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Elena Kochetkova

Elena Kochetkova

Position

Associate Professor, Modern European Economic History

Affiliation

E-mail
elena.kochetkova@uib.no
Visitor address
Dokkeveien 2 B
5007 Bergen
Room: 506
Postal address
P.O. Box 7805
NO-5020 Bergen
Norway

Elena Kochetkova

Position

Associate Professor, Modern European Economic History

Affiliation

Research groups

Short info

I am a historian specializing in modern history, with a focus on the economy, technology, and the environment in the 20th century.
Research

I am a historian specializing in the economy, environment, technology, and state socialism. My publications include articles in leading international journals such as *Technology and Culture*, *Environment and History*, *Contemporary European History*, and the *Journal of Contemporary History*, among others. I have explored various aspects of the history of nature and natural resources, including water and forests, technological projects, and socialist modernity, as well as the history of industrial heritage in modern Russia. My first monograph, *The Green Power of Socialism: Wood, Forest, and the Making of Soviet Industrially Embedded Ecology*, published by MIT Press in 2024, examines the relationship between nature and humanity under state socialism by analyzing the industrial role of Soviet forests.

My book explores the evolving Soviet policies regarding wood consumption, discussing how professionals in the forestry industry of the Soviet state envisioned the present and future of forests, perceiving them as both a natural resource and a source of industrial material. By examining the materiality of Soviet industry through the lens of forests and wood, this work demonstrates how, paradoxically, industrial ecology emerged and developed as a by-product of the Soviet industrialization project. The book critically reconsiders two explanatory models that have become dominant in the historiography of Soviet approaches to nature over the past few decades—ecocide and environmentalism. It goes beyond these polarized characterizations to show that, under state socialism, concern for the environment arose from the industrial priorities of the modernizing state, giving rise to an industrially embedded ecology.

My current book project explores the concept of food modernity within the framework of state socialism. Beginning in the mid-1950s, industrial food manufacturing emerged as a key priority for the Soviet economy. The increase in the production of agricultural and manufactured foodstuffs was viewed as essential for improving living standards, which the Soviet leadership identified as a critical step toward achieving communism starting in 1961. Concurrently, during the 1950s and 1960s, the role of science and technology in food production significantly expanded, promising enhancements in both the quantity and quality of nutrition. 

Teaching

HIS116: The Cold War, Then and Now

HIS102: A Survey of Modern History: De-colonization and post-colonialism

EUR103 23V/Europe After 1945: Transformations in European Economies and Societies

HIS116: History of Science, Technology, and Socio-Economic Change

GHMS: Global History Master`s Seminar

Publications
2026
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

Projects

2021-2026 ---- Research Project “Memory politics of the North, 1993-2023. An interplay perspective' (NORMEMO)”, The Research Council of Norway, project participant.  

2021-2024 ---- Research Project “The History of Lake Ladoga”, Kone Foundation (Finland), project participant.  

Current book project: (Post)Socialist Food Modernity: Industrial Food Making in the USSR/Russia.