"Insects of the former Soviet Union"

I laughed at the thought of successive generations of insects pledging allegiance to Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev – antennae raised to attention. Of course, these associations were not intended in the phrase, nonetheless, it does unlock the tragic irony of battle and bloodshed over land that cannot fundamentally be said to belong to anyone. What if non-human life made claim to the land, especially insects, who have occupied its surfaces longer than any human society? The trees, the moon, the birds, constant in their activity, among the flux of human ideological positions and conflicts.

I stumbled across this phrase on the Royal Entomological Society website. It was the title for an advert… "Here is the latest catalogue of insects which I can offer you from ex - USSR territories (Russia, Siberia, Far East, Altay Mts., Sayan Mts., Kirghizstan, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan etc.)." Posted by Dmitry Sobanim in March 2008. Perhaps significantly all prices are in U.S. dollars.... Many of the specimens are butterflies, flying creatures - which now dead and preserved, must be traded via mail, courtesy of a network of airlines.

One might consider the insects as a metaphor for the essentially apolitical, those who cannot, even symbolically, (rather than those who chose not to) participate in the machinations of politburos or local elections. The essentially apolitical might include new-born children or the senior citizen in the throes of Alzheimer’s. And yet, as we come to terms with the ecological impact of political/corporate ideologies it becomes clear that the indifferent are no less affected than anyone (or anything) else.