History of the Northeast Passage
Final Report Abstract
The Northeast Passage, a legendary sea route European merchants began to search after Christopher Columbus had missed the route to India, is becoming a reality due to climate change in the 21st century. While the history of this route has been studied through the lens of seafarers' biographies or dramatic scientific expeditions, this project was to lay the foundation for the first comprehensive history of the Northeast Passage. The six-month funding period was used to search for and evaluate material, for the initial drafting of some chapters, and for writing one scientific paper. Hopefully, the most important long-term result, a monograph, will be published in 2024. The book examines the Northeast Passage as part of Russian and Soviet history, including the scientific and military expeditions of five centuries and the subjugation of the Arctic and its indigenous peoples. The project analyzed the contribution of historical actors against the backdrop of geopolitical, economic, environmental, and ideological contexts. The first general overview will challenge Western seafaring legends surrounding the passage to Asia. For, contrary to what the (Western) discussion about the allegedly late opening of the Northeast Passage suggests, it has, first, been used as a Russian shipping route since the 1860s and, second, in the 21st century serves primarily to export Siberian raw materials. With Russia's war against Ukraine, transit traffic has come to a virtual standstill, while exports of oil and liquefied natural gas to Asia are growing. In Russia, moreover, the Northeast Passage is part of a much older Arctic identity that has come back to prominence in Putin's Russia. The book will add a historical perspective to the current discussion on the Arctic as a potential field of economic and geopolitical conflict and aims to explain the Russian Federation's controversial claim to the regulation of a good part of the Arctic shipping traffic based on archival and library research. This story of the Northeast Passage is not written for a scholarly reading public alone but also for a wider audience interested in the global significance of the sea route and its importance in Arctic history.
Publications
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Die polare Seidenstraße. Zeitenwende im Eismeer? in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 43-45/2022, 33-39
A. Renner
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Medicina v cholodnom klimate: Cinga na Severnom Morskom Puti (Medizin im kalten Klima: Skorbut auf dem Nördlichen Seeweg), in: A. Renner, E. Vishlenkova (Hg.), Istorija mediciny i medicinskoj geografii v Rossiiskoj imperii (Geschichte der Medizin und der medizinischen Geografie im Russischen Reich), Moskau 2022, 323-344
Andreas Renner
