History Professor Publishes 'Cool' New Book

A new volume, co-edited by Distinguished Professor of History Trish Starks, explores the idea and experience of cold throughout Russian history and culture, showing how Russia’s cold was interpreted as everything from enemy to opportunity and adventure to metaphor.

The essays in A Frozen State: Experiencing Cold in Russian History and Culture regale with tales Russia’s ice hills, the precursors to today’s roller coasters, enjoyed by Catherine the Great and later, the Romanovs. They thrill with stories of dark tourism sites like an icy, abandoned Russian mining town to the north of Svalbard, and they reveal how the discovery of frozen mammoths in 19th century Siberia connected to the rise of technology for refrigerated foods.

Starks' essay explores how Vladimir Putin's celebration of the ice plunge holiday of Epiphany emerged not just from political necessity but also drew upon themes of health, masculinity, militarism and Russian exceptionalism as part of Putin's goals to address the region's demographic collapse. She also co-wrote the introduction, which places the concept of Russia’s cold alongside emerging research on the sensory, medicine, environmentalism and political history.

This is the fourth co-edited volume for Starks with Matthew P. Romaniello and their second with Alison K. Smith. Previous volumes addressed tobacco use and production, material culture and sensory history. One reviewer dubbed the editors “the most creative and influential scholarly team in the field of Eurasian history.”

In testimony to the quality of the volume, the University of Toronto Press chose to invest in A Frozen State as an open access title. Open access fees for books can run up to $15,000.

The book, or individual essays, can be downloaded for free.