwest. However, much more basic human needs characterized the mining operation on site: The Svalbard workers suffered from their ill-prepared arrival in an area of extreme cold. The opposition of body heat and Arctic cold soon became a matter of life and death.

Drawing on Soviet archival material and published sources, the paper analyzes how different historical actors navigated within the tension field of polar coldness and body heat. The mining company Arktikugol’s success as well as the 1500–2000 workers’ living conditions depended on their resourceful interaction with the Arctic environment. Under Norwegian jurisdiction, watchtowers and fences could not keep the miners in check as they often did in the Soviet Arctic. Unsurprisingly, the workers soon resorted to remigration to the Soviet mainland as a tactic of changing their thermal surrounding. Arktikugol’ in turn established ‘archipelagos of warmth’ on Svalbard and financial incentives to avoid its collapse: Banyas and greenhouses, special clothing and swimming pools, even the reward of holidays in faraway spa towns aimed at keeping the workers in place.

The paper studies how regimes of warmth and cold were designed to reduce work conflicts and aimed at convincing miners to stay on the island for longer periods. Furthermore, it shows how the environmental factor of coldness in combination with Norwegian jurisdiction forced Soviet administrators to refrain from head-on repression and employ, among others, also thermal approaches to stabilize the workforce.

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