This post is a part of the 2024 Selected Papers of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, which were edited and compiled by members of the CRE’s board alongside editors at Age of Revolutions.

By Joanna Gorska

The Russian Empire’s leading intellectual figures positively received Afanasiy Prokopievich Shchapov’s “The Russian Schism of the Old Believers” in 1858. Sergey Mikhaylovich Solovyov, the leading proponent of the “state school” of history, was particularly impressed by the unassuming thirty-year-old half-Buryat from Siberia, and as a result of this recognition, Shchapov earned the post of a history professor at the University of Kazan.[1] His very first lecture, however, entailed a formal denunciation of his former protector’s “Great Russian historiography,” accusing Solovyov of writing a “biography of tsars and princes” while erasing the common people. Indeed, the opening remarks to his introductory lecture titled “A General Overview of the History of the Russian Nation,” immediately divulged his revisionist approach wherein he outlined his theory of oblastnichestvo (regionalism): 

I will say in advance: it is not with the thought of statehood, not with the idea of centralization, but rather with the idea of nationhood and regionalism that I join the department of Russian history. Nowadays, it appears as though there were this conviction that the main factor in history is the nation itself, the national spirit which forms history; that the essence and content of history are the life of the nation. This conviction is no longer new, it has been introduced and incorporated into the study of Russian history as well. But here is a different beginning, one that has yet to be clearly realized in our studies: the beginning of regionalism, if you allow me to call it thus. Until now, the idea of centralization has dominated Russian history, and even developed some kind of excessive endeavor towards generalization, towards the systemization of diverse regional history; the directions and facts of provincial historical life had led to the single idea of state development.[2]

The audience enthusiastically approved, as evinced by the generous applause following the conclusion of his lecture; it set the foundations for a deconstructivist approach to empire and a re-examining of existing identities.[3] Although Soviet historiography has frequently dismissed Shchapov’s fixation on organic regional development as petty bourgeois, Shchapov’s writings prompted a re-evaluation of the colonial self and the other, revealing an important development in the Russian intelligentsia’s attitude regarding its position vis-à-vis nationality and cultural heterogeneity.[4]   

In order to establish the stratum of indigeneity as constructed by Imperial actors between the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, particularly in Siberia, this paper demonstrates how Imperial Russia’s anachronistic adherence to an estate-based society rooted in corporate identity resulted in state actors viewing minorities through the prism of state service. The unabated continuation of the empire-building project necessitated the introduction of a standardized approach in governing its far-flung territories, and with the introduction of new territorial forms of organization came a novel classification of the empire’s inhabitants. This was not a Westernizing approach in the sense that it aimed to posit the self against the colonial other, but rather an extension of the normative Muscovite practice to pragmatically reorganize to better govern difference within the heterogenous state. The closest the Empire had thus gotten to creating a legally-specific category of “other” was the introduction of Mikhail Speransky’s “Statute on the Inorodtsy” in 1822, which created a legal category known as inorodets for non-Slavs living east of the Urals to better regulate the payments of yasak (fur tribute).[5] This, however, had less to do with categorizing the “other” in a religious or ethno-linguistic sense, but was rather a part of the government’s efforts to centralize state revenue and further build upon the estate system.

The necessity of maintaining the corporate status quo thus reinforced pre-conquest political hierarchies across the West Siberian Plain and the Central Siberian Plateau by reinforcing of old privileges benefiting the Buryat and Tatar elites. Instead of alienating and pauperizing a potential adversary, Petersburg inadvertently created the possibility of forming an intellectual elite whose close collaboration with Russian dissidents paved the road for future seditious activity. The state’s emphasis on estate rather than race was easily adaptable to modern notions of class, with Shchapov encapsulating the synthesis of anti-state conceptual paradigms and live political agitation.  

“The last Kingdom of Batu”? Pre-Siberian Expansion and the Establishment of a Colonial Model 

Already revolutionary in content, Shchapov’s inaugural lecture at the University of Kazan acquired even deeper radical undertones due to its location. The middle Volga was inhabited by numerous ethnic groups, some of which predated the formation of the Kievan state, and the subsequent Mongol invasion only contributed to the region’s multiethnic profile. Revolts were not infrequent, particularly when exacerbated by centenary jacqueries led by the likes of Stenka Razin or Yemelian Pugachev.[6] As a result, nineteenth-century historians and ethnographers had placed Kazan’s “Russianness” under scrutiny, although the spread of German Romantic writings, most notably Hegel’s philosophy of history, provided a convenient ideological framework for what was deemed the inevitable erasure or assimilation of non-Russian peoples.[7]

Nonetheless, the first modern shift in perceiving empire occurred the century prior, with the spirit of rationalization and legal standardization prompting the first attempt at classifying the Empire’s multi-ethnic inhabitants. The task was taken up by Prince Mikhail Shcherbatov, enlightened statesman and Imperial historian whose position was analogous to Speransky’s several decades later. His classification of the Empire’s population elucidates the foundations of Russian political thought, and despite the country’s rapprochement to Europe, Russian statesmen were still thinking along the lines of estate structures. Although this work was never legally enacted, being a part of a lengthier analysis of Russia’s administration, Shcherbatov’s perceptions and categorization of Imperial Russia’s inhabitants were highly revealing of the Empire’s approach to governing difference. His categories were:

1. Russians and all other non-Christians who pay the soul-tax and provide military recruits
2. Russians and non-Christians who pay the soul-tax but do not provide military recruits
3. Peoples of various Christian denominations [non-Orthodox]
4. Various Cossacks and other military settlers
5. Bashkirs and other savage peoples who follow Islam
6. Kalmyks and other idol-worshiping nomadic peoples.[8]

Shcherbatov’s thinking was clearly aligned with already extant estate structures, reinforcing varying legal categories among Muslim and Turkic populations. Hereditary nobility was usually reserved for Chinggisid descendants, placing Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimean, and Siberian Tatars at the top of the social pyramid, whereas “lesser” Turkic or Mongol confederations such as the Nogais, Kalmyks, and Bashkirs held lower rank.[9] These were permutable categories, however, particularly with the fluid social boundaries between state servitors and nobility.[10]

Although the conquest of Siberia occurred less than half a century following the conquest of Kazan, Muscovy’s exposure to and cooptation of non-Slavic peoples long pre-dated the sixteenth century. The fledgling Empire’s embroilment in steppe politics and particularistic approach to state servitude resulted in the large-scale enfranchisement of Tatar nobility, appropriating the pattern established by the Golden Horde. Pioneering Russian historian Nikolai Karamzin was thus disingenuous in asserting that the conquest of Kazan was the final step in dismantling the Mongol yoke. The Khanate did not constitute the last fragment of the Golden Horde’s patrimony, which for various legal, dynastic, and historical reasons Muscovy claimed to have inherited; Batu’s last kingdom lay in Siberia.

“Equal to Russians in their rights and duties based on their estate”: The Siberian colonial experience

Typical for the Age of Enlightenment, Peter I’s scientific interest in the newly conquered lands prompted a series of expeditions. This resulted in the invitation of numerous European scholars to the newly established Petersburg court with the purpose of conducting a scientific evaluation of the empire’s territories. These undertakings included Bering’s famous rounding of the Chukchi peninsula,[11] but equally important were the accompanying land expeditions conducted by eminent European scientists. The Second Kamchatka Expedition was particularly notable, with the famous Russian-German historian and naturalist, Gerhard Friedreich Miller, exploring and documenting large chunks of Siberia and the Pacific coast. Miller’s resulting monograph, History of Siberia, is thus the second oldest academic work on the subject and the first written in modern Russian, setting a precedent for subsequent historians.

Given his scholarly credentials and the pioneering role of the expedition, historians consider Miller the founding father of Siberian history. Not only was he the first scholar to set about methodically compiling all relevant documents, but he also endeavored to straighten out the issue of legitimate primary sources, and thus “being granted permission to visit the chancellery in every Siberian town” and compiled thirty-five huge tomes of archival material.[12] Given the paucity of physical sources documenting Siberia’s pre-Russian history, Miller compensated by meticulously documenting Prince Ediger’s initial overtures to the Tsar along with Kuchum Khan’s subsequent ventures. The latter documents are particularly interesting, particularly regarding Kuchum’s clan and the subsequent fate of the Siberian aristocracy. Miller reveals that despite Kuchum’s death, the Cossacks dispatched the Khan’s relatives-turned-hostages to Moscow on September 10, 1588, as a means of guaranteeing their safety. Upon their arrival they were “greeted with great ceremony, and they were granted lands which fully guaranteed their [privileged] livelihood.”[13] Being part of the Chinggisid nobility, it is not surprising that Moscow treated the Siberian elite in the same manner as its Kazan or Astrakhan counterparts. Nonetheless, the need for cooptation as effective administration was particularly acute in the Siberian case, with the territory’s vastness exceeding Muscovy’s previous experience.

The Russian administration of Siberia developed because of its previous colonial experiences; just as it had done with the remaining khanates of the fragmented Golden Horde, Moscow decided to incorporate the Siberian Khanate’s ruling elites. This largely involved the relatives of Kuchum Khan, although other prominent Siberian Tatar murzas (aristocrats) were also officially integrated into the Russian nobility, although notably, this did not come with the usual landed estates as was the case in European Russia. Although the government did not recognize lesser tribal chiefs as peers, local elites were nonetheless respected and coopted, with Moscow hoping that they would be better at cajoling their fellow natives to pay the yasak. Although gross abuses and rampant slaughter were common, the government’s official stance on the indigenous population was one of patrimonial benevolence, with many ukases (government edicts) being issued instructing how to respectfully treat the local populations. Indigenous peoples could litigate against Russian Cossacks or settlers and frequently won.[14] This obviously was not the result of some enlightened policy, but rather a financial calculation on the part of Moscow. Indigenous people were scarce yet extremely valuable sources of fur tribute, with their possible eradication going against the state’s interest.

Although Moscow based its fundamental policies of incorporation and devolution on the well-established model of Kazan, with the Kazanskii prikaz (Department of Kazan) quickly subsuming the original Siberian posolskii prikaz (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the socioeconomic exigencies of the region prompted several readjustments.[15] As with the ex-Golden Horde khanates, Muscovy applied a similar conception of vassalage to the newly conquered tribes, and despite these peoples being predominantly nomadic or semi-nomadic, their fluid territories were treated as sedentary agrarian states, with artificial borders denoting the borders of their “fiefdoms” from which they would collect the yasak. Fur remained Siberia’s most valuable commodity, with demand fueled by Western markets and backed by abundant supplies of silver pouring in from the Americas. Moscow thus left the nomadic and semi-nomadic Indigenous population relatively undisturbed, and despite the local authorities forcing a brief and failed agricultural experiment, the state decided the population was far more productive when supplying fur rather than grain.[16]

The government initially frowned upon forced conversions of the indigenous population, as each baptism signified the loss of a yasak payer. This, however, did not necessarily apply to women, seeing as unlike their male peers, they did not count as yasak payers and their conversion only “added” to the number of Russians in Siberia and additionally helped solve the chronic shortage of women and eligible wives.[17] Nonetheless, many forced conversions did occur as a means of securing indentured labor which quickly reverted to its original form that had been widespread amongst Siberians well before the Russians’ arrival: slavery.[18] Although Russian authorities initially condemned it, slavery became increasingly widespread throughout the seventeenth century. It was eventually tolerated by the authorities, with the practice employed by both Russians and some Indigenous peoples, particularly the Buryats and Yakuts.[19] This further complicated overlapping legal categories, with the question of reform becoming ever more pertinent.

While Peter I’s reforms affected Siberia as well, it was his need for the establishment of metallurgical industry paired with the constant stream of exiles which shaped the region more than any legal changes made to its governance. Although Peter did reorganize the Siberian administrative structure, with the introduction of gubernatorial administration headed by a single Siberian governor wielding basically unlimited power, this was not a lasting change. The imperial authorities reshuffled Siberia’s administrative structure yet again in 1724 and 1736, with a constant reorganization of gubernii (provinces). Catherine II also instituted changes, although these merely reflected Moscow and later Petersburg’s chronic problem with containing corruption and the misappropriation of funds. The infamous practice of kormlenia (feedings), that is governors expecting personal tributes, continued at the cost of developing Siberia as a successful colony.[20] Chronic corruption resulted in almost every Siberian governor being investigated for embezzlement and bribery, with one of the “Siberian satraps,” Matvei Petrovich Gagarin being hanged due to exorbitant corruption, even by Siberian Russian standards.[21] The administrative situation was in a constant disarray and only improved as a result of Speransky’s lasting reforms.

Aside from effectively dealing with the corrupt governors and instigating an effective system of administration, Speransky’s reforms acted as a watershed for Siberia’s inhabitants. Despite their positive effects, Speransky’s reforms were still rooted in the Empire’s semi-feudal structure, with his statute on Siberian inorodtsy further demonstrating the prevalence of estate-based thinking, even when trying to modernize and standardize antiquated legislation. As mentioned at the beginning of this paper, much has been written about Speransky’s reforms and the inorodets with a distinct focus on the othering aspect of empire. This section, however, analyzes how the statute did not serve as a turning point in defining alterity as a dialectic of ethnicity, but rather served as a continuation of the empire’s policies regarding state utility and the administration of empire. It is, however, impossible to analyze the Siberian statute without properly contextualizing its composition. The statue on Siberian inorodtsy was issued alongside a series of statues meant to reform the administrative structure of the state’s hinterlands within a rapidly changing empire. The Siberian satraps, however, were not the only reason for the need for reform, but the empire’s ever-expanding borders called for a re-examination of policy, particularly with the absorption of the Kazakh Hordes.

The government published the statute on the Siberian inorodtsy alongside eleven other statues, each pertaining to the empire’s eastern lands. These included:

1. The institute for the governance of Siberian provinces
2. The law regarding the governance of inorodtsy
3. The law regarding the governance of the Kirgiz-Kaisak
4. The law regarding the exiles
5. The law the law regarding the stages
6. The law regarding land communication
7. The law regarding city Cossacks
8. The provision regarding land duties
9. The provision regarding grain surpluses
10. The provision regarding debt obligations between peasants and inorodtsy.[22]

Historians have disproportionately focused on the second of these statutes, considering it a turning point in the Empire’s approach to non-Slavic minorities living east of the Urals.[23] A closer examination, however, reveals that this was one of many Sisyphean attempts at modernizing an antiquated estate-based structure, with state function remaining at the core of one’s legal identity.

The law pertaining to the governance of the inorodets exemplifies this approach, with its numerous subdivisions elucidating the importance of state servitude. First and foremost, the inorodtsy were divided into three main categories: osedlye (sedentary), kochevye (nomadic), and brodyachye (wandering). Imperial authorities determined the categories in accordance with the group’s relation to the sedentary-agricultural standard; the further a group a group deviated from the normative model, the more decentralized its rule, with Speransky justifying the classification as based on “their civic engagement and livelihood.”[24] The brodyachye lyudi (wandering people) thus enjoyed self-government, with traditional tribal elites delivering yasak without further government interference. The kochevye lyudi (nomadic people) were allowed the keep their traditional ulus structure, although their elites were subject to approval by the governor and were far more subordinated to local administrative and economic institutions. As expected, it was the osedlye lyudi (settled people) that were the most integrated with state structures, with their classification meriting closer analysis.

The sedentary inorodtsy were divided into several categories of their own: the torgovye (merchants) including the Bukhartsy and Tashkintsy; the agriculturalists including the Tatars, Bukhtarmintsy, and some peoples living in the Vyiski and Kuznetskii krai; few in population (malochislennye) peoples living mixed with Russians, and those living amongst and working for village people.[25] Fundamentally, these inorodtsy existed within the same legal realm as their Russian peasant and bourgeois counterparts: “all sedentary inorodtsy are equal to Russians in their rights and duties based on their estate, within which they figure, they are governed on the basis of common laws and institutions.”[26] As demonstrated by the example of the Bukhtarmintsy, descendants of Old Believers “re-admitted” into communion with the state, ethnic and religious lines were frequently blurred, with mobility between legal categories being a two-way street.

The introduction of the law regarding the governance of the Kazakhs (Kirgiz-Kaisak) demonstrates that the term inorodets was not meant to denote a legally sanctioned “other,” but rather aimed to establish region-specific administrative structure. The Siberian Kazakhs found themselves in a separate legal category apart from the inorodtsy despite significant local autonomy balanced by their incorporation into the yasak paying structure.[27] These differences are further exacerbated by comparing the Siberian Kazakhs to their steppe relatives; while Speransky’s classification was influenced by geographic considerations, it is interesting to note how despite the negative civilizational stigma associated with nomadic lifestyles, statesmen and scholars were still thinking along the axis of functionality and state service.  

In an article published in Otechestvennye Zapiski, an influential literary journal based in Petersburg, the General-turned-scholar V. B. Bronevsky elucidated the origins of the Siberian Kazakhs, purposely highlighting their merit and separating them from the remaining Kazakhs hordes. According to Bronevsky, the Kazakhs migrated to Siberia in the 1770s as a result of internal conflict within the Horde, naturally attributing the drastic improvement in their livelihood and abundance of livestock as a result of their swearing fealty to the Empire. It is interesting to note that this submission did not simply entail the payment of yasak, but rather prompted the Kazakhs’ enrollment as Cossacks. Although their status changed following Speransky’s 1822 statute, they nonetheless remained a separate category with separate rights and obligations, thus demonstrating the continuity of Russian-Muscovite political practices.[28]

General Surveyor Shangin corroborated Bronevsky’s views following an expedition to the Kazakh steppe in 1816, and published his findings in the Petersburg Sibirskii Vestnik, the first scientific journal dedicated to the study of Russia’s possessions in Asia. Shangin’s report was edited and published by Giorgii Spaskii, one of Siberia’s leading explorers and a frequent correspondent of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. This collaboration revealed the importance of constructing the Imperial genesis, with the origin story of fealty usually entailing some degree of state incorporation. Shangin continued the tradition of identifying the Kazakhs as a people displaced by Genghis Khan’s ventures, although he took an even greater historical leap backwards and elevated their genealogy by identifying the Siberian Kazakhs with the original Chuds inhabiting the north referenced in ancient chronicles.[29]

Despite the propaganda regarding Indigenous peoples’ improved livelihood, however, there was some correlation between one’s status as sedentary, nomadic, or wandering, and one’s material wellbeing. Given the alleged equality of estate between corresponding groups, it is particularly revealing to compare Russian state peasants with their inorodets counterparts, which in the relatively settled western provinces, predominantly consisted of Tatars.

Alexander Radishchev’s report regarding the state of the Tobolsk province is replete with its author’s trademark pessimism, and while it does present a nuanced picture of Russian-Tatar relations, it is executed against the background of a distant province riddled with corruption and destitution. The new Russian settlers are defined by their “tendency towards laziness, which paired with drunkenness… has made them beggars when they could be rich”, with new etymological developments further highlighting their attitude: “the word ‘strada,’[30] in their parlance meaning harvest, perfectly encapsulates their aversion to work.”[31] The peasants’ plight, however, remains favorable when compared with non-Russian and non-Tatar populations. Various Samoyedic and Tungus tribes are described as being subjected to “brutal money lenders [who] defraud,” “greed of city lenders [who] rob in advance,” “priests [who] charge exorbitant fees,” and “civil servants…[who] drink and eat for free by swindling everything they can from these naïve [peoples].”[32] As mentioned above, it is interesting to note that the Tatar population is excluded from this obloquy; in Radishchev’s private diary documenting his sojourn across Siberia, the Tatars are consistently described as relatively well-off, often having better land than their Russian peasant counterparts.[33] Incidentally, this is corroborated by Jean-Chappe d’Auteroche, a French scientist whose memoirs regarding his Siberian travels were unfavorable to the point of warranting a rebuttal from Catherine II herself.[34] Nonetheless, the Tatar villages he came across in Siberia made a surprisingly positive impression, with the author describing his visit in Birna as a case study of alternative Siberian life:

At length I came to Birna, a village inhabited by Tatars; many of whom came out to meet me, at the distance of a werst from the village, expressing, by signs, their great desire to serve me. It was evident, from the candor and tranquility observable in their countenances, that those professions were sincere; so I followed them without any apprehensions… They had prepared a kind of dinner for me, consisting of honey, butter, and a few vegetables. Their houses are as neat, as those of the Siberians are dirty. In other respects they live nearly after the same manner, except that they are Mahometans.[35]

British traveler and officer John Dundas Cochrane further corroborates Auteroche’s impressions in noting that the Tatar villages in the West Siberian plain were very clean, very neat, with their inhabitants very hospitable.[36] In his letters, another one of Siberia’s pioneering historians, Pyotr A. Slovtsov furthered the claim that the Siberian Tatars’ yurts far surpassed those of the Russian peasants, both in building material and in furnishings.[37] Education served as another measure of comparison, and according to Shchapov’s research, the Tatars’ schooling was quite thorough, even by European standards. When deriding the level of education in eighteenth century Russia in a dissertation fittingly titled “The Socio-Pedagogical Conditions of the Intellectual Development of the Russian People,” Shchapov pointed out that there were entire villages in Russia that were illiterate, thus contrasting negatively with not only Europe but even Tatars, who “in [regards to literacy] completely disgrace us.”[38]

Conclusion

While the works of travelers, scientists, and intellectuals are relatively selective and do not necessarily reflect the lived realities of the peoples in question, the fact that prominent cultural and state figures published and disseminated these perceptions demonstrates that in the public imaginings of the intellectual sphere, equivocation based on status was possible. “Equal to Russians” was thus qualified, although the realm of ideas proved to have very real consequences in the twilight years of the Russian Empire. The decades leading up to the critical year of 1917 were defined by the struggle between Imperial authorities and revolutionaries of all stripes. What is crucial to note, however, is that the first attempt at overthrowing the state in favor of a socialist republic occurred not in the Empire’s core, but rather in Siberia.

The proclamation of the democratic state of Svobodoslavia was the stillborn child of the first Zemlya i Volya headed by Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Serno-Solovyevich. Based on the principals of narodnichestvo, a particularistic form of agrarian socialism, this new state aimed to liberate Siberia from its subaltern role by not only adapting a new form of political economy, but also enfranchising Siberia’s indigenous population. Shchapov not only provided the interpretive framework which prompted a re-evaluation of Siberia’s role in the Russian state, but also actively engaged in radicalizing students and agitating for political action. His relevance was thus not limited to an interesting yet fleeting trend in Russian historiography, but rather demonstrated Petersburg’s failure to construct alterity along ethno-linguistic categories in its vast Siberian colony.

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Joanna Gorska is a PhD candidate at Queen’s University specializing in East European and Russian history. Her research explores questions surrounding empire, imperial governance and indigeneity, with a special focus on Siberia. 

Title Image: “On the Way to Siberia,” by Nikolai Sverchkov. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Endnotes:

[1] Georgiĭ Gloveli, “Afanassiĭ Shchapov– Istorik rossiĭskoĭ t͡sivilizat͡sii.” Federalizm, no. 2 (2011), 171.

[2] Afanasiy Prokopievich Shchapov, “Obshchiĭ vzgli͡ad na istorii͡u velikorusskogo Naroda,” in Neizdannye sochinenia (Kazan: Tip. “Vostok” izd-va “Gazhur”, 1926), 12.  

[3] Gloveli, 172.

[4] Soviet historiography has consistently treated regionalist and thus potentially seditious movements as inimical to the historically ordained Marxist conception of history, with oblastnichestvo being no exception. Although Shchapov was commended for his anti-autocratic and revolutionary activities, his theoretical paradigm was deemed to exist outside the Marxist conception of materialistic philosophy and was thus dismissed from the official Soviet cannon of state-sanctioned historians. For a comprehensive overview of Shchapov’s historiographical trajectory see R.S. Smishchenko’s “A.P. Shchapov kak init͡siator narodnicheskoĭ tendent͡sii v otechestvennoĭ istoriografii vtoroĭ poloviny XIX v.,” Izvestii͡a Altaĭskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 3 (1998). 

[5] The historiographical debate surrounding the term inorodets underscores the disparity between the legal and vernacular understandings of the signifier’s application. John W. Slocum’s “Who, and When, Were the Inorodtsy? The Evolution of the Category of “Aliens” in Imperial Russia,” The Russian Review no. 2 (April, 1998) argues that the gradual semantic shift from the term inorodets being employed as a legal category to its informal usage as a pejorative term was indicative of the Russian state trying to create an “insurmountable difference” between Russians and non-Russians in the nineteenth century, although Paul Werth’s “Changing Conceptions of Difference, Assimilation and Faith in the Volga-Kama Region, 1740- 1870” argues that this did not occur until after the Great Reforms. Slocum points to the belated legal re-classification of the empire’s Jewish population as inorodets in 1835 as an attempt to create a racialized and thus immutable new type of otherness when addressing the inorodets, although Andrei A. Znamenski’s “The ‘Ethic of Empire’ on the Siberian Borderland: The Peculiar Case of the ‘Rock People,’ 1791–1878,” In Peopling the Russian Periphery: Borderland Colonization in Eurasian History, edited by Nicholas B. Breyfogle, Abby Schrader, and Willard Sunderland (New York: Routledge, 2007) provides further nuance to the inorodets debate. The ‘rock people’ in question, also known as the Bukhtarmintsy were a group of Old Believers who were legally classified as inorodtsy despite being ethnic Russians. Znamenski argues that the existence of pre-modern imperial paternalism was particularly prevalent in the Russian borderlands, making ethnic or confessional affiliation a secondary or non-definitive feature of a particular group, with corporate identity acting as its primary characteristic.

[6] Michael Khodarkovsky’s “The Stepan Razin Uprising: Was It a ‘Peasant War’?” in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, no. 42 (1994) rejects the traditional Marxist interpretation of viewing the uprising through a “peasant lens”, opting for local politics model instead. He thus concludes that viewing this event as a “popular uprising” would be more accurate given its multinational socially diverse constituents. Nonetheless, Khodarkovsky identifies the Don Cossacks and the various non-Russians living in the middle-Volga region as the primary actors, making the uprising a counterresponse to the expansion of the Muscovite administrative structure.

[7] Austin Jersild, “Faith, Custom, and Ritual in the Borderlands: Orthodoxy, Islam, and the ‘Small Peoples’ of the Middle Volga and the North Caucasus,” The Russian Review 59, no. 4 (October 2000), 512.

[8] Shcherbatov, “Statistika v rassuzhdenii Rossii” in Sochinenii͡a kni͡azi͡a M. M. Shcherbatova. T. 1, 1986, 533-534.

[9] Andreas Kappeler, The Russian Empire: A Multiethnic History, trans. Alfred Clayton (New York: Routledge, 2001), 54.

[10] This is particularly apparent in the case of the Bashkirs. Nonetheless, the Bashkirs’ predominantly nomadic and semi-nomadic lifestyle resulted in significant difficulties for Muscovite administrators, with the Bashkirs’ military superiority turning the acquisition of this region into an additional problem. The Russian state responded in its usual fashion of coopting local elites and turning them into military servitors, with the promise of land grants in exchange providing an extra incentive. This policy gained traction in the eighteenth century, when, despite the mass migration of Russians and non-Russians alike from the middle-Volga, the Bashkir aristocracy was granted the majority of the recent non-Russian arrivals as peasants. The importance of land-owning state servitors became even more apparent following Pugachev’s rebellion, with Muslim nobles becoming a significant part of Ufa’s Noble Assembly. See Charles Steinwedel, “How Bashkiria Became Part of European Russia, 1762–1881” in Russian Empire, ed. Jane Burbank, Mark von Hagen, and Anatolyi Remnev (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 98.

[11] It is interesting to note that even though the strait ultimately bore his name, Bering was not the first explorer to round the Chukchi peninsula. A Cossack of the name of Dezhnyov rounded the coast back in the mid-seventeenth century, although his exploit went unnoticed due to petty political intrigues which resulted in the event’s documentation lying forgotten in a Yakutsk archive for centuries. According to Wood in A History of Siberia, nobody initially believed the exploits, assuming that a simple Cossack would not have been able to complete the feat by himself and without the presence or assistance of German, Dutch or Scandinavian captains.

[12] Gerhard Friedreich Miller, “Stroenie gorodov Ti͡umeni, Tobolʹska, Lozvy, Pelyma, Berezova, Surguta, Tary i okonchatelʹnoe izgnanie khana Kuchuma iz Sibiri.” in Istorii͡a Sibiri, vol. 1 (Moskva: Izdatelʹstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1937), 159.

[13] Miller, “Stroenie gorodov,”298.

[14] George V. Lantzeff, Siberia in the Seventeenth Century: A Study of the Colonial Administration. (Berkley: University of California Press, 1943), 98.

[15] Prior to Peter the Great’s administrative reforms and introduction of colleges, the Muscovite executive apparatus relied on prikazy, an unwieldly system of chanceries or departments that effectively fulfilled the roles of various ministries. Jurisdictions would frequently overlap or outgrow their original local prerogatives. Despite its name, the Department of Kazan eventually grew into a colonial office of sorts, administering newly annexed territories utterly removedfrom Kazan itself. Naturally this system was untenable, and corruption was rampant.

[16] Nonetheless, the administrative apparatus remained greatly understaffed, and given that the tsar intended to exploit Siberia to its full commercial extent, significant measures had to be adopted. One of the most pressing issues remained the lack of grain, with shipments from European Russia being extremely expensive. Southern expeditions into the agriculturally promising Amur basin turned out to be a failure given Manchu China’s opposition, and with the signing of the treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, Russia was barred from the region until Muravev-Amurskii’s exploits in the mid-nineteenth century. Although a significant number of peasants made their way across the Urals voluntarily in search of the Siberian “promised land”, the state decided to adapt a more interventionist approach, with state-sponsored settlement leading to the establishment of state farms. Peasants were given plots of land, and while frequently subjected to arbitrarily heavy taxation, largely remained free unlike their bonded brethren in Europe following the Ulozhenie of 1649 which re-established serfdom.

[17] See Yuri Slezkine’s “Savage Christians or Unorthodox Russians? The Missionary Dilemma in Siberia” in Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture, ed. Galya Diment and Yuri Slezkine (New York: St. Marin’s Press, 1993).

[18] Many willing converts, however, were incorporated into the Cossacks, although baptism was not a prerequisite. Aside from the regular Cossack units, Siberian administrators frequently adhered to the principal of divide et imperia, frequently turning one indigenous group against another, or even encouraging fraternal warfare amongst members of the same tribe. The incorporation of non-Russians into the Cossack apparatus will be further incorporated in the subsequent chapter.

[19] James Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia’s North Asian Colony, 1581-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 68.

[20] Ultimately, the voevoda system was established, with each voevoda being a noble assigned by the tsar to govern these territories. Given the voevoda’s historical military associations, this was supposed to reflect the priorities of governing Siberia, where security was the primary concern. As previously mentioned, Cossacks and promyshlenniki built ostrogi in their ruthless hunt for fur, and eventually towns grew out of these fortified points. By the end of the seventeenth century, there were four main towns which governed the territories attached to them: Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yeniseisk, and Yakutsk. These regions were known as razriady, and they encompassed the smaller villages and settlements in their vicinity as well. Each town, however, had its own voevoda, although this appointment was not lifelong and was subject to rotation every couple of years.

[21] Igor V. Naumov, The History of Siberia, ed. David N. Collins (New York Routledge, 2006), 94.

[22] Ukaz 29125. “Uchrezhdenie dli͡a upravlenii͡a Sibirskikh guberniĭ: Vvedenie, (22 I͡Unii͡a, 1822),” in Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiĭkoĭ Imperii s 1649 goda: 1822–1823, vol. 38 (Sankt Peterburg: Tipografii͡a II Otdelenii͡a Sobstvennoĭ Ego Imperatorskago Velichestva Kant͡seli͡arii, 1830), 345.

[23] See Marc Raeff’s Siberia and the Reforms of 1822, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1956).

[24] Ukaz 29126. “Vysochaĭshie utverzhdennyĭ ustavʹ– ob upravlenii inorodt͡sev, (22 I͡Unii͡a, 1822),” in Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiĭkoĭ Imperii, vol. 38,394.

[25] Ukaz 29126. “Vysochaĭshie utverzhdennyĭ ustavʹ– ob upravlenii inorodt͡sev,”394.

[26] Ukaz 29126. “Vysochaĭshie utverzhdennyĭ ustavʹ– ob upravlenii inorodt͡sev,”394.

[27] Ukaz 29127. “Vysochaĭshie utverzhdennyĭ ustavʹ o sibirskikh Kirgizakh, (22 Ii͡uli͡a, 1822),” in Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiĭkoĭ Imperii s 1649 goda: 1822–1823, vol. 38 (Sankt Peterburg: Tipografii͡a II Otdelenii͡a Sobstvennoĭ Ego Imperatorskago Velichestva Kant͡seli͡arii, 1830), 417.

[28] Vladimir Bogdanovich Bronevsky, “Zapiski general-maĭora Bronevskogo o kirgiz-kaĭsakakh Sredneĭ Ordy,” in Otechestvennye zapiski, no. 3, 1830, ed. Pavel Svinʹinyĭ, (Sanktpeterburg”, Tipografii͡a Departamenta Vneshneĭ Torgovli, 1830), 180.

[29] Ivan Petrovich Shangin, “Izvlechenie iz opisania ekspedit͡sii vyvsheĭ v Kirgizskui͡u stepʹ v 1816                godu,” in Sibirski Vestnik, no. 9, 1820, ed. Grigoriĭ Spaskii, (Sanktpeterburg”: Morskai͡a Tipografii͡a, 1820), 13.

[30] Stradat’: v.to suffer

[31] Aleksandr Radishchev, “Opisanie Tobolʹskogo namestnichestva,” in Polnoe sobranie sochineniĭ: Trudy po i͡urisprudent͡sii, delovye bumagi, dnevniki i pisʹma, vol. 3,(Moskva:Izdatelʹstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1954),135.    

[32] Radishchev, “Opisanie Tobolʹskogo namestnichestva,” 136-138.

[33] Radishchev, “Zapiski puteshestvii͡a v Sibirʹ,” in Polnoe sobranie sochineniĭ: Trudy po i͡urisprudent͡sii, delovye bumagi, dnevniki i pisʹma, vol. 3, (Moskva:Izdatelʹstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1954), 261.

[34] Lurana D. O’Malley, “The Monarch and the Mystic: Catherine the Great’s Strategy of Audience Enlightenment in The Siberian Shaman,” The Slavic and East European Journal 41, no. 2 (1997): 229.

[35] Jean Chappe D’Auteroche, A Journey into Siberia, Made by Order of the King of France, trans. from the Russian, (London, 1770), 104.

[36] John Dundas Cochrane, Narrative of a pedestrian journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, from the frontiers of China to the Frozen sea and Kamtchatka; performed during the years 1820, 1821, 1822, and 1823, (New York: Collins & Hannay, 1824), 95.

[37] Pyotr A. Slovtsov, “Progulki vokrug Tobolʹska v 1830 godu,” in Pisma iz sibiri (Ti͡umenʹ: Izdatelʹstvo I͡U. Mandriki, 1999), 90.

[38] Shchapov, “Sot͡sialʹno-pedagogicheskie uslovii͡a umstvennogo razvitii͡a russkogo naroda (Sankt Peterburg: Izdanie N. P. Poli͡akova, 1870),192.