Yakutsk Complex Expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences 1925–1930 and Issues of Permafrost Studying

The paper examines a poorly studied aspect of the implementation of the largest in scale and objectives scientific research initiative of its time – the Yakut complex expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1925-1930. The objective of the study is to reconstruct the history of accumulation of information by the participants of this expedition concerning understanding of the phenomenon of permafrost. Based on materials found in archival and museum collections of the cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yakutsk, including those introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, and the use of documents published based on the results of the expedition, the history of research conducted in the Shergin mine in Yakutsk is shown. The most representative conclusions made by researchers during their work in a number of administrative districts of the Yakut ASSR, primarily as part of agricultural detachments, are presented. In methodological terms, this article is based mainly on the application of special historical approaches to scientific knowledge: the principle of historicism, historical-typological, historical-comparative and historical-genetic methods. As a result of the studies, the history of accumulation of information on permafrost by the participants of the Yakut complex expedition is presented, conclusions are made on the significance of the research performed. In this regard, it was established that despite the absence of a specialized geocryological squad, an unsuccessful attempt to organize a systematic scientific study of the phenomenon of permafrost, the expedition participants received a set of important information characterizing the specifics and scale of some cryogenic processes. In particular, they indicate significant thermokarst activity within agricultural lands in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Of considerable interest are also the examples of traditional knowledge of the rural population of Yakutia noted by the participants of the Yakutsk complex expedition regarding some features of the formation of thermokarst landforms, which for the first time in historiography made it possible to make certain comparisons regarding the degree of correspondence with modern ideas about cryogenic processes.

Arctic, Yakutia, The USSR Academy of Sciences, permafrost, geocryology, complex expedition, Shergin mine, thermokarst, history of science, intellectual development