Mountains in Transition: Tracing the Environmental History of the Southeastern Carpathians Mountains

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The Southeastern Carpathian Mountains, a vast and diverse mountain range stretching across Central and Eastern Europe, have long been at the center of studies on the ecology, politics, the (natural) history and climate of the region. Taking the early-modern period as a starting point, the Carpathian alpine landscapes were claimed by both Ottoman and Austrian-Hungarian Empires and further reclaimed during the interwar period by various conflicting nation-state political agendas. In the meantime, the Southeastern Carpathians became the focus of multiple anthropogenic projects: mapping their morphology and resources, building modern touristic infrastructure, enforcing extractivist interventions through deforestation as well as nature conservation plans, all of which substantially shaped the region. This panel explores the environmental history of the Carpathians and examines how the region’s unique landscape has been shaped by both natural forces and human activity. Hence, the panelists will discuss the long history of the making of this alpine landscape with an interdisciplinary approach starting from the seventeenth century up until the interwar period. The four papers will integrate early-modern sources on the environmental history of the Carpathians, how tourist and mountaineering envisioned the alpine landscape, the development of forest management and how nature conservation projects have tried to recover the loss of its biodiversity. By examining the long environmental history of the Southeastern Carpathians Mountains, this panel aims to deepen our understanding of the relationship between human and non-human in this unique and resilient landscape.

Sub Unit

• Geography, Environmental Studies

Chair

• Cosmin Tudor Minea, Masaryk U (Czech Republic)

Papers

• Shaping through Grazing: The Impacts of Animal Husbandry on the Early Modern Carpathians - Kata Tóth, U of Vienna (Austria)

• Taming the Environment: Carpathian Landscapes and Nature in the Age of Tourism, 1860s-1910s - James Koranyi, U of Durham (UK)

• Preserving the Carpathians: A Transnational History of Nature Protection Movements in the Southeastern Carpathian Mountains up to the Interwar Period - Cosmin Koszor Codrea, New Europe College

• Twenty-First Century Landscapes: Planning, Extraction, and the Reshaping of the Southeastern Carpathian Forests in Interwar Romania - George Andrei, Indiana U Bloomington

Discussant

• Raluca Cernahoschi, Bates College