THE DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIAN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY: CURRENT CHALLENGES AND PAST EXPERIENCE

Abstract

The problems of science and its development (including the identification of development determinants, possibilities, and priorities) appear to be particularly significant in modern Russia. The specific features of Russian space (characterized by vastness, heterogeneity, and non-static character) predetermine a permanent objective demand for diversified geographical knowledge, including its socio-economic (human) component. The article aims to identify challenges and problematic situations that came to face the community of Russian geographers-social scientists in the spring of 2022 (in theoretical and conceptual, scientific and applied, educational and organizational aspects) as well as to analyze and assess the development potential of domestic socio-economic geography. This should be done based on the understanding of the experience and lessons of its ‘historical track,’ first of all, the evolution of ideas and approaches in the 20th century, a complicated period, characterized by numerous transformations, crises, and cataclysms. The information and factual scientific material presented in the article includes key publications of Russian economic geographers published in the period from the early 1920s to the mid-1990s in two leading high-status geographical periodicals, the oldest in Russia – Proceedings of the Russian Geographical Society and Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk. Seriya Geograficheskaya (Proceedings of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Geographical Series). Based on the analysis of these periodicals, it is established that reliance on the domestic economic and geographical intellectual and ‘behavioral’ heritage provides the professional research community with guidelines in solving most of the current and potential tasks facing it. The paper shows that the development of Russian human geography can be driven by a significant increase in its practical orientation, complemented by an emphasis on ‘Russia-centered’ research, while maintaining structural, thematic, and methodological pluralism of research works, as well as involvement in international collaborations.