Join the Department of History and Nicholas B. Breyfogle from The Ohio State University for a talk on “Drowning the Sacred Sea: Lake Baikal and the Hydroelectric Moment in World History."

Free and open to the public.

This paper examines the building of the Irkutsk Hydroelectric dam and the human-induced, hydroelectric flooding of Siberia’s Lake Baikal that began in the mid-1950s and transformed the water systems, fish and human ecologies, energy flows, and cultural practices (especially religious) of the diverse peoples of the region. The dam resulted in a rise in water depth of more than 4 meters around the lake. Whole communities found their villages drowned, water transport infrastructure disappeared, the shoreline was irrevocably changed, and the spawning grounds for the lake's endemic (and iconic) fish, the omul, were destroyed. The Shamanist Buriat communities found religious sites dropped underwater and struggled to prevent (and then culturally to absorb) the loss of these sacred sites. This paper explores the ways that hydrological and geological factors merged with economic and technological to generate interest in building a multi-dam cascade along the Angara river; the extensive efforts to prepare the lands that would be flooded by the dam; the rise of new ways of thinking about and using the lake; and finally the impact the dam had on the omul population (and the fishing industry that was based on them) Throughout, the paper places the Baikal story in the larger context of global hydroelectric development. 

Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle is Professor of History and Director of the Harvey Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching at The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. He is a specialist in the history of Russia/Soviet Union and in global environmental and water history. He is the author/(co-)editor of multiple volumes, including Hydraulic Societies: Water, Power, and Control in East and Central Asian History (2023), Place and Nature: Essays in Russian Environmental History (2021), Nature at War: American Environments and World War II (2020), Eurasian Environments: Nature and Ecology in Imperial Russian and Soviet History (2018), Readings in Water History (2020), Peopling the Russian Periphery: Borderland Colonization in Eurasian History (2007), and Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia’s Empire in the South Caucasus (2005). He is currently completing two books: “Baikal: the Great Lake and its People” and “Water: A Human History.”  Since 2007, Breyfogle has worked as co-editor of the online magazine/podcast/video channel Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, http://origins.osu.edu and most recently on Picturing Black History, https://www.picturingblackhistory.org/. In 2022, he was awarded The Herbert Feis Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public History from the American Historical Association. In 2024, his next co-edited book, Picturing Black History: Photographs and Stories that Changed the World will be published with Abrams Books.  

The Department of History Seminar Series runs throughout the academic year and features guest speakers from the top universities who share their perspectives on history. Visit history.uoregon.edu for more information about the seminar series.