From Legacy to Heritage : The Changing Political and Symbolic Status of Military Nuclear Waste in Russia

• Main Author: Kasperski, Tatiana
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: French
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: hist; scipo; Arctic; Majak
• Online Access: http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=CMR_602_0517

`!-- Début du contenu @xml:lang="en" --b‪This article examines Russia’s post‑Soviet efforts to deal with military nuclear waste that has been accumulating since the dawn of the nuclear age. It focuses on two major areas affected by radioactive waste mismanagement: the extensive territories in the Ural region polluted by the Maiak Production Association and nuclear waste dumps in the Arctic. The article traces public debates about the remediation of waste that initially met with resistance from the Russian military and state security in the 1990s and shows how in the 2000s and 2010s this resistance gradually faded as the government began to inventory radioactive waste more systematically, assess its environmental and social costs, and find ways to contain it. Parallel to these attempts, the semantics of military waste have evolved. Radioactive waste has been transformed from a toxic legacy whose disclosure could damage Russia’s ‪`!-- Fin du contenu @xml:lang="en" --b`!-- Début du contenu @xml:lang="en" --b‪international image to part of the national heritage, the country’s glorious military past ‪`!-- Fin du contenu @xml:lang="en" --b`!-- Début du contenu @xml:lang="en" --b‪and its continued nuclear might. This article shows how and why this reframing has ‪`!-- Fin du contenu @xml:lang="en" --b`!-- Début du contenu @xml:lang="en" --b‪occurred, and how this has facilitated a shift in attention away from nuclear programs’ ‪`!-- Fin du contenu @xml:lang="en" --b`!-- Début du contenu @xml:lang="en" --b‪damage to public health and the environment to their patriotic history and meaning.‪`!-- Fin du contenu @xml:lang="en" --b L’article étudie les efforts faits par la Russie postsoviétique dans le traitement des déchets nucléaires militaires qui se sont accumulés depuis l’avènement de l’ère nucléaire. L’auteure concentre son étude sur deux grandes régions affectées par une mauvaise gestion des déchets radioactifs, les vastes territoires de l’Oural pollués par le complexe nucléaire Majak et les poubelles nucléaires de ...