teaching duties, though he does seem to have taught local groups,
often at a popular level. One of the most important of his scienti
fic
activities, however, derived from his association with the nearby
‘Zolotoi Bor’ nature reserve, whose scientific council he joined soon
after his arrival. As an interesting example of the way that Soviet
scientists at this period strove to appear practical, the council, with
Berg as secretary, sent the government of Kazakhstan a request in
September, 1941 to include the scientists at Borovoe in the nature
reserve
’s research activities, investigating problems ‘having current
economic signi
ficance’. In consequence Berg was personally
assigned two research tasks: to investigate the
fish resources of the
region
’s lakes with a view to their utilization, and to analyse local
meteorological data, collected over many years, with the aim of
developing a better understanding of local climate and its signi
fi-
cance for human health. As a long-standing student of the climate
and lakes of the region, Berg was well placed to undertake such
research although, judging by lists of his scienti
fic publications,
neither research task bore signi
ficant fruit.
52
As president of the Geographical Society, Berg held signi
ficant
responsibilities, but wartime communications proved dif
ficult. The
society continued to function, albeit in much diminished form, in
the besieged city of Leningrad, providing some military intelligence
and geographical advice to those requiring it. The greater part of the
premises it occupied, however, was taken over as a military hos-
pital.
53
Berg appears to have busied himself at Borovoe with
editorial and refereeing duties on behalf of the society in so far as
wartime conditions allowed. Most important, however, was his
work on the volume dedicated to the society
’s hundredth anni-
versary which was due to be celebrated in 1945. The book was
eventually published in 1946.
54
Publishing opportunities were inevitably limited in wartime.
Nonetheless, Berg wrote numerous scienti
fic papers and books,
many of which were published soon after the war. Most notable
were books on the Bering expedition and on the history of Russian
geographical discoveries, the third edition of his book on the USSR
’s
natural zones, the second edition of his Climate and Life, and the
fourth edition of his classic work on the freshwater
fish of the USSR
and neighbouring countries.
55
The siege of Leningrad was
finally lifted in January 1944 and life
in the city slowly began to return to normal. The university
returned from its Saratov exile at the end of June, but Berg
’s arrival
was delayed until 29 August when, as he wrote, he returned to the
city
‘towards the evening of a fine sunny day’.
56
Within a few days
he had resumed his duties as chair of the department of physical
geography at the university and as president of the quickly-reviving
Geographical Society. Life in the last winter of the war remained
harsh, however. But Berg continued to work assiduously and
without complaint, even enduring for a time a lack of fuel for his
of
fice stove. His final wartime activity was to appear together with
senior members of the university, the Party and other organizations
at a mass rally held in front of the main university building on
Victory Day, May 9, 1945, reportedly celebrating the occasion with a
‘rousing and heartfelt speech’.
57
Andrei Grigor
’ev in wartime
Whilst Berg spent the war years far removed from events on the
front, Grigor
’ev’s position was very different. At 58 he was still
active and, as director of the USSR
’s leading geographical research
institute, a body which was set to play a signi
ficant wartime role,
his responsibilities were heavy. On the
fifth day of the war, calling
all the institute
’s staff to a meeting in his office in Moscow, Gri-
gor
’ev announced IGAN’s inclusion in the new Commission for
Geological
eGeographical Services to the Red Army under Acade-
mician Fersman. Grigor
’ev himself was appointed Fersman’s dep-
uty, responsible for the provision of all geographical services
needed at the front and by the country
’s wartime economy. There
followed a throughgoing reconstruction of the institute
’s work,
which now moved from a traditional focus on systematic branches
of the discipline to the ful
filment of specific wartime tasks and the
solution of designated problems. This in turn meant the reorgani-
zation of the institute
’s staff into ‘complex’ groups (or groups
containing a range of specialists, depending on the task in hand)
and expeditions. These set quickly to work, with Grigor
’ev taking an
immediate role, supervising the overall direction of the work and
closely editing all the maps, texts and other materials produced.
58
Another difference between Berg and Grigor
’ev was that Mos-
cow was not as immediately threatened by German forces as was
Leningrad. But life in Moscow soon became dif
ficult, with bombing
raids by the Luftwaffe beginning by July 21. For a few months the
Academy institutes were able to remain, however, particularly once
it became clear that Stalin and the government were not about to
flee to Kuibyshev on the Volga, as originally envisaged. In these
circumstances Grigor
’ev’s leadership skills came quickly to the fore.
It is interesting to note that, whilst Berg generally seems to have
attracted the respect of his colleagues, opinions of Grigor
’ev’s
character were sharply contrasting. On the one hand there were
those like his biographer, I.M. Zabelin, and close co-worker, A.G.
Doskach, who admired him for his scienti
fic insight and his lead-
ership qualities during the war.
59
Thus, Doskach poses the question
whether the conferral of the Fighting Order of the Patriotic War,
second class, on Grigor
’ev at the end of the war was merely in
recognition of his authority and position as director, as some have
asserted. As a witness of his active role in the planning and direc-
tion of the work of the institute
‘to the benefit of the Fatherland’,
she strongly refutes this idea.
‘Simple and natural, precise and
business-like, from the very beginning of the war he included the
Institute of Geography in the systematic work of according direct
assistance to the front and in the discovery and mobilization of the
resources of the rear for the country
’s wartime economy’.
Describing the dif
ficulties of working in Moscow in the war’s early
months with nightly air raids by the Luftwaffe, Doskach asserts that
‘Andrei Aleksandrovich shared the difficulties with everyone and
52
Bibliogra
fiia izbrannykh geograficheskikh trudov L. S. Berga, Voprosy Geografii 24 (1951) 441e458. See also the bibliography compiled by Berg’s widow, M.M. Berg, in:
Pamiati L. S. Berga: sbornik rabot po geogra
fii i biologii, MoscoweLeningrad, 1955, 531e559.
53
L.S. Berg, Sto let Geogra
ficheskogo obshchestva, Trudy Vtorogo s’ezda, Vol. 1, 71e90 (89); L.S. Berg, Vsesoiuznoe Geograficheskoe obshchestvo v 1941e43 gg., Izvestiia
Vsesoiuznogo Geogra
ficheskogo obshchestva 75 (1943) no. 6, 44e62.
54
L.S. Berg, Vsesoiuznoe Geogra
ficheskoe obshchestvo za sto let, 1845e1945, MoscoweLeningrad, 1946.
55
L.S. Berg, Otkrytie Kamchatki i ekspeditsii Beringa, 1725
e1742, 3rd. edition, MoscoweLeningrad, 1946; L.S. Berg, Ocherki po istorii russkikh geograficheskikh otkrytii, Mos-
cow
eLeningrad, 1946; L.S. Berg, Geograficheskie zony Sovetskogo Soiuza, 3rd edition, Moscow, 1947; L.S. Berg, Klimat i zhizn’, 2nd edition, Moscow, 1947; L.S. Berg, Ryby
presnykh vod SSSR i sopredel
’nykh stran, part 1, 4th edition, MoscoweLeningrad, 1948.
56
Zolotnitskaia, L. S. Berg (note
43
), 87.
57
Zolotnitskaia, L. S. Berg (note
43
), 88.
58
A.G. Doskach, Akademik A. A. Grigor
’ev v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, Izvestiia Akademii nauk: seriia geograficheskaia (1989) no. 3, 58e64.
59
I.M. Zabelin, Puteshestvie v glub
’ nauki (Akademik A. A. Grigor’ev), Moscow, 1946; Doskach, Akademik A. A. Grigor’ev (note
58
), 59
e61.
D.J.B. Shaw, J.D. Old
field / Journal of Historical Geography xxx (2014) 1e10
7
Please cite this article in press as: Shaw DJB, Old
field JD, Soviet geographers and the Great Patriotic War, 1941e1945: Lev Berg and Andrei
Grigor
’ev, Journal of Historical Geography (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2014.06.002