2 Susanne Bauer and Tanja Penter
transformational period. 5 After the end of the Soviet Union, however, the
environmental movements lost their social significance again in the second
half of the 1990s, and attention to the problematic nuclear legacy of the
Soviet era faded into the background in the face of other colossal transformational tasks. But the era of “catastroika” is far from over and there are many
signs that the issue of how to deal with the nuclear legacies of the Soviet
period will become one of the central issues of the twenty-first century.
This volume historicizes the legacies of nuclear weapons programs by
focusing on the long-term consequences of nuclear programs, many of them
tied to atomic weapons development. Their very epistemologies and material
legacies have remained with us, even where disarmament and decommissioning have been more successful or were reintroduced. In terms of production infrastructures and nuclear supply chains, military and civil uses of
nuclear power have been closely intertwined. Nuclear operations, for energy
or military purposes, demanded a vast infrastructure of production and supply
chains that have transformed entire regions. In foregrounding and following
the material traces of the atomic programs, contributions in this volume pay
particular attention to the memorialization of nuclear legacies and memory
practices in a broader sense. We focus on the interrelations of legacies and
transitions, sociotechnical imaginaries, memory practices, and heritage making in order to shed light on how modes of knowing intersect with livelihoods, politics of transitional justice and compensation, and historiography.
Broadening the existing studies of nuclear history, 6 this volume centers on
radiation knowledge, institutional responses to nuclear legacies, and on how
various communities, scientists, and artists articulated their concerns over
nuclear issues. In what follows, we conceptualize an approach to studying
the temporalities of the Cold War nuclear and discuss what the concepts of
tracing, heritage, and legacies entail to this end. In following nuclear matters
at different scales, chapters of this book examine the role of radiation expertise within specialized research institutes in Soviet and international settings
as well as variegated modes of living with the political, legal, and epistemic
endurances of the atom.
Nuclear Fission and the Supply Chains
of the Soviet Atomic Programs
Nuclear operations, for energy or military purposes, have always demanded
a vast technopolitical infrastructure of mining, processing, and handling of
nuclear materials. The development of nuclear fission technologies goes back
to the 1930s with the race for a nuclear weapon between the allied forces
and Nazi Germany of the late 1930s and 1940s during World War II. Nazi
Germany’s nuclear program was pursued at the institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm
Gesellschaft in Berlin. In the United States, research into nuclear fission had
begun to form in 1939, when the core agencies that led to the Manhattan
Project were formed. Military researchers involved in the Manhattan Project
transformational period. 5 After the end of the Soviet Union, however, the
environmental movements lost their social significance again in the second
half of the 1990s, and attention to the problematic nuclear legacy of the
Soviet era faded into the background in the face of other colossal transformational tasks. But the era of “catastroika” is far from over and there are many
signs that the issue of how to deal with the nuclear legacies of the Soviet
period will become one of the central issues of the twenty-first century.
This volume historicizes the legacies of nuclear weapons programs by
focusing on the long-term consequences of nuclear programs, many of them
tied to atomic weapons development. Their very epistemologies and material
legacies have remained with us, even where disarmament and decommissioning have been more successful or were reintroduced. In terms of production infrastructures and nuclear supply chains, military and civil uses of
nuclear power have been closely intertwined. Nuclear operations, for energy
or military purposes, demanded a vast infrastructure of production and supply
chains that have transformed entire regions. In foregrounding and following
the material traces of the atomic programs, contributions in this volume pay
particular attention to the memorialization of nuclear legacies and memory
practices in a broader sense. We focus on the interrelations of legacies and
transitions, sociotechnical imaginaries, memory practices, and heritage making in order to shed light on how modes of knowing intersect with livelihoods, politics of transitional justice and compensation, and historiography.
Broadening the existing studies of nuclear history, 6 this volume centers on
radiation knowledge, institutional responses to nuclear legacies, and on how
various communities, scientists, and artists articulated their concerns over
nuclear issues. In what follows, we conceptualize an approach to studying
the temporalities of the Cold War nuclear and discuss what the concepts of
tracing, heritage, and legacies entail to this end. In following nuclear matters
at different scales, chapters of this book examine the role of radiation expertise within specialized research institutes in Soviet and international settings
as well as variegated modes of living with the political, legal, and epistemic
endurances of the atom.
Nuclear Fission and the Supply Chains
of the Soviet Atomic Programs
Nuclear operations, for energy or military purposes, have always demanded
a vast technopolitical infrastructure of mining, processing, and handling of
nuclear materials. The development of nuclear fission technologies goes back
to the 1930s with the race for a nuclear weapon between the allied forces
and Nazi Germany of the late 1930s and 1940s during World War II. Nazi
Germany’s nuclear program was pursued at the institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm
Gesellschaft in Berlin. In the United States, research into nuclear fission had
begun to form in 1939, when the core agencies that led to the Manhattan
Project were formed. Military researchers involved in the Manhattan Project