Imaginations of Destruction: The “Forest Question” in Nineteenth-Century Russian Culture JANE COSTLOW The forest! what pictures and lush images one imagines at the word, what poets have turned their thoughts toward that mysterious world, where the dendrometer measures tree trunks with anti-poetic exactitude, and the ruthless forester makes cuttings, sight lines and measurements of reserve plantings! But one doesn’t hinder the other. A. S., “Dilletantism in Forestry” (1850) Our papers have taken hold of one issue, which gets trotted out as soon as there’s not a lead article ready; that’s the “forest question.” Holy Russia, they say, is cutting down its slumbering forests, leading the population to certain death—there’s a theme, written about with volume and frequency for some time now. F. Treimut, “Is it Profitable to Follow Correct Forest Practices in Forested Regions?” (1871) During his trip to Russia in 1842, the British geologist Roderick Murchison is reported to have responded to Nicholas I’s query about his travel impressions by saying that what struck him most of all was “the speed with which forests are being destroyed in the Your Highness’s delightful country.” 1 Whether Murchison’s dismay was shared by his Russian Research for this article was conducted with funds from the Phillips Faculty Fellowship at Bates College, whose generosity and support I gratefully acknowledge. 1 Quoted in E. G. Istomina, “Lesookhranitel'naia politika rossii v XVIII–nachale XX veka,” Otechestvennaia istoriia, 1995, no. 4:40. Istomina quotes an 1884 text (the printed version of a speech by P. I. Zhudra to the membership of the Lesnoe obshchestvo) which mistakenly cites Alexander I as having posed the question. Murchison’s expeditions to Russia are discussed in Robert A. Stafford, Scientist of Empire: Sir Roderick Murchison, Scientific Exploration and Victorian Imperialism (Cambridge, 1989), 11–16. Zhudra’s speech is in Lesnoi zhurnal, 1884, no. 1:11–24. The Russian Review 62 (January 2003): 91–118 Copyright 2003 The Russian Review