DOCUMENTS OF THE RUSSIAN STATE ARCHIVE OF THE ECONOMYAS A SOURCE FOR STUDYING THE HISTORY OF NATURE PROTECTIONIN THE USSR

Abstract

The article is aimed at characterizing documents covering various aspects of the history of nature protection in the USSR, contained in the funds of the Russian State Archive of the Economy. Moreover, their informational value for the purposes of investigating the national environmental history is discussed. The materials relating to the history of nature protection are mainly contained in the funds of the bodies of agriculture, forestry and water management, as well as in intersectoral structures, which are responsible for the management and planning of the national economy. The documents of the State Committee of the USSR are found to be valuable for analyzing the environmental situation in the country, the reaction of the society to its deterioration, the main aspects of the government's environmental protection and the genesis of the social environmental movement at the turn of 1980–1990.