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Lankomumo reitingas Print version Print version
Russian walrus hunting: history of crisis in the 19th century

The interest towards the walrus studies in academic circles all over the world be­came obvious quite recently. Numerous biological and historical publications have appeared lately. The aim of this paper is to describe the changing role of the walrus hunting in the local economy of the Russian North area.

The Russian walrus hunting in the North Atlantic Arctic started in the early 16th century and had more than a three hundred years history. We focused on the final stage of this process at the first half of the 19th century as which was the time of deep crisis of the Russian walrus hunting.

The first mention of the walrus hunting in that area dated back to the late 9th c. when viking Ottar sailing along Kola Peninsula landed somewhere on the White Sea coast and established the trade relations with aboriginal people over the walrus ivory. In addition to trade Ottar’s crew got 60 walruses as the result of two days hunting; some tusks were later presented to Alfred, the king of England. The 10th century Arabic sources described in detail the trade route to the Arctic Ocean and different goods (including the walrus tusks) brought from there. It was the time of an increasing demand for the walrus ivory which was of the same value as the elephant one in Europe and the Middle East.

But in spite of that the walrus hunting seems to be very incidental in the Middle Ages. The reason was in significant remoteness of the walrus habitat in the high latitude Arctic from the White Sea Coast, where the potential hunters lived. The Saami and the Slavs (penetrated to this area in the early 12th century) could only hunt for the small groups of walruses and came to the Northern part of the White Sea from time to time.

The purposeful and mass walrus hunting started much later, most likely, in the early 16th century. It was simulated, first of all, by the sharp growth of population on the White Sea Coast and so by the lack of accessible valuable resources. Another rea­son was the beginning of exploration of the Arctic archipelagoes Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen with adjacent areas where the large walrus rookeries were concen­trated.

For the Russian population of Pomorye the walrus was one of the first object for the commercial hunting. Walrus tusks were a necessary part of every diplomatic gift; Russian tsars always sent walrus tusks and articles made of them to the Euro­pean sovereigns. For some groups of the Pomors the trade with the walrus tusks, hide and blubber was the main source of income. Keeping up with the traditional Russian way of living, rations and methods of management required additional ex­penses for buying wheat, ironware and other goods and items, which were not avail­able at the coasts of the White Sea. And without any doubt it caused a very strong dependence of the walrus hunting on the market.

Since the 16th century, hunting grounds included Spitsbergen and Novaya Zem­lya. These two areas remained the main regions of the walrus hunting for more than 300 years – from the mid of the 16th century till the end of the 19th century. Sources of the late 18th century describe the following hunting areas: the South-East of the Barents Sea, Pechora bay, the South-West part of Novaya Zemlya and the Western Spitsbergen.

The Pomors hunting expeditions to Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen had never been strictly orientated towards the walrus hunting. The sphere of interests included all accessible biological resources of these Arctic archipelagos, such as seals, white whales, polar bears, reindeers, sables, salmon and even eider-ducks. Such a multi­functionality graded potential failures on the walrus hunting that was very important taking into account a necessity to cover high expenses for equipping the expeditions. The mechanism of restoration of the exhausted biological resources was created when the exhausted resource was substituted for another one; this mechanism had also functioned in case of changing the demand for any resources (i.e. walrus hunt­ing products).

There were some fluctuations of walrus hunting during the 17th -18th centuries that reflected re-orientation of this business from hunting for tusks to hunting for blubber and also instability of prices, but generally the walrus hunting was more or less stable by the early 19th century.

The collapse of the Russian walrus hunting happened at the first half of the 19th century was a result of interaction of both ecological and anthropological factors. It was the time of falling the temperature in Europe that provoked icing the approaches to the hunting areas (i.e. Spitsbergen) and troubled vastly the access to the walrus rookeries.

Hunters who had tried to reach Spitsbergen or Novaya Zemlya despite ices col­lided with another significant obstacle, namely the British Royal Navy patrolled the way out from the White Sea. It is known that Russia joined the Napoleonic Conti­nental Blockade of the British Islands in 1807 and Royal Navy in revenge sacked the Russian ships in the Barents Sea for several years. Such a situation, when the most experienced walrus hunters were lost in fight with ices and the Britons in a short time reflected very negatively on the Russian walrus hunting.

And the main factor that once and for all undermined the basis of walrus hunting was a landslide of prices for blubber on the European markets. Inflow of cheap shark blubber from Iceland and extensive use of the mineral oil led to decrease of prices for the walrus blubber five times from 1806 to 1811.

When in the 1820s the temperature in Europe increased and approaches to the Arctic archipelagoes were cleaned both of ices and the Britons, the large increase of the ele­phant ivory export from the South Africa started making the ivory prices go down. The Pomors could not continue the walrus hunting in the traditional way be­cause of the high costs and low profits of this business and also they had no funds to improve hunting technologically to cut expenses. The local communities that were involved in walrus hunting had to re-orient to other more profitable lines of busi­ness. Some of them contin­ued sending crews to Novaya Zemlya for seal hunting and salmon fishing, but no longer had the walrus hunting formed the core of their activi­ties on these Arctic islands.

Thus, by the middle of the 19th century hunting for walrus lost any important po­sition in the Pomors culture and became one of the accessory businesses for the local population. However the walrus hunting in the Russian Arctic have not been stopped hereon. Industrial changes in Europe initiated the new stage of the walrus hunting at the end of the 19th century connected with industrial innovations, large motor ships, icebreakers, rifled guns and even extreme tourism that had nothing common with the traditional walrus hunting.

A. Yurchenko (European University at St. Petersburg, Russia)

         
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