Nature's Evil. Alexander Etkind

* Hostage-taking (amanat) was widely used in the Russian colonisation of Siberia and Alaska but was unknown in the British, French and Spanish colonisation of America. The word amanat, like yasak (tribute) and kapkan (trap), is of Turkish origin: the theory and practice of violence permeated the Russian Empire, moving from west to east.

      2 * In the first decade of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks still depended on the fur trade. One of its top managers was Artur Stashevsky, a Soviet agent in Berlin who was later responsible for organising state-owned pawnshops (Torgsin) all over the Soviet Union. Members of the Eitingon family controlled Soviet fur exports to the USA. One cousin, Matvey, held the monopoly on Russian fur in New York. Another, Leonid, was a general in the NKVD (Soviet secret police) and organised the assassination of Trotsky. A third cousin, Max, was a leading psychoanalyst in Berlin (Etkind, Eros of the Impossible; Wilmers, The Eitingons).

Notes

      1  1 Sahlins, Culture and Practical Reason, p. 175; Goody, Food and Love.

      2  2 Braudel, Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism, pp. 190–4.

      3  3 Mayhew, New Perspectives on Malthus.

      4  4 Pomeranz and Topik, The World that Trade Created, p. 137.

      5  5 Feenstra, ‘The Heckscher–Ohlin model’.

      6  6 Stuart, Bloodless Revolution.

      7  7 Cited in Gregory, Of Victorians and Vegetarians, p. 115.

      8  8 Poore and Nemecek, ‘Reducing food’s environmental impacts’.

      9  9 Magra, The Fisherman’s Cause; Grafe, Distant Tyranny.

      10 10 The Russian Primary Chronicle, p. 184.

      11 11 Veale, The English Fur Trade; Etkind, Internal Colonization.

      12 12 Fisher, The Russian Fur Trade, p. 26.

      13 13 Zhitie Sergiia Radonezhskogo.

      14 14 Vilkov, ‘Pushnoi promysel v Sibiri’.

      15 15 Iadrintsev, Sibir kak koloniia.

      16 16 Tarle, Ocherki; Butts, Henry Hudson.

      17 17 Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada; Edwards, ‘The North American fur trade world system’.

      18 18 Rich, ‘Russia and the colonial fur trade’.

      19 19 Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada.

      20 20 Kirchner, ‘Samuel Bentham and Siberia’; Morriss, Science, Utility and Maritime Power; Papmehl, ‘The regimental school established in Siberia by Samuel Bentham’.

      21 21 Matthews, Glorious Misadventures.

      22 22 Ibid.

      23 23 Kan, Memory Eternal.

      24 24 Bolkhovitinov, Russian–American Relations and the Sale of Alaska.

      25 25 Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, p. 507.

      26 26 Shchapov, Sochineniia, pp. 280–93, 309–37; Etkind, Internal Colonization, p. 65.