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Indigenous peoples of Russia (narrated by Alexander Matveev)
Indigenous peoples of the North
Ritual practices of the peoples of the North (narrated by Dmitry Oparin)
According to government approved Russian Federation the list of indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and Far East of the Russian Federation, these peoples are (disaggregated by language groups by native language, sorted by the number of people in Russia according to the 2010 census):
Total: 76,263 people
Total: 50,919 people
Total: 49,378 people
Total: 42,340 people
Total: 37,562 people
The list of places of traditional residence and traditional economic activity and the list of types of traditional economic activity of the small peoples of the North are approved by the Government of the Russian Federation. A culturally developed area with roaming routes of reindeer herders, seasonal routes of hunters, gatherers, fishermen, sacred, recreational places, etc., which ensures their traditional way of life, is extremely extensive: from the Dolgans and Nganasans on the Taimyr Peninsula to the Udeges in southern Russia, from the Aleuts on the Commander islands to the Saami on the Kola Peninsula.
According to the list of traditional economic activities, these include:
In general, there is a positive dynamics of demographic processes among the small peoples of the North. The number of Oroks (Ulta) increased almost 2.5 times, the number of Nenets, Selkups, Khanty, Yukagirs, Negidals, Tofalars, Itelmens, Kets, and others increased significantly (by 20-70 percent). The number of a number of peoples decreased, which is explained as a general negative demographic dynamics in the Russian Federation, as well as the allocation during the census of the small peoples of the North of the original ethnic groups that began to identify themselves as independent peoples.
At the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries, there was an increase in the ethnic self-consciousness of the small peoples of the North. Public associations, training centers, associations and trade unions (reindeer herders, sea hunters, etc.) of the small peoples of the North have arisen, the activities of which are supported by the state. In many places of residence of the small peoples of the North, communities have been recreated as traditional forms of organizing joint activities, distributing products and mutual assistance. In a number of places of traditional residence and traditional economic activity, "ancestral lands" have been created, territories of traditional nature management of regional and local significance, assigned to representatives of the small peoples of the North and their communities.
About 65 percent of citizens from among the small peoples of the North live in rural areas. In many national villages and settlements, the communities of these peoples have become the only economic entities that perform a number of social functions. In accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, communities as non-profit organizations enjoy a number of benefits and use a simplified taxation system.
In the Russian Federation, as a whole, a legal framework has been created in the field of protecting the rights and traditional way of life of the small peoples of the North. Russia is a party to international treaties in this area. Measures of state support (in the form of benefits, subsidies, quotas for the use biological resources) are also legislated. Benefits for representatives of the indigenous peoples of the North living in places of traditional residence and traditional economic activities and engaged in traditional types of economic activity are provided for by the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, the Forest Code of the Russian Federation, the Water Code of the Russian Federation and the Land Code of the Russian Federation.
A significant achievement was the formation of financial instruments of state support for the socio-economic development of the small peoples of the North. Over the past 15 years, the Russian Federation has implemented three federal target programs, as well as numerous regional target programs and subprograms for the socio-economic development of the indigenous peoples of the North, designed to create conditions for their sustainable development at the expense of the federal budget, the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and non-budgetary sources. At the expense of the federal budget, subsidies were provided to the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to support reindeer husbandry and livestock breeding.
In places of traditional residence and traditional economic activities of the small peoples of the North, there are daytime programs for teaching children of reindeer herders, fishermen and hunters, including in their native language. comprehensive schools, boarding schools. In the places of nomadic reindeer herders, the creation of nomadic schools was initiated, in which children receive primary education, taking into account the traditional way of life of the small peoples of the North.
Educational and methodical literature for studying the languages of the small peoples of the North is published in publishing houses by state order. The Institute of the Peoples of the North of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after AI Herzen has been operating for several decades.
The Russian Federation took an active part in the implementation of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1994, and also became the first UN member state to create a National Organizing Committee for the preparation and holding in the Russian Federation of the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples.
In recent years, as part of the development of public-private partnerships, the practice has been formed of concluding agreements with large industrial companies, including the fuel and energy complex, with authorities state power constituent entities of the Russian Federation, local governments, communities of indigenous peoples of the North, district and settlement associations of indigenous peoples, individual national households - owners of "ancestral lands", which made it possible to create extra-budgetary funds for credit support of enterprises of indigenous peoples of the North.
The situation of the small peoples of the North in recent decades has been complicated by the inability of their traditional way of life to modern economic conditions. The low competitiveness of traditional types of economic activity is due to small production volumes, high transport costs, and the lack of modern enterprises and technologies for the complex processing of raw materials and biological resources.
The crisis state of traditional types of economic activity has led to an aggravation of social problems. The standard of living of a significant part of citizens from among the small peoples of the North, living in rural areas or leading a nomadic lifestyle, is lower than the Russian average. The unemployment rate in the regions of the North, where the small peoples of the North live, is 1.5-2 times higher than the average for the Russian Federation.
The intensive industrial development of the natural resources of the northern territories of the Russian Federation has also significantly reduced the possibilities for conducting traditional types of economic activity of the small peoples of the North. Significant areas of reindeer pastures and hunting grounds have been withdrawn from the traditional economic turnover. Some of the rivers and reservoirs previously used for traditional fisheries due to environmental issues lost their fishery importance.
Violation of the traditional way of life in the 1990s led to the development of a number of diseases and pathologies among representatives of the indigenous peoples of the North. Significantly higher than the average Russian indicators among these peoples are the indicators of infant (1.8 times) and child mortality, the incidence of infectious diseases and alcoholism.
1. Features of the peoples of Siberia
2.general characteristics peoples of Siberia
3. The peoples of Siberia on the eve of Russian colonization
1. Features of the peoples of Siberia
In addition to anthropological and linguistic features, the peoples of Siberia have a number of specific, traditionally stable cultural and economic features that characterize the historical and ethnographic diversity of Siberia. In cultural and economic terms, the territory of Siberia can be divided into two large historically developed regions: 1) the southern one - the region of ancient cattle breeding and agriculture; and 2) northern - area of commercial hunting and fishing economy. The boundaries of these areas do not coincide with the boundaries of landscape zones. Sustainable economic and cultural types of Siberia developed in antiquity as a result of historical and cultural processes of different time and nature, which took place in a homogeneous natural and economic environment and under the influence of external foreign cultural traditions.
By the 17th century among the indigenous population of Siberia, according to the predominant type of economic activity, the following economic and cultural types have developed: 1) foot hunters and fishermen of the taiga zone and forest-tundra; 2) sedentary fishermen in the basins of large and small rivers and lakes; 3) sedentary hunters for sea animals on the coast of the Arctic seas; 4) nomadic taiga reindeer herders-hunters and fishermen; 5) nomadic reindeer herders of the tundra and forest-tundra; 6) pastoralists of the steppes and forest-steppes.
In the past, some groups of foot Evenks, Orochs, Udeges, separate groups of Yukagirs, Kets, Selkups, partly Khanty and Mansi, and Shors belonged to the foot hunters and fishermen of the taiga in the past. For these peoples great importance had hunting for meat animals (moose, deer), fishing. A characteristic element of their culture was a hand sled.
The settled-fishing type of economy was widespread in the past among the peoples living in the basins of the river. Amur and Ob: Nivkhs, Nanais, Ulchis, Itelmens, Khanty, part of the Selkups and the Ob Mansi. For these peoples, fishing was the main source of livelihood throughout the year. The hunt had an auxiliary character.
The type of sedentary hunters for sea animals is represented among the settled Chukchi, Eskimos, and partly settled Koryaks. The economy of these peoples is based on the extraction of sea animals (walrus, seal, whale). Arctic hunters settled on the coasts of the Arctic seas. The products of the marine fur trade, in addition to meeting personal needs for meat, fat and skins, also served as a subject of exchange with neighboring related groups.
Nomadic taiga reindeer breeders, hunters and fishermen were the most common type of economy among the peoples of Siberia in the past. He was represented among the Evenks, Evens, Dolgans, Tofalars, Forest Nenets, Northern Selkups, and Reindeer Kets. Geographically, it covered mainly the forests and forest-tundra of Eastern Siberia, from the Yenisei to the Sea of Okhotsk, and also extended west of the Yenisei. The basis of the economy was hunting and keeping deer, as well as fishing.
The nomadic reindeer herders of the tundra and forest-tundra include the Nenets, reindeer Chukchi and reindeer Koryaks. These peoples have developed a special type of economy, the basis of which is reindeer husbandry. Hunting and fishing, as well as sea fishing, are of secondary importance or are completely absent. The main food product for this group of peoples is deer meat. The deer also serves as a reliable vehicle.
Cattle breeding in the steppes and forest-steppes in the past was widely represented among the Yakuts, the world's northernmost pastoral people, among the Altaians, Khakasses, Tuvans, Buryats, and Siberian Tatars. Cattle breeding was of a commercial nature, the products almost completely satisfied the needs of the population in meat, milk and dairy products. Agriculture among pastoral peoples (except for the Yakuts) existed as an auxiliary branch of the economy. Some of these peoples were engaged in hunting and fishing.
Along with the indicated types of economy, a number of peoples also had transitional types. For example, the Shors and Northern Altaians combined sedentary cattle breeding with hunting; The Yukaghirs, Nganasans, Enets combined reindeer herding with hunting as their main occupation.
The diversity of cultural and economic types of Siberia determines the specifics of the development of the natural environment by indigenous peoples, on the one hand, and the level of their socio-economic development, on the other. Prior to the arrival of the Russians, economic and cultural specialization did not go beyond the framework of the appropriating economy and primitive (hoe) agriculture and cattle breeding. A variety of natural conditions contributed to the formation of various local variants of economic types, the oldest of which were hunting and fishing.
At the same time, it should be taken into account that "culture" is an extrabiological adaptation, which entails the need for activity. This explains such a multitude of economic and cultural types. Their peculiarity is a sparing attitude to natural resources. And in this all economic and cultural types are similar to each other. However, culture is, at the same time, a system of signs, a semiotic model of a particular society (ethnos). Therefore, a single cultural and economic type is not yet a community of culture. The common thing is that the existence of many traditional cultures is based on a certain way of managing the economy (fishing, hunting, sea hunting, cattle breeding). However, cultures can be different in terms of customs, rituals, traditions, and beliefs.
2. General characteristics of the peoples of Siberia
The number of the indigenous population of Siberia before the beginning of Russian colonization was about 200 thousand people. The northern (tundra) part of Siberia was inhabited by tribes of Samoyeds, in Russian sources called Samoyeds: Nenets, Enets and Nganasans.
The main economic occupation of these tribes was reindeer herding and hunting, and in the lower reaches of the Ob, Taz and Yenisei - fishing. The main objects of fishing were arctic fox, sable, ermine. Furs served as the main commodity in the payment of yasak and in trade. Furs were also paid as bride price for the girls who were chosen as their wives. The number of Siberian Samoyeds, including the tribes of the southern Samoyeds, reached about 8 thousand people.
To the south of the Nenets lived the Ugrian-speaking tribes of the Khanty (Ostyaks) and Mansi (Voguls). The Khanty were engaged in fishing and hunting; in the region of the Gulf of Ob they had reindeer herds. The main occupation of the Mansi was hunting. Before the arrival of the Russian Mansi on the river. Toure and Tavde were engaged in primitive agriculture, cattle breeding, and beekeeping. The area of settlement of the Khanty and Mansi included the regions of the Middle and Lower Ob with tributaries, pp. Irtysh, Demyanka and Konda, as well as the western and eastern slopes of the Middle Urals. The total number of the Ugric-speaking tribes of Siberia in the 17th century. reached 15-18 thousand people.
To the east of the settlement area of the Khanty and Mansi lay the lands of the southern Samoyeds, the southern or Narym Selkups. For a long time, the Russians called the Narym Selkups Ostyaks because of the similarity of their material culture with the Khanty. The Selkups lived along the middle reaches of the river. Ob and its tributaries. The main economic activity was seasonal fishing and hunting. They hunted fur-bearing animals, elk, wild deer, upland and waterfowl. Before the arrival of the Russians, the southern Samoyeds were united in a military alliance, which was called the Pegoy Horde in Russian sources, led by Prince Voni.
To the east of the Narym Selkups lived tribes of the Ket-speaking population of Siberia: the Kets (Yenisei Ostyaks), Arins, Kotts, Yastyns (4-6 thousand people), who settled along the Middle and Upper Yenisei. Their main occupations were hunting and fishing. Some groups of the population extracted iron from ore, products from which were sold to neighbors or used on the farm.
The upper reaches of the Ob and its tributaries, the upper reaches of the Yenisei, the Altai were inhabited by numerous Turkic tribes that differed greatly in their economic structure - the ancestors of the modern Shors, Altaians, Khakasses: Tomsk, Chulym and "Kuznetsk" Tatars (about 5-6 thousand people), Teleuts ( white Kalmyks) (about 7-8 thousand people), the Yenisei Kirghiz with their subordinate tribes (8-9 thousand people). The main occupation of most of these peoples was nomadic cattle breeding. In some places of this vast territory, hoe farming and hunting were developed. The "Kuznetsk" Tatars had developed blacksmithing.
The Sayan Highlands were occupied by the Samoyed and Turkic tribes of Mators, Karagas, Kamasin, Kachin, Kaysot, and others, with a total number of about 2 thousand people. They were engaged in cattle breeding, breeding horses, hunting, they knew the skills of agriculture.
To the south of the habitats of the Mansi, Selkups and Kets, Turkic-speaking ethno-territorial groups were widespread - the ethnic predecessors of the Siberian Tatars: the Baraba, Terenin, Irtysh, Tobol, Ishim and Tyumen Tatars. By the middle of the XVI century. a significant part of the Turks of Western Siberia (from Tura in the west to Baraba in the east) was under the rule of the Siberian Khanate. The main occupation of the Siberian Tatars was hunting, fishing, cattle breeding was developed in the Baraba steppe. Before the arrival of the Russians, the Tatars were already engaged in agriculture. There was home production leather, felt, edged weapons, fur dressing. Tatars acted as intermediaries in transit trade between Moscow and Central Asia.
To the west and east of Baikal there were Mongolian-speaking Buryats (about 25 thousand people), known in Russian sources under the name of “brothers” or “brotherly people”. The basis of their economy was nomadic cattle breeding. Farming and gathering were ancillary occupations. Enough high development received ironworking.
A significant territory from the Yenisei to the Sea of Okhotsk, from the northern tundra to the Amur region was inhabited by the Tungus tribes of the Evenks and Evens (about 30 thousand people). They were divided into "deer" (bred deer), which were the majority, and "foot". The "foot" Evenks and Evens were sedentary fishermen and hunted sea animals on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. One of the main occupations of both groups was hunting. The main game animals were moose, wild deer, and bears. Domestic deer were used by the Evenks as pack and riding animals.
The territory of Siberia can be called truly multinational. Today its population mostly Russians. Since 1897, and to this day, the population is only growing. The basis of the Russian population of Siberia was merchants, Cossacks and peasants. The indigenous population is mainly located on the territory of Tobolsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Russian population began to settle in the southern part of Siberia - Transbaikalia, Altai and the Minusinsk steppes. At the end of the eighteenth century, a huge number of peasants moved to Siberia. They are located mainly on the territory of Primorye, Kazakhstan and Altai. And after the start of construction railway and the formation of cities, the population began to grow even faster.
The Cossacks and local Yakuts who came to the Siberian lands became very friendly, they were imbued with trust in each other. After some time, they no longer divided themselves into locals and natives. International marriages were made, which led to the mixing of blood. The main peoples inhabiting Siberia are:
Chuvans are located on the territory of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The national language is Chukchi, over time it was completely replaced by Russian. The first census at the end of the eighteenth century officially confirmed 275 representatives of the Chuvans who settled in Siberia and 177 who moved from place to place. Now the total number of representatives of this people is about 1300.
Chuvans were engaged in hunting and fishing, they got sled dogs. And the main occupation of the people was reindeer herding.
- located on the territory Khabarovsk Territory. This people had another name - nani, which was also widely used. The language of the people is Oroch, it was spoken only by the oldest representatives of the people, moreover, it was unwritten. According to the official first census, the Orochi population was 915 people. The Orochi were mainly engaged in hunting. They caught not only forest dwellers, but also game. Now there are about 1000 representatives of this people. Enets
were quite small people. Their number in the first census was only 378 people. They roamed in the regions of the Yenisei and the Lower Tunguska. The language of the Enets was similar to the Nenets, the difference was in the sound composition. Now there are about 300 representatives left.
settled on the territory of Kamchatka, earlier they were called Kamchadals. The native language of the people is Itelmen, which is quite complex and includes four dialects. The number of Itelmens, judging by the first census, was 825 people. Most of the Itelmens were engaged in catching salmon species of fish; gathering of berries, mushrooms and spices was also widespread. Now (according to the 2010 census) there are a little more than 3,000 representatives of this nationality. Kety
- became natives Krasnoyarsk Territory. Their number at the end of the eighteenth century was 1017 people. The Ket language was isolated from other Asian languages. The Kets practiced agriculture, hunting and fishing. In addition, they became the founders of trade. Furs were the main commodity. According to the 2010 census - 1219 people
- located on the territory of the Kamchatka region and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The Koryak language is closest to Chukchi. The main activity of the people is reindeer herding. Even the name of the people is translated into Russian as "rich in deer." The population at the end of the eighteenth century was 7335 people. Now ~9000.
Of course, there are still many very small peoples who live on the territory of Siberia, and it will take more than one page to describe them, but the tendency to assimilate over time leads to the complete disappearance of small peoples.
The culture of Siberia is as multilayered as the number of nationalities living on its territory is huge. From each settlement, the local people took something new for themselves. First of all, this affected tools and household items. Newcomer Cossacks began to use reindeer skins, local fishing tools, and malitsa from the everyday life of the Yakuts in everyday life. And those, in turn, looked after the cattle of the natives when they were absent from their homes.
Various types of wood were used as a material for construction, of which there are plenty of them in Siberia to this day. As a rule, it was spruce or pine.
The climate in Siberia is sharply continental, which manifests itself in severe winters and hot summers. In such conditions, local residents perfectly grew sugar beets, potatoes, carrots and other vegetables. In the forest zone, it was possible to collect various mushrooms - milk mushrooms, butterflies, aspen mushrooms, and berries - blueberries, honeysuckle or bird cherry. Fruit was also grown in the south of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The extracted meat and caught fish, as a rule, were cooked on a fire, using taiga herbs as additives. At the moment, the cuisine of Siberia is distinguished by the active use of home preservation.
From the end of the 16th century the systematic settlement of the Trans-Urals by the Russian people began and the development of its inexhaustible natural resources together with the peoples of Siberia. Behind the "stone", i.e. beyond the Urals, lay a huge territory with an area of more than 10 million square meters. km. In the expanses of Siberia, according to the estimates of B. O. Dolgikh, approximately 236 thousand people of the non-Russian population lived. 1 Each of them accounted for an average of more than 40 sq. m. km of area with fluctuations from b to 300 sq. km. km. Considering that in the hunting economy, only 10 square meters are required for each consumer in the temperate zone. km of land, and with the most primitive animal husbandry, pastoral tribes have only 1 sq. km, it will become clear that the indigenous population of Siberia by the XVII century. was still far from the development of the entire area of this region, even with the previous level of management. Enormous opportunities opened up before the Russian people and the indigenous population in the development of yet unused spaces, both through the expansion of the former forms of economy, and, to an even greater extent, through its intensification.
The higher production skills of the Russian population, which had been engaged in arable farming, stall animal husbandry for many centuries and came close to the creation of manufactory production, allowed it to make a significant contribution to the economic development of the natural resources of Siberia.
One of the most remarkable pages in the history of the development of Siberia by the Russian population in the 17th century. was the creation of the foundations of Siberian plow agriculture, which later turned the region into one of the main breadbaskets of Russia. The Russians, having crossed the Urals, gradually got acquainted with the great natural wealth of the new region: full-flowing and fish rivers, forests rich in fur-bearing animals, good lands suitable for arable farming (“fertile wilds”). However, they did not find here the cultivated fields they were accustomed to. Indications of the lack of bread, of the hunger experienced by Russian newcomers (“we eat grass and roots”) are full of the first Russian descriptions of even those areas where fat fields will later be sown. 2
1 For this calculation, the maximum figure of the indigenous population is used, calculated by B. O. Dolgikh (B. O. Dolgikh. Tribal and tribal composition of the peoples of Siberia in the 17th century, p. 617). In a study by V. M. Kabuzan and S. M. Troitsky, a much lower figure is given (72 thousand male souls - see pages 55, 183 of this volume).
2 Siberian Chronicles, St. Petersburg, 1907, pp. 59, 60, 109, 110, 177, 178, 242.
These first impressions were not misleading, despite the undeniable evidence that part of the local population had agricultural skills that had developed long before the arrival of the Russians. Pre-Russian agriculture in Siberia can be noted only in a few places in the predominantly southern part of Siberia (the Minusinsk basin, the river valleys of the Altai, Dauro-Dyuchersk agriculture on the Amur). Having once reached a relatively high level, due to a number of historical reasons, it experienced a sharp decline and was actually destroyed long before the arrival of Russian settlers. In other places (the lower reaches of the Tavda, the lower reaches of the Tom, the middle reaches of the Yenisei, the upper reaches of the Lena), agriculture was of a primitive nature. It was hoe (with the exception of the agriculture of the Tobolsk Tatars), was distinguished by a small composition of crops (kyrlyk, millet, barley and less often wheat), very small crops and equally insignificant collections. Therefore, agriculture was everywhere replenished by collecting wild-growing edible plants (sarana, wild onion, peony, pine nut). But, replenished by gathering, it has always been only an auxiliary occupation, giving way to the leading sectors of the economy - cattle breeding, fishing, hunting. Areas of primitive agriculture were interspersed with areas whose population did not know agriculture at all. Huge tracts of land have never been touched by a pickaxe or a hoe. Naturally, such farming could not become a source of food supplies for the arriving Russian population. 3
The Russian farmer, with his knowledge of the plow and harrow, the three-field crop rotation, and the use of fertilizer, had to use his labor skills to establish in these places an essentially new arable farming and develop it in an unfamiliar geographical environment, surrounded by an unknown non-agricultural population, under conditions of heavy class oppression. The Russian peasant had to accomplish a heroic feat of great historical significance.
The distribution of the Russian population in Siberia in the first century was determined by phenomena that had little to do with the interests of development Agriculture. The search for precious furs, which was one of the most serious incentives for the early advance of the Russians into Siberia, inevitably led to the regions of taiga, forest-tundra and tundra. The desire of the government to secure the local population as a supplier of furs led to the construction of cities and prisons in the nodal points of their settlement. Hydro-geographical conditions also contributed to this. The most convenient river route, linking the West and the East, went along the places where the Pechora and Kama river systems converged with the Ob, and then the Yenisei with the Lena, and ran in the same settlement zone. The political situation in the south of Siberia made it difficult to move in this direction. Thus, in the initial period, the Russians appeared in a zone either completely inaccessible for agriculture, or of little use for it, and only in the southern part of their settlement (forest-steppe) did they find favorable conditions. It is in these areas that the first centers of Siberian agriculture are created. The first mention of plowing dates back to the 16th century. (arable lands of the Tyumen and Verkhoturye Russian villages along the Tura River). Arriving in Siberia with other goals, the Russians turned to agriculture in the very first years of their advance to the east, since the food problem in Siberia immediately became very acute. Initially, they tried to resolve it by importing bread from European Russia. Bread was brought with them by government detachments, commercial and industrial people, and individual settlers. But this did not solve the issue of nutrition for the permanent Russian population of Siberia. They didn't allow it and
3 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia (XVII century). M., 1956, p. 34. 35.
annual deliveries of bread to Siberia. The obligation to supply "sowing stocks" was imposed on the northern Russian cities with their counties (Cherdyn, Vym-Yarenskaya, Sol-Vychegodskaya, Ustyug, Vyatka, etc.). In addition, government purchases of bread in European Russia were additionally organized. Such an organization of grain supply to the distant outskirts suffered from a major drawback, since the supply of supplies to Siberia was unusually expensive and took a long time: the transport of bread from Ustyug to the Pacific Ocean lasted 5 years.4 At the same time, the cost of bread increased tenfold, and part of the food along the way perished. The desire of the state to shift these costs onto the shoulders of the population increased feudal obligations and provoked resistance. Such an organization of supplies could not fully satisfy the demand for bread. The population constantly complained about the lack of bread and hunger. In addition, the government needed bread to provide for service people, to whom it issued "bread salaries."
Orders to the Siberian governors throughout the 17th century. filled with instructions on the need to establish state arable land. At the same time, the population plowed up the land on their own initiative. This was facilitated by the composition of the population arriving in Siberia. To a large extent, this was the working peasantry, who fled the center from feudal oppression and dreamed of doing their usual thing. Thus, the feudal state, on the one hand, and the population itself, on the other, acted as the initial organizers of Siberian agriculture.
The state sought to establish in Siberia the so-called sovereign tithe arable land. Having declared the entire Siberian land to be sovereign, the government provided it to the direct producer of material goods for use on the condition that the sovereign's tithe was processed for this. In the most pure form the sovereign's tithe arable land was allocated a special field cultivated by the sovereign's peasants, who received land for this "sobina" arable land at the rate of 4 tithes per 1 tithe of state plowing. 5 The sovereign's field was cultivated by peasants under the direct supervision of clerks. In other cases, the sovereign's tithe was directly attached to the "sobin" plots. And although at the same time there was no territorial division of corvee and peasant fields, the clerk supervised the processing of only the sovereign's tithe (usually the most productive) and the collection of bread from it. There were few cases in Siberia when only the sovereign's field was cultivated by a peasant to obtain a "month" (food bread). 6 But already in the XVII century. there were cases of replacing the processing of the sovereign's arable land (corvée) with the introduction of grain quitrent (rent in kind). However, corvee labor for the Siberian peasant during the entire 17th century. was dominant.
A specific feature of Siberia was the fact that the feudal state, in its desire to establish a corvée economy, was faced with the absence of a peasant population. It could not use the local population as feudally obligated cultivators due to the lack of appropriate production skills among the natives. Separate attempts in this direction, undertaken at the beginning of the XVII century. in Western Siberia, were not successful and were quickly abandoned. On the other hand, the state, interested in obtaining furs, sought to preserve the hunting character of the economy of the local population. The latter was supposed to extract furs, and the production of bread fell on the Russian settlers. But the small number of Russians became the main obstacle in resolving grain difficulties.
At first, the government tried to overcome this difficulty by forcibly resettling peasants from European Russia "by decree" and "by the device", thereby creating one of the early groups of the Siberian peasantry - the "transferrs". So, in 1590, 30 families from Solvychegodsk district were sent to Siberia as arable peasants, in 1592 - peasants from Perm and Vyatka, in 1600 - Kazan, Laishev and Tetyushites. 7 This measure was not effective enough, and besides, it weakened the solvency of the old districts, was costly to the peasant worlds and therefore provoked protests.
Another source of labor for the sovereign's arable land was exile. Siberia already in the 16th century. served as a place of exile to the settlement. Some of the exiles went to the arable land. This measure was in effect throughout the 17th century and passed into the 18th century. The number of exiles was especially significant during periods of exacerbation of the class struggle in central Russia. But this method of providing agriculture with labor did not give the expected effect. The exiles partly died during the incredibly difficult journey. The mark "died on the road" is a common occurrence in the painting of exiles. Some went to the settlements and garrisons, the other part of the people forcibly planted on arable land, often without sufficient skills, strength and means, “wandered between the courtyards” or fled in search of freedom and a better life further east, and sometimes back to Russia.
The most effective was the attraction to the sovereign's arable land of persons who arrived in Siberia at their own peril and risk.
In some contradiction with the general structure of the feudal state, which attached the peasant to the place, the government already in the 16th century. invited the Siberian administration to call to Siberia "eager people from father to son and from brother to brother and from neighbors of neighbors." 8 In this way, they tried at the same time to keep the tax in place and to transfer surplus labor to Siberia. At the same time, the eviction area was limited to the Pomor counties, free from landownership. The government did not dare to touch the interests of the landlords. True, at the same time, the government is somewhat expanding its program, proposing to call on the plowed peasants "from walking and all sorts of willing free people."9 Emigrants not from the Pomeranian districts, but fugitives from the areas of landownership could fall into this category of persons. Unauthorized resettlement to Siberia of the taxed and dependent population could not fail to attract the attention of the government and landowners. From the beginning of the 17th century cases are underway about the investigation of those who fled to Siberia, initiated by the petitions of the landowners. The government was forced to take a number of restrictive measures, including investigations and the return of fugitives.
In this matter, government policy throughout the 17th century. retains a dual character. Assigning the peasants to the landowner and tax in the central regions, the government was also interested in attaching the peasants to the developed tax in Siberia. That is why, despite a number of prohibitive decrees and high-profile detective cases, the Siberian voivodship administration turned a blind eye to the arrival of new settlers from Russia. Considering them "free", "walking" people, she willingly cast them into the sovereign's plowed peasants. This influx of fugitives into Siberia, fleeing from the growing feudal oppression in the center, replenished the Siberian villages and determined the nature of their population.
4 Ibid., p. 314.
5 Ibid., p. 417.
6 TsGADA, SP, book. 2, l. 426; V. I. Sh u n k o v. Essays on the history of the colonization of Siberia in the XVII- early XVIII in. M., 1946, pp. 174, 175.
7 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of the colonization of Siberia..., pp. 13, 14.
8 TsGADA, SP, book. 2, ll. 96, 97.
9 Ibid., f, Verkhotursky Uyezd Court, col. 42.
The overall result of the resettlement of peasants in Siberia by the end of the 17th century. turned out to be quite significant. According to the salary book of Siberia in 1697, there were over 11,400 peasant households with a population of more than 27 thousand males. ten
Having left their homes, often secretly, having traveled a long and difficult journey, most of the fugitives came to Siberia "in body and soul" and were unable to start a peasant economy on their own. The voivodship administration, wishing to organize the sovereign's plowing, was forced to come to their aid to some extent. This assistance was expressed in the issuance of assistance and loans. Help was irrevocable assistance, monetary or in kind, for the peasant to set up his own farm. A loan, also in cash or in kind, had the same purpose, but was subject to mandatory repayment. Therefore, when issuing a loan, a borrowed bondage was drawn up.
The exact amount of support and loans is difficult to establish; they varied by time and place. The more acute was the need for workers, the higher were the help and loans; the greater was the influx of immigrants, the less was the help and loan; sometimes no loans were made at all. In the 1930s, in Verkhotursk Uyezd, they gave 10 rubles for help (“what could a peasant do with a settler’s palace, plow arable land and start any kind of factory”). in money per person, and in addition, 5 quarters of rye, 1 quarter of barley, 4 quarters of oats, and a pood of salt. Sometimes in the same county, horses, cows, small livestock were given out to help. On the Lena in the 40s, assistance reached 20 and 30 rubles. money and 1 horse per person." The loan issued along with assistance was usually less, and sometimes equal to it.
Along with help and a loan, the new settler was provided with a benefit - exemption from carrying feudal duties for one period or another. Government instructions gave the local administration a wide opportunity to change the amount of assistance, loans and benefits: “... and give them a loan and help and benefits depending on the local business and on people and families with bail and trying on previous years.” Their sizes, obviously, were also put in connection with the size of the sovereign's tithe arable land imposed on the new settler, and the latter depended on the size and prosperity of the family. In the 17th century there is a tendency to a gradual decrease in assistance and loans, with the desire, under favorable conditions, to do without them altogether. This does not at all indicate the large amount of assistance provided at the beginning. The presence of numerous peasant petitions about the difficulty of returning a loan, a large number of cases about its collection and the fact of a significant shortfall in loan money by the order huts speak rather about the opposite. The fact is that the prices for the peasant "factory" (draft cattle, mine workers, etc.) were very high. In any case, help and loans made it possible for the newcomers to start organizing, first, a "sobin" economy, and then, after the expiration of grace years, to cultivate the sovereign's tithe field. 12
This is how sovereign villages arose in Siberia, inhabited by sovereign plowed peasants.
At the same time, the arrangement of peasant settlements proceeded in other ways. Siberian monasteries played a well-known role in this direction.
10 Ibid., joint venture, book. 1354, ll. 218-406; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 44, 70, 86, 109, 199, 201, 218.
11 P. N. Butsinsky. The settlement of Siberia and the life of its first inhabitants. Kharkov, 1889, p. 71.
12 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 344, part I, l. 187&e.; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of the colonization of Siberia.., pp. 22-29.
During the 17th century more than three dozen monasteries arose in Siberia. Despite the fact that they arose under conditions of a very restrained attitude of the government towards the growth of monastic land ownership, they all received land grants, land contributions from private individuals, in addition, monasteries bought land, and sometimes simply seized it. The most significant landowner of this type was the Tobolsk Sophia house, which began to receive land already in 1628. It was followed by thirty-five monasteries that arose throughout Siberia from Verkhoturye and Irbitskaya Sloboda to Yakutsk and Albazin. Unlike the Central Russian monasteries, they received uninhabited lands in their possession, “about with the right“ to call on peasants not from tax and not from arable land and not serfs. Taking advantage of this right, they launched activities to settle the newly arrived population on the monastic lands on conditions similar to those that were practiced during the arrangement of the sovereign's tithe arable land. As well as there, the monasteries gave help and loans and provided benefits. According to regular records, the newcomer was obliged for this to “not leave the monastery land” and cultivate the monastery’s arable land or bring quitrent to the monastery and make other monastery “products”. Essentially, it was about self-selling people into the monastery "fortress". Thus, a fugitive from Russia and Siberia on the monastic lands fell into the same conditions from which he left his former places. The results of the activities of Siberian monasteries in enslaving the alien population should be recognized as significant. By the beginning of the XVIII century. Siberian monasteries had 1082 peasant households. 13
Along with these two paths, the self-organization of the newcomer population on earth also went. Part of the settlers wandered around Siberia in search of work, subsisting on temporary work for hire. A certain number of people arrived in Siberia to work on the extraction of furs in the crafts organized by the Russian rich. Subsequently, we find them among the sovereign's peasants. This transition to arable farming took place either through official conversion to the peasantry and the allotment by the voivodship administration of a plot of land for "sobina" arable land with the determination of the amount of duties (sovereign tithe arable land or dues), or by seizing the land and arbitrarily cultivating it. In the latter case, during the next check, such a plowman still fell into the number of sovereign peasants and began to pay the corresponding feudal rent.
Thus, the main core of Siberian farmers was created. But the peasants were not alone in their agricultural pursuits. Acute shortage of bread in Siberia in the 17th century. encouraged other segments of the population to turn to arable farming. Along with the peasants, the land was plowed by servicemen and townspeople.
The Siberian serviceman, unlike the servicemen of European Russia, as a rule, did not receive land dachas. And this is quite understandable. Uninhabited and uncultivated land could not provide the service man with the existence and performance of his service. Therefore, here a service person was made up with a monetary and grain salary. Depending on his official position, he received an average of 10 to 40 quarters of grain supplies per year. Approximately half of this number was given out in oats with the expectation of feeding horses. If we consider the average composition of a family of 4 people, then (with a quarter of 4 pounds), one person had from 5 to 20 pounds of rye per year. Moreover, the main part of the service people - the rank and file, who received the lowest salaries - received 5 pounds a year per 1 eater. Even with the careful issuance of grain wages, the size of approx.
13 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 46, 47, 368-374.
lada poorly provided for the family's needs for bread. In practice, the issuance of grain salaries was carried out with significant delays and shortfalls. That is why a serviceman in Siberia often began to plow himself and, instead of a grain salary, preferred to receive a plot of land.
According to the Tobolsk category, by 1700, 22% of service people served not for a salary, but from arable land; in Tomsk uyezd at that time 40% of service people had arable land, etc. 14 Naturally, the conversion of service people to agriculture was restrained both by their main occupation and the place of service. A significant part served their service in areas unsuitable for agriculture. According to the list of Siberian cities at the beginning of the 18th century. 20% of every rank of paid people had their own plowing.
Engaged in farming and townspeople, if the places of its concentration were in the band accessible for this. So, even in Tobolsk, the area of which in the XVII century. was considered unsuitable for agriculture, in 1624 44.4% of the townspeople had arable land. In Tomsk by the beginning of the 18th century. almost the entire townspeople were engaged in agriculture, and in the Yenisei region, 30% of the townspeople had arable land. The townspeople, like the servicemen, raised arable land with their own means. fifteen
Thus, a significant part of the Russian population of Siberia in the XVII century. engaged in agriculture, and this made it possible even then to lay its solid foundations in Siberia. The activities of the settlers took place in harsh and new natural conditions for the Russian farmer and required a gigantic effort. Pushing back the Russian population in the 17th century. to the northern regions made these conditions even more difficult. The habitual ideas brought to Siberia collided with harsh reality, and often the newcomer suffered defeat in the struggle with nature. Dry notes of voivodship and clerk’s replies or peasant petitions, full of indications that “the bread was cold”, “there was a drought”, “the bread is cold from frost and stone”, “the earth does not grow sand and grass”, “the bread was washed with water” , 16 speak of tragedies, of the cruel blows inflicted by nature on the still fragile, just emerging economy. On this difficult path, the farmer showed great perseverance, sharpness, and ultimately emerged victorious.
The first step was the selection of places for arable land. With great care, the Russian plowman determined the soil, climatic, and other conditions. By the power of the voivodship huts, clerks and the peasants themselves - people who are “malicious” for such deeds - “good” lands were chosen, “the mother will look forward to bread.” And vice versa, unsuitable lands were rejected, “do not look for grain arable land, the land does not melt even in the middle of summer.” 17 Identified suitable lands were made inventories, and sometimes drawings. Already in the XVII century. the beginning of the description of territories suitable for agriculture was laid and the first attempts were made to map agricultural land. eighteen
If the "inspection" was carried out by the voivodship administration, then on its initiative the sovereign and "sobina" arable land was organized. The peasants themselves, having “inspected” the good land, turned to the voivodship huts with a request to allocate the identified suitable plots to them.
14 Ibid., pp. 50, 78.
15 Ibid., pp. 51, 76, 131. (Data on Tobolsk Posad agriculture provided by ON Vilkov).
16 Ibid., p. 264; V. N. Sherstoboev. Ilim arable land, vol. I. Irkutsk, 1949, pp. 338-341.
17 TsGADA, SP. stlb. 113, ll. 86-93.
18 Ibid., book. 1351, l. 68.
In addition to suitability for agriculture, the site had to have another condition - to be free. Russian aliens came to the territory, which has long been inhabited by the indigenous population. After the annexation of Siberia to Russia, the Russian government, declaring all the land sovereign, recognized the right of the local population to use this land. Interested in receiving yasak, it sought to preserve the aboriginal economy and the solvency of this economy. Therefore, the government pursued a policy of preserving their land for yasaks. The Russian people were ordered to settle "in empty places, and not to take away land from the yasak people." During the allotment of land, investigations were usually carried out, "whether that place is later and whether people are tributary." In most cases, the local yasak population - "local people" - was involved in such a "search". 19
AT Siberian conditions this requirement for a combination of land interests of the Russian and local population turned out to be generally feasible. Placement on the territory of more than 10 million square meters. km, in addition to 236 thousand people of the local population, an additional 11,400 peasant households could not cause serious difficulties. Undoubtedly, with a weak organization of land management, and sometimes in the complete absence of any organization of it, clashes of interests between the Russian and the indigenous population could occur, as they also occurred among the Russian population itself. However, these collisions did not define the overall picture. In general, land management was carried out at the expense of free land.
Such lands were usually searched for near rivers, streams, so that "it is possible to arrange ... mills," but also with the condition that "it does not drown with water." 20 Due to the fact that Siberian agriculture developed in the XVII century. in the forest or less often in the forest-steppe zone, they looked for clearings (elani) free from forest thickets in order to free themselves or at least reduce the need for laborious clearing of the forest for arable land. Small in composition in the 17th century. Siberian peasant families strove to avoid clearing forest areas, resorting to it only in exceptional cases.
After choosing a site, perhaps the most difficult period of its development began. At the first steps, there was often no knowledge and no confidence not only in the most profitable methods of farming, but also in its very possibility. Trial crops "for experience" were widely used. Both the voivodship administration and the peasants were engaged in this. Thus, in 1640, in the Ket uyezd, they sowed "a little for the experience." The experience turned out to be successful, the rye grew “good”. On this basis, they came to the conclusion: "... the arable land in the Ketsky prison can be large" 21 . The conclusion was overly optimistic. It was not possible to organize a large arable land in the Ket district, but the possibility of agriculture was proved. A successful experience served as an impetus for the development of agriculture in the area. So, the son of one of these "experimenters" said: ". . . my father, having arrived from Ilimsk, made an experiment in the Nerchinsk grain plowing and sowed bread. . . And according to that experience, bread was born in Nerchinsk, and in spite of that, the local inhabitants taught to plant arable land and sow bread. . . And before that, there was no bread in Nerchinsk and there was no plowing. 22 Sometimes experience gave negative results. So, experimental crops near the Yakut prison in the 40s of the XVII century. led to the conclusion that “in the spring the rain doesn’t live for a long time and the rye gives out by the wind”,
19 RIB, vol. II. SPb., 1875, doc. No. 47, DAI, vol. VIII, No. 51, IV; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of the colonization of Siberia .... p. 64.
20 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 91, ll. 80, 81, column. 113, l. 386.
21 Ibid., column. 113, l. 386.
22 Ibid., book. 1372. ll. 146-149.
and in autumn there are early frosts and the bread "frost hits". 23 An unsuccessful experiment organized by the governor led to the refusal to establish a sovereign tithe arable land in this place; the unsuccessful experience of a peasant could end in his complete ruin. The stingy notes - "... the peasants did not reap those chilled bread in their sobin fields, because there is no kernel at all" - concealed behind them the catastrophic situation of the peasant economy in the new place.
In the same experimental way, the question of the preferential suitability of one or another agricultural crop for a given area was resolved. Russian man naturally sought to transfer to new areas all the cultures he knew. In the 17th century winter and spring rye, oats, barley, wheat, peas, buckwheat, millet, and hemp appeared on Siberian fields. Cabbage, carrots, turnips, onions, garlic, cucumbers were grown from vegetable crops in vegetable gardens. At the same time, their distribution over the territory of Siberia and the ratio of sown areas occupied by different crops were determined. This placement did not take place immediately. It was the result of conscious and unconscious searches that the Russian population of Siberia was engaged in during the entire period under consideration. However, the placement was not final. Subsequent time has made significant adjustments to it. By the end of the XVII century. Siberia has become predominantly a rye country. Rye, oats and, in some places, barley were sown on the sovereign's fields in the western districts. Rye became the leading crop in both the Yenisei and Ilimsk districts, where, along with it, oats were sown in significant quantities and barley in insignificant quantities. In the Irkutsk, Udinsky and Nerchinsk counties, rye also took a monopoly position, and on the Lena it coexisted with oats and barley. On the "sobin" fields, in addition to rye, oats and barley, other crops were sown. 24
Together with the composition of crops, the Russian farmer brought to Siberia the methods of their cultivation. In the central regions of the country at that time, the fallow system of agriculture in the form of a three-field system dominated, while the shifting and slashing systems were preserved in some places. Slashing system in Siberia in the 17th century. has not been widely adopted. The fallow land was widely used, “and the Siberian arable people are throwing arable poor lands, and they will occupy new lands for arable land, where someone will search.” 25 With a wide distribution, the fall is still for the 17th century. was not the only system of agriculture. The gradual reduction in the area of free elan places and the difficulties of clearing led to the shortening of the fallow and the establishment of a fallow system, initially in the form of a two-field system. On the Ilim and Lena in the taiga-mountainous zone of Eastern Siberia, as V. N. Sherstoboev well showed, 26 a two-field system is established. Gradually, however, as complaints testify, as a result of the fact that most of the arable land was plowed up, there were no free “pleasant” places near the settlements, which stimulated the transition to a steam system in the form of a three-field. Undoubtedly, the economic tradition brought from Russia also acted in the same direction. On the sovereign and monastic fields of Western and Central Siberia for the 17th century. the presence of a three-field sometimes with manure of the earth is noted. It can also be noted for peasant fields. At the same time, the three-field system did not become the dominant system of agriculture. That is why, obviously, a Moscow man of the 17th century, observing Siberian agriculture, stated that in Siberia they plow "not against Russian custom." However, the desire to use this custom in Siberian conditions is also undoubted. 27
Along with field farming, backyard farming arose. In the estate "behind the yards" there were kitchen gardens, orchards and hemp growers. Kitchen gardens are mentioned not only in villages, but also in cities.
For cultivating the land, they used a plow with iron coulters. A wooden harrow was used for harrowing. From other agricultural implements, sickles, pink salmon scythes, and axes are constantly mentioned. A large part of this inventory was issued in order to help the newly appointed peasants or bought by them in the Siberian markets, where he came from Russia through Tobolsk. Long-distance delivery made this inventory expensive, which the Siberian population constantly complained about: “... in Tomsk and Yenisei, and in Kuznetsk, and in Krasnoyarsk prisons, one coulter will buy 40 altyns, and a scythe 20 altyns.”28 These difficulties were resolved. with the development of Russian crafts in Siberia.
The presence of working cattle was an indispensable condition for the existence of a peasant household. The issuance of assistance and loans included the issuance of funds for the purchase of horses, if they were not issued in kind. The supply of draft power to Russian agriculture was quite easy in those areas where it could rely on the horse breeding of the local population. They bought horses from the local population or from southern nomads who brought cattle for sale. The situation was more complicated in those regions where such conditions did not exist. In these cases, cattle were driven from afar and were expensive. In Yeniseisk, where horses were brought from Tomsk or Krasnoyarsk, the price of a horse reached in the 30s and 40s of the 17th century. up to 20 and 30 rubles. 29 Over time, a farmed horse began to cost the same as in European Russia, that is, in the same Yeniseisk at the end of the century, a horse was bought for 2 rubles. and cheaper. 30 Along with horses, cows and small livestock are mentioned. It is difficult to determine the saturation of the peasant household with cattle in the 17th century. But already in the middle of the century, one-horse peasants were considered "young" peasants, that is, poor. Peasants who had at least 4 horses were referred to as "groovy", "subsistence". 31 Plots for mowing were assigned or seized. If arable land and mowing were assigned, as a rule, to the peasant household, then areas for pastures were usually assigned to the village as a whole. In the presence of large free land areas, arable fields and mowing were fenced, while livestock grazed freely.
Siberian villages varied in size. In the Verkhotursko-Tobolsk region, where the main arrays of tithe arable lands were concentrated and where peasant settlements arose earlier than in other regions, already in the 17th century. there are villages with a significant number of households. Some of them turned into agricultural centers (settlements). They were inhabited by shop assistants who watched the work of the peasants in the sovereign's fields, and there were sovereign barns for grain storage. Around them were located small-yard villages that gravitated towards them. The number of such villages was large, especially in the more eastern and later settled areas. In the Yenisei district in the late 80s of the XVII century. almost 30% of all villages were odnodvorki, and in the Ilimsk district in 1700 there were almost 40%. Two- and three-door villages were in Yeni-
23 Ibid., column. 274, ll. 188-191; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 271-274.
24 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 274, 282.
25 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 1873.
26 V. N. Sherstoboev. Ilim arable land, vol. I, pp. 307-309.
27 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 289-294.
28 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 1673, l. 21 et seq.; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, p. 296.
29 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 112, l. 59.
30 Ibid., book. 103, l. 375 et seq.; l.407 et seq.
31 Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, p. 298.
seisky uyezd - 37%, and in Ilimsky uyezd - 39%. 32 And although in the course of the century there has been a tendency for the Siberian village to grow, which will later manifest itself in the appearance of large villages, it is being carried out slowly. It was difficult to wrest large areas of suitable land from the harsh nature in the wooded and mountain taiga zone. Therefore, one-door and two-door villages scattered over small spruces. The same circumstance gave rise to the so-called "farming fields". The newly found convenient plots of land were sometimes located far from the peasant household, where they only “ran over” for field work. Over the course of a century, the average size of the land cultivated by the peasant household showed a downward trend: at the beginning of the century they reached 5-7 acres, and by its end in different counties they fluctuated from 1.5 to 3 acres per field. 33 This fall must be connected with the weight of the feudal oppression that fell on the shoulders of the Siberian peasant. Having successfully coped with the harsh nature during the years of benefits, assistance and loans, he then retreated before the burden of working tithe arable land and other duties.
Concrete results of the agricultural labor of the Russian population in the 17th-early 18th centuries. affected in a number of ways.
Cultivated arable land appeared almost throughout Siberia from west to east. If at the end of the XVI century. the Russian peasant began to plow in the very west of Siberia (the western tributaries of the Ob River), then in the middle of the 17th century. and its second half, Russian arable land was on the Lena and Amur, and at the beginning of the 18th century. - in Kamchatka. In one century, the Russian plow plowed a furrow from the Urals to Kamchatka. Naturally, this furrow ran along the main path of Russian advancement from west to east along the famous waterway that connected the great Siberian rivers: the Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Amur (along the Tura, Tobol, Ob, Keti, Yenisei with branches along the Ilim to the Lena and south to the Amur). It was on this path that the main agricultural centers of Siberia in the 17th century were formed.
The most significant of them and the oldest was the Verkhotursko-Tobolsk region, in which the bulk of the agricultural population settled. Within 4 districts of this region (Verkhotursky, Tyumen, Turin and Tobolsk) at the beginning of the 18th century. there were 75% of all Siberian peasant householders living in 80 settlements and hundreds of villages. 34 In this area, perhaps earlier than anywhere else, we are witnessing the departure of the peasant population from the main transport line in an effort to settle in "pleasing plowed places." By the beginning of the XVIII century. agricultural settlements that stretched earlier along the river. Ture (the waterway that connected Verkhoturye through Tobol with Tobolsk), go south. Already in the first decades of the XVII century. begin to plow along the river. Nice, then along the rivers Pyshma, Iset, Mias. Villages spread to the south along Tobol, Vagay, Ishim. This movement is going on despite the unstable situation on the southern borders. The raids of "military people", theft of cattle, the burning of bread cannot stop the advance of arable land to the south and only force the farmer to attach weapons to the plow and spit. This clearly shows the tendency to transform agriculture from a phenomenon that accompanies the movement of the population into an independent stimulus for migration.
At the end of the century, 5,742 peasant households were cultivating about 15,000 acres in one field in the Verkhotursko-Tobolsk region (of which more than 12,600 acres of "sobina" plowing and more than 2,300 acres of the sovereign's dessiatin arable land). The total plowing in the region (peasants, townspeople and service people) was about 27,000 acres in one field.
32 Ibid., pp. 103-105; V. N. Sherstoboev. Ilim arable land, vol. I, p. 36.
33 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 413-415.
34 Ibid., p. 36.
It is very difficult, even approximately, to determine the amount of bread coming from these tithes. Poor knowledge about the productivity of Siberian fields in the 17th century. (by the way, very hesitant) deprive us of the opportunity to produce accurate calculations. One can only assume that the gross harvest in the region exceeded 300 thousand four-pood quarters. 35 This amount was enough to meet the needs of the entire population of the region in bread and allocate the surplus to supply other territories. It is no coincidence that a foreign traveler passing through this area at the end of the century noted with surprise both the large number of inhabitants, and the fertile, well-cultivated soils, and the presence of a large amount of bread. 36 And the local resident had the right to say that here "the land is grain-growing, vegetables and cattle." 37
The second time of formation was the Tomsk-Kuznetsk agricultural region. The first arable lands appeared immediately after the foundation of the city of Tomsk in 1604. The area was located south of the waterway that went along the Ob and Keti to the Yenisei, so the main flow of the population went by. This, obviously, explains the rather modest growth of the agricultural population and arable land here. A few agricultural settlements are located along the river. Tom and partly Ob, not retreating far from the city of Tomsk. Only a small group of villages was formed in the upper reaches of the Tom, in the region of the city of Kuznetsk. In total, at the beginning of the XVIII century. in the region (Tomsk and Kuznetsk districts) there were 644 peasant families. The total plowing at that time reached 4,600 acres in one field, and the total grain harvest was hardly more than 51,000 four-pood quarters. Nevertheless, Tomsk district by the end of the 17th century. made do with his own bread; Kuznetsky remained the consuming county. The shift of agriculture to the south, to Kuznetsk, here did not mean a desire to cultivate fertile lands, but only accompanied the advancement of the military service population, without providing for its grain needs.
Significantly greater were the successes of agriculture in the Yenisei agricultural region. Located on the main Siberian highway, it quickly turned into the second most important area for arable farming. The bulk of the settlements arose along the Yenisei from Yeniseisk to Krasnoyarsk and along the Upper Tunguska, Angara and Ilim. By the beginning of the XVIII century. there were 1918 peasant households with a population of approximately 5730 male souls. The total peasant and townsman plowing in the region was at least 7,500 acres in one field. The gross grain harvest was more than 90,000 four-pood quarters. 38 This made it possible to feed the population and allocate part of the bread for shipment outside the region. In grainless or small-grain counties - Mangazeya, Yakutsk, Nerchinsk - along with the bread of the "riding" Siberian cities (Verkhoturye, Turinsk, Tyumen, Tobolsk), Yenisei bread also went. Nikolai Spafariy wrote at the end of the century: “The Yenisei country is very good. . . And God gave all kinds of abundance, much and cheap bread, and all sorts of other crowds. 39
In the 17th century the foundation was laid for the creation of the two most eastern agricultural regions of Siberia: Lensky and Amur. By the 30-40s of the XVII century. include the first attempts to start arable land in the "sable land" - the Lena basin. Agricultural villages are located along the Lena from the upper reaches (Birulskaya and Banzyurskaya settlements) and to Yakutsk; most of them were located south of the Kirensky prison. It was this region that became the grain base of the huge Yakutsk Voivodeship. Izbrand Ides reported: “Neighbourhood. . . where is the Lena river. . . originates, and the country, irrigated by the small river Kirenga, abounds in grain. The entire Yakutsk province feeds on it every year.” 40 There is an element of exaggeration in this statement. There is no doubt that bread from the upper reaches of the Lena came to Yakutsk and further north, but this bread did not satisfy the needs of the population. Throughout the 17th century, as well as later, bread was imported to the Yakutsk Voivodeship from the Yenisei and Verkhotursko-Tobolsk regions. But the significance of the creation of the Lena agricultural region is by no means determined by the size of the arable land and the size of the grain harvest. Plowed fields appeared in the region, which had not known agriculture even in its primary forms before. Neither the Yakut nor the Evenk population was engaged in agriculture. The Russian people for the first time raised the land here and made a revolution in the use of the natural resources of the region. 40-50 years after the appearance of the first Russian arable land in distant Western Siberia on the river. Ture cornfields on the Lena. The Russians sowed not only in the more favorable conditions of the upper reaches of the Lena, but also in the Yakutsk region and in the middle reaches of the Amga. Here, as in the area of Zavarukhinskaya and Dubchesskaya settlements on the Yenisei, as on the Ob in the region of Narym, Tobolsk, Pelym, the foundations of agriculture were laid, north of 60 ° north latitude.
Russian farmers came to the Amur after the collapse of pre-Russian Dauro-Ducher agriculture. Farming was to be revived here. Already in the XVII century. its first centers were created. The movement of agriculture here went from Yeniseisk through Baikal, Transbaikalia and to the Amur. Arable lands arose near the prisons on the way Irkutsk - the upper reaches of the Amur. Perhaps the most striking moment was the success of Russian agriculture associated with Albazin. Having arisen not by government decree, Albazin contributed to the development of Russian agriculture in the form of "sob" plows. The "sob" arable land was followed by the organization of the sovereign's acres. From Albazin, agriculture moved further east, reaching the area where the Zeya flows into the Amur. Agricultural settlements were by no means limited to arable land under the walls of prisons. Small "towns", villages and settlements were scattered along the rivers, sometimes at a very distant distance from the walls of fortified places. Such are the settlements of Arunginskaya, Udinskaya, Kuenskaya and Amurskaya, as well as the villages of Panova, Andryushkina, Ignashina, Ozernaya, Pogadaeva, Pokrovskaya, Ilyinskaya, Shingalova along the Amur, etc. Thus, in the second half of the 17th century. the beginning of a strong tradition of Russian agriculture on the Amur was laid, linking the work on the development of this territory in the 17th century. with Amur agriculture late XIX and the beginning of the 20th century. The resettlement wave reached this remote region, having already significantly weakened, so the quantitative results of agriculture in comparison with the Verkhotursko-Tobolsk and Yenisei regions were small. Nevertheless, the idea that there are "a lot of plowed places" in the given area, that these places are "similar to the best Russian lands", fills all descriptions of the area.
The desire to develop more fully and wider these places, where the land is "black hundred in the human belt", in addition to remoteness from the vital centers of the country, was also hampered by the complexity of the political situation. Both the Russian farmer and the native inhabitant of the Amur suffered from this difficulty. Alien military people “take out sables from Russian people and yasash foreigners and sacks and take meat and beef lard and flour from the storehouses, and beat their de Russian people and yasash foreigners.” The resistance of the small population of villages and zaimok to alien military people could not be significant, although the farmer was stubborn in his attachment to the arable land he cultivated. More than once after the next attack, when “everyone was ruined without a trace, and the houses and the peasant factory were robbed and every structure was burned”, when people “ran away through the forests only in soul and body”, 41 the population again returned to their burnt and trampled fields, again plowed land and sowed grain in it. And yet these events could not but delay the agricultural development of the region. The terms of the Nerchinsk Treaty did not destroy Russian agriculture of the entire region as a whole, and even of its most eastern part (the Amurskaya Sloboda was preserved), nevertheless they delayed for a long time the development that began in the 17th century. land clearing process. 42
Thus, Russian agriculture in the XVII century. took over a huge area. Its northern border ran north of the Pelym (Garinskaya settlement), crossed the Irtysh below the confluence of the Tobol (Bronnikovsky churchyard), passed through the Ob in the Narym region and then retreated to the north, crossing the Yenisei at the confluence of the Podkamennaya Tunguska (Zavarukhinsky village), left to the upper reaches of the Lower Tunguska (Chechuy villages), went along the Lena to Yakutsk and ended on the river. Amge (Amga villages). In the first half of the XVIII century. this northern border of Russian agriculture went to Kamchatka. The southern border began on the middle reaches of the river. The Mias (Chumlyatskaya settlement), crossed the Tobol to the south of the modern Kurgan (Utyatskaya settlement), through the upper reaches of the Vagai (Ust-Laminskaya settlement) went to the Irtysh near the city of Tara, crossed the Ob south of the Tom and went to the upper reaches of the Tom (Kuznetsk villages). The southern border of the Yenisei crossed in the region of Krasnoyarsk, and then went to the upper reaches of the river. Oka and Baikal. Beyond Baikal, at Selenginsk, she crossed the Selenga, went to. Udu and then to the Amur until the Zeya flows into it.
And although within these limits there were only five rather scattered agricultural centers, within which small-yard or one-door villages were located at considerable distances from each other, the main task of grain supply was resolved. Siberia began to make do with its own grain, refusing to import it from European Russia. In 1685, the obligation to supply sosh stocks to Siberia was removed from the Pomeranian cities. All that remained was the task of redistributing grain within Siberia between producing and consuming regions.
Siberian bread becomes a subject of consumption for the local population, though in the 17th century. still in small quantities. This circumstance, together with the first still isolated attempts to turn to agriculture according to Russian custom, testified to the beginning of major changes that were outlined in the life of the indigenous peoples of Siberia under the influence of the labor activity of Russian settlers. It is important to note that the appeal to the agricultural activities of the aboriginal population went through the creation of their own farms of the peasant type. We do not observe the involvement of indigenous people in the cultivation of fields in Russian farms. Siberia did not know agricultural plantations with forced labor of the indigenous population. On the sovereign's tithe arable lands and large plowlands of Siberian monasteries, he acted as a forced laborer
35 Ibid., pp. 45, 54, 56.
36 Relation du voyage de Mr. I. Isbrand. . . par le Sieur Adam Brand. Ui. Ill, IV. Amsterdam, MDCXCIX.
37 PO GPB, Hermitage Collection, No. 237, fol. 12.
38 3. Ya. Boyarshinova. The population of the Tomsk district in the first half of the 11th century. Tr. Tomsk, state univ., v. 112, ser. historical-philological, p. 135; V. I. Sh u n k o v. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 73, 81, 86, 88, 109, 145, 152, 158.
39 N Spafariy Travel through Siberia from Tobolsk to Nerchinsk and the borders of China by the Russian envoy Nikolai Spafariy in 1675. Zap. Russian Geographical Society, dep. ethnogr., vol. X, no. 1, St. Petersburg, 1882, p. 186.
40 M. P. Alekseev. Siberia in the news of Western European travelers and writers. XIII-XVII centuries 2nd ed., Irkutsk, 1941, p. 530.
41 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 974, part II, l. 129.
42 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 203-206.
the same Russian immigrant. It was his hands, his labor, and then Siberia turned into a grain-growing region.
Along with the occupation of agriculture, the Russian population invested their labor in the development of the fur and fisheries that existed in Siberia from time immemorial. Chronologically, these occupations in all likelihood preceded agricultural occupations and dated back to the times when Russian industrialists occasionally appeared on the territory of Siberia before it was annexed to the Russian state. After the accession, when the feudal state itself organized the removal of furs from Siberia by collecting yasak, and the Russian merchants received furs by buying them up, the direct extraction of furs and fish by the Russian population also unfolded. In agricultural areas, this activity was subsidiary. In the northern regions, in the strip of taiga, forest-tundra and tundra, special enterprises were created for the extraction of furs. The development of Russian crafts became a matter of private initiative of various segments of the population, since the feudal state took a restrained position in this matter for fear of weakening the tax capacity of the local hunting population.
Real wealth and legendary stories about the abundance of Siberian forests with fur-bearing animals High Quality(“the wool of a living sable drags along the ground”) attracted the commercial population of the already “industrialized” largely European north to new areas. Initially, the entire forest Siberia was such an area. Then, due to the settlement of the Russian population in the area accessible for agriculture, the number of fur-bearing animals in these parts decreased. The development of agricultural settlements and fur trades did not get along well, since "every beast runs out from a knock and from fire and smoke." Therefore, over time, the commercial population moved to the northern non-agricultural zone. In the first half of the XVII century. Hundreds of fishermen annually went to the lower reaches of the Ob and Yenisei, later they began to go to the lower reaches of the Lena and further to the east. Some of them lingered in these areas for many years, some remained in Siberia forever, sometimes continuing their crafts, sometimes changing them to other jobs. This population usually settled temporarily in the northern Siberian prisons, turning them periodically into fairly crowded fishing centers. The most striking example was the "gold-boiling" Mangazeya, in which in the middle of the 17th century. more than one thousand Russian people accumulated: "... there were many commercial and industrial people in Mangazeya, 1000 people and two or more." 43 A large number of fishermen also passed through Yakutsk. So, in 1642, the Yakut customs hut released 839 people to sable trades. V. A. Alexandrov 44 has in the 30-40s of the XVII century. in one Mangazeya county there were up to 700 people of the adult male permanent population, who were mainly engaged in crafts.
The fishing population went to Siberia from Pomorye, with which these areas were connected by an ancient waterway from Russia to the Trans-Urals, known as the Pechora, or through the stone, route: from Ustyug to Pechora, from Pechora to the Ob and then along the Ob and Taz Bays to Taz and further east. It brought with it its fishing skills. Sable hunting was carried out according to the "Russian custom" - with the help of sacks (traps) or dogs and nets (nets). The indigenous population hunted with a bow. V. D. Poyarkov speaks about this, describing the hunting of the indigenous population of the Amur: “. . . are mined. . . de those dogs as well as other Siberian and
43 S. V. Bakhrushin. Mangazeya lay community in the 17th century. Scientific works, vol. III, part 1, M., 1955, p. 298.
44 V. A. Alexandrov. Russian population of Siberia in the 17th-early 18th centuries. M., 1946. p. 218.
Lena foreigners shoot from bows, but they don’t get sables from other fishing, as the Russian people do, from the fence and with the culm-picker. 45 Kulem hunting was considered the most productive.
Even S. V. Bakhrushin noted that the social composition of the newcomer and Siberian fishing population was divided into 2 groups. 46 Its main mass was formed from fishermen, over whom there were a few, but economically stronger merchants. Both of them went to Siberia on their own initiative in the hope of finding success in fishing, the first - through personal labor, the second - by investing capital in fishing enterprises. Some chose to fish at their own peril and risk alone. Despite all the riskiness of this method, some people found luck and remained a lone fisherman for a long time. These, obviously, should include the Russian man P. Koptyakov, who hunted on the Lozva River, acquired his own "ways" and eventually turned into yasak people. The numerically small category of Russian yasak people, noted by documents of the 17th century, was obviously formed from such lone fishers.
More often, crafts were organized on an artel basis. Several fishermen were united (“folded”) into one artel on a common basis, followed by a division of the booty. S. V. Bakhrushin described in detail the fishing enterprises organized by the capitalists, Russian merchants, who invested significant funds in them and hired unsecured ordinary fishers. The entrepreneur supplied the hired person (poruchik) with food, clothing and footwear, hunting equipment ("industrial plant"), vehicles. In return, the swindler, "spinning" for a certain period, was obliged to give the entrepreneur a large part of the production (usually 2/z), to perform all the necessary work. For a while, the swindler became a bonded person. He did not have the right to leave the owner before the expiration of the rotation period and was obliged to fulfill all the instructions of the owner or his clerk - what “the owners are told to do and he de listens to them.” According to the testimony of the pokuruchikov themselves, "their de business is involuntary." 47 The gangs of swindlers, depending on the funds of the entrepreneur, were quite significant. Groups of 15, 20, 30 and 40 people are known.
Unfortunately, according to the state of the sources, it is not possible to find out the total number of fishermen operating in Siberia in a particular year of the 17th century. In any case, the number of fishermen was significantly less than the number of other categories of the Russian population, primarily service people, peasants and townspeople. The predominance of the number of fishers over the number of service people, noted for Mangazeya, was an exceptional phenomenon and did not reflect general position in Siberia as a whole.
V. A. Alexandrov, on the basis of careful comparisons, comes to a reasonable conclusion that the yasak collection in the heyday of the fur trade was many times inferior to the total booty of Russian hunters. According to him, in the Mangazeya district in 1640-1641. 1028 magpies of sables were revealed by fishermen, 282 magpies came to the treasury. Moreover, of the latter, only 119 forty came from yasak, and 163 forty - as a tithe duty taken from fishermen in the order of fishing.
45 AIM, vol. III, no. 12, pp. 50-57; TsGADA, f. Yakut order hut, column. 43, ll. 355-362.
46 S. V. Bakhrushin. Mangazeya lay community in the 17th century, p. 300.
47 S. V. Bakhrushin. Pokrut in the sable trades of the 17th century. Scientific works, vol. III, part 1, M., 1955, pp. 198-212.
left tax and taxation of the sale of furs. Thus, during these years, yasak amounted to no more than 10% of the total export of furs from the county. Similar figures are given for 1641-1642, 1639-1640 and other years. The situation changed somewhat in the second half of the century due to the decline of the fisheries. 48
The main organizers of the fishing enterprises were the largest Russian merchants - guests, members of the living hundred. On the basis of these enterprises grew the largest for the XVII century. capitals (the Revyakins, the Bosykhs, the Fedotovs, the Guselnikovs, and others). The owners of these capitals remained in European Russia. In Siberia itself, small fishing people lingered. Even in successful years, the main part of the production went into the hands of the organizers of the fisheries, while only an insignificant part fell into the hands of individual swindlers. In the “bad” years, in the years of fishing failures, the sleuth, who did not have reserves and worked from a small share, fell into a difficult, sometimes tragic situation. Not being able to go back to European Russia, not to get by before the organization of a new gang, he wandered "between the yard" and lived "for hire" on seasonal agricultural work, eventually falling into the ranks of Siberian peasants or townspeople and service people.
Another consequence of the activity of Russian fishing entrepreneurs was the sharp "industry" of one fishing area after another. Already in the first half of the XVII century. sable began to disappear in Western Siberia, by the 70s there was a sharp drop in sable trades on the Yenisei, later the same phenomenon was observed on the Lena. The sharp drop in sable stocks took on such a threatening character that the government already in the 17th century. began to take measures to limit the hunting of him. In 1684, a decree was issued prohibiting sable hunting in the counties of the Yenisei category and Yakutia. In Siberia, a picture was clearly manifested, typical of a number of other countries. The accumulation of capital in one place led to the depletion of natural resources in another, due to the predatory exploitation of the wealth of which this accumulation took place. It should only be noted that in the fur trade, as in agriculture, the exploited by the direct hunter was not a native, but the same Russian alien - a swindler. However, the hunting economy of the indigenous population of these places certainly suffered from a decrease in sable stocks. The situation was mitigated by the fact that other types of fur-bearing animals, less valuable from the point of view of the Russian people and the demands of the European market, were not exterminated. The ratio of the territory of fishing grounds and the size of the fishing population (indigenous and Russian) was still such that it provided prey for both. This, obviously, must be seen as the reason for the fact that both in the area of the fishing activity of the Russian population and in the areas of agricultural centers, there is, as a rule, an increase in the number of the indigenous population, with the exception of fluctuations caused by extraordinary phenomena (epidemics, migrations, etc.). ). In this regard, the calculations of B. O. Dolgikh, in particular, for the Mangazeya district, are interesting. 49
The fishing industry was somewhat different. The length of large and small Siberian rivers is grandiose. The richness of these rivers in fish was noted by the Russian people at the first acquaintance with Siberia. Fishing existed before, being the main branch of the economy for a part of the indigenous population. It was also widely distributed on the immediate approaches to Siberia. At the beginning of the northern Pechora
48 V. A. Alexandrov. Russian population of Siberia in the 17th-early 18th centuries, pp. 217-241.
49 B. O. Dolgikh. Tribal and tribal composition of the peoples of Siberia in the 17th century, pp. 119-182.
There were "fish traps" along the way. Here the gangs that went beyond the Urals stocked up with dried and salted fish. The inhabitants of the European north, who were engaged in fishing in their homeland, went through these places and carried with them not only fish stocks, but also labor skills. The absence of grain in Siberia in the first years of its development, and the presence of vast regions without grain later, made fish an important food product. Fishing developed throughout Siberia, but especially in grainless areas. The presence of ton, ezovishch and stabs is noted everywhere. They were owned by peasants, townspeople and service people, monasteries. True, they are rarely found in acts formalizing the right of ownership. Sometimes they are meant by other terms. So, in donations to Siberian monasteries, lakes, rivers, and lands are mentioned - undoubted places for fishing. Occasionally there are also direct instructions. For example, in the office work of the Verkhoturskaya Prikaznaya Hut for the period from 1668 to 1701, a number of land transactions were noted, covering 31 objects. Among them, along with arable land, hay meadows, animal lands, fishing is also mentioned. The paucity of such references obviously indicates that the assignment of fishing places to individuals in the 17th century. has not received distribution. In all likelihood, those fishing places were assigned to individuals or villages where human labor was invested (ezovishcha, slaughter).
Fish were caught "for their own use" and for sale. In the first case, always, and often in the second case, fishing for a Russian person was an additional occupation. Sometimes, due to specific conditions, it became the main or only means of subsistence. This was due to the high demand for fish. The accumulation of a significant number of industrial people going to fisheries sharply increased the demand for dried and salted fish, which was an important source of food for the industrialists themselves and the only food for their dogs. For this reason, there was a large catch of fish near Tobolsk, in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, in the middle reaches of the Yenisei and in other places. According to V.A. Alexandrov, in 1631, 3,200 pounds of salted fish and 871 yukola pregnancies were found in the Mangazeya customs; in the same year, more than 5,000 poods of fish and 1,106 yukola pregnancies were registered in the Turukhansk winter hut. Fishing was done by peasants, townspeople and industrial people. Some part of industrial people steadily from year to year flew in fisheries. fifty
The organization of the fish industry resembled that of the hunting industry, with the difference, however, that in the fish industry loners were more frequent. Sometimes fishermen united in small groups on shares, acquiring karbas and nets together. Sources also note significant fishing expeditions organized by capitalist people who hired pranksters. As in the sable trades, the twist in the fishery turned the hired person into a dependent person, obliged to his master "to disobey nothing."
The fishing gear was a seine (“seine saddles”, “nonsense”), sometimes of very large sizes - up to 100 or more fathoms, nets and pushers. The mention of the existence of special firewoods of local origin indicates that usually fishing gear was made "according to Russian custom."
Thus, the development of the Russian fishery has provided a serious additional food base, which is of particular importance in the northern grainless regions. Unlike fur trade, fishing
50 V. A. Alexandrov. Russian population of Siberia in the 17th-early 18th centuries, p. 222.
fishing did not lead to the XVII century. to the depletion of fish stocks. Complaints about the disappearance of fish have not reached us. Russian fishing did not pose a threat to the long-standing fisheries of the local population. Like hunting, he brought to Siberia some elements of the new, previously unknown to the indigenous population. The main labor force in it was also a forced Russian man.
More than 125 nationalities live today, of which 26 are indigenous peoples. The largest in terms of population among these small peoples are the Khanty, Nenets, Mansi, Siberian Tatars, Shors, Altaians. The Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees every small people the inalienable right of self-identification and self-determination.
The Khants are called the indigenous, small Ugric West Siberian people living along the lower reaches of the Irtysh and Ob. Their total number is 30,943 people, with most of them 61% living in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, and 30% in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The Khanty are engaged in fishing, reindeer herding and taiga hunting.
The ancient names of the Khanty "Ostyaks" or "Ugras" are widely used today. The word "Khanty" comes from the ancient local word "Kantakh", which simply means "man", in documents it appeared in Soviet years. The Khanty are ethnographically close to the Mansi people, and are often united with them under the single name of the Ob Ugrians.
The Khanty are heterogeneous in their composition, among them there are separate ethnographic territorial groups that differ in dialects and names, ways of managing the economy and original culture - Kazym, Vasyugan, Salym Khanty. The Khanty language belongs to the Ob-Ugric languages of the Ural group, it is divided into many territorial dialects.
Since 1937, the modern writing of the Khanty has been developing on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet. Today, 38.5% of the Khanty speak Russian fluently. The Khanty adhere to the religion of their ancestors - shamanism, but many of them consider themselves Orthodox Christians.
Externally, the Khanty have a height of 150 to 160 cm with black straight hair, a swarthy face and brown eyes. Their face is flat with widely protruding cheekbones, a wide nose and thick lips, reminiscent of a Mongoloid. But the Khanty, unlike the Mongoloid peoples, have a regular eye slit and a narrower skull.
In historical chronicles, the first mentions of the Khanty appear in the 10th century. Modern studies have shown that the Khanty lived in this area as early as 5-6 thousand years BC. Later they were seriously pushed northward by the nomads.
The Khanty inherited numerous traditions of the Ust-Polui culture of taiga hunters, which developed at the end of the 1st millennium BC. - the beginning of the 1st millennium AD In the II millennium AD. the northern tribes of the Khanty were influenced by the Nenets reindeer herders and assimilated with them. In the south, the Khanty tribes felt the influence of the Turkic peoples, later Russians.
The traditional cults of the Khanty people include the cult of a deer, it was he who became the basis of the whole life of the people, a vehicle, a source of food and skins. It is with the deer that the worldview and many norms of the life of the people (inheritance of the herd) are connected.
The Khanty live in the north of the plain along the lower reaches of the Ob in nomadic temporary camps with temporary reindeer herding dwellings. To the south, on the banks of the Northern Sosva, Lozva, Vogulka, Kazym, Nizhnyaya, they have winter settlements and summer camps.
Khanty have long worshiped the elements and spirits of nature: fire, sun, moon, wind, water. Each of the clans has a totem, an animal that cannot be killed and used for food, deities of the family and patron ancestors. Everywhere the Khanty revere the bear, the owner of the taiga, they even hold a traditional holiday in his honor. The revered patroness of the hearth, happiness in the family and women in childbirth is the frog. There are always sacred places in the taiga where shamanic rites are held, appeasing their patron.
Mansi (the old name for the Voguls, Vogulichi), whose number is 12,269 people, mostly live in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. This very numerous people has been known to Russians since the discovery of Siberia. Even the sovereign Ivan IV the Terrible ordered to send archers to pacify the numerous and powerful Mansi.
The word "Mansi" comes from the ancient Ugric word "mansz", meaning "man, person." The Mansi have their own language, belonging to the Ob-Ugric isolated group of the Ural language family and a fairly developed national epic. The Mansi are close linguistic relatives of the Khanty. Today, up to 60% are used in Everyday life Russian language.
The Mansi successfully combine the cultures of northern hunters and southern nomadic herders in their social life. Novgorodians were in contact with the Mansi as early as the 11th century. With the advent of the Russians in the 16th century, part of the Vogul tribes went north, others lived next to the Russians and assimilated with them, adopting the language and the Orthodox faith.
Mansi beliefs are the worship of the elements and spirits of nature - shamanism, they have a cult of elders and ancestors, a totem bear. Mansi have the richest folklore and mythology. The Mansi are divided into two separate ethnographic groups of the descendants of the Por Urals and the descendants of the Mos Ugrians, which differ in origin and customs. In order to enrich the genetic material, marriages have long been concluded only between these groups.
Mansi are engaged in taiga hunting, deer breeding, fishing, farming and cattle breeding. Reindeer husbandry on the banks of the Northern Sosva and Lozva was adopted from the Khanty. To the south, with the arrival of the Russians, agriculture, breeding of horses, cattle and small cattle, pigs and poultry was adopted.
In everyday life and original creativity of the Mansi, ornaments similar in motifs to the drawings of the Selkups and Khanty are of particular importance. Mansi ornaments are clearly dominated by correct geometric patterns. Often with elements of deer antlers, rhombuses and wavy lines, similar to the Greek meander and zigzags, images of eagles and bears.
Nenets, in the old way Yuraks or Samoyeds, in total 44,640 people live in the north of the Khanty-Mansiysk and, accordingly, the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous regions. The self-name of the Samoyedic people "Nenets" literally means "man, person." Of the northern indigenous peoples, they are the most numerous.
The Nenets are engaged in large-scale nomadic reindeer husbandry in. In Yamal, the Nenets keep up to 500,000 deer. The traditional dwelling of the Nenets is a conical tent. Up to one and a half thousand Nenets living south of the tundra on the Pur and Taz rivers are considered forest Nenets. In addition to reindeer herding, they are actively engaged in tundra and taiga hunting and fishing, collecting gifts from the taiga. The Nenets feed on rye bread, venison, sea animal meat, fish, and gifts from the taiga and tundra.
The language of the Nenets belongs to the Ural Samoyedic languages, it is divided into two dialects - tundra and forest, they, in turn, are divided into dialects. The Nenets people have the richest folklore, legends, fairy tales, epic stories. In 1937, linguists created a script for the Nenets based on the Cyrillic alphabet. Ethnographers describe the Nenets as stocky people with a large head, a flat earthy face, devoid of any vegetation.
The territory of residence of the Turkic-speaking indigenous people of the Altaians became. They live in an amount of up to 71 thousand people, which allows us to consider them a large people, in the Altai Republic, partly in the Altai Territory. Among the Altaians, there are separate ethnic groups of Kumandins (2892 people), Telengits or Teleses (3712 people), Tubalars (1965 people), Teleuts (2643 people), Chelkans (1181 people).
Since ancient times, the Altaians have worshiped the spirits and elements of nature; they adhere to traditional shamanism, Burkhanism and Buddhism. They live in clans of seoks, kinship is considered through the male line. The Altaians have a centuries-old rich history and folklore, tales and legends, their own heroic epic.
The Shors are a small Turkic-speaking people, mainly living in remote mountainous regions of Kuzbass. The total number of Shors today is up to 14 thousand people. The Shors have long worshiped the spirits of nature and the elements; their main religion has become centuries-old shamanism.
The ethnos of the Shors was formed in the 6th-9th centuries by mixing the Ket-speaking and Turkic-speaking tribes who came from the south. The Shor language belongs to the Turkic languages, today more than 60% of the Shor people speak Russian. The epic of the Shors is ancient and very original. The traditions of the indigenous Shors are well preserved today in, most of the Shors now live in cities.
In the Middle Ages, it was the Siberian Tatars that were the main population of the Siberian Khanate. Now the sub-ethnos of the Siberian Tatars, as they call themselves "Seber Tatarlar", according to various estimates, from 190 thousand to 210 thousand people live in the south of Western Siberia. According to the anthropological type, the Tatars of Siberia are close to the Kazakhs and Bashkirs. Chulyms, Shors, Khakasses, and Teleuts can call themselves "Tadar" today.
Scientists believe that the ancestors of the Siberian Tatars are the medieval Kipchaks, who for a long time had contact with the Samoyeds, the Kets, and the Ugric peoples. The process of development and mixing of peoples took place in the south of Western Siberia from the 6th-4th millennium BC. before the emergence of the Tyumen kingdom in the 14th century, and later with the emergence of the powerful Siberian Khanate in the 16th century.
For the most part, Siberian Tatars use the literary Tatar language, but in some remote uluses, the Siberian-Tatar language from the Kipchak-Nogai group of Western Hunnic languages has been preserved. Turkic languages. It is divided into Tobol-Irtysh and Baraba dialects and many dialects.
The holidays of the Siberian Tatars contain features of pre-Islamic ancient Turkic beliefs. This is, first of all, amal, when the new year is celebrated during the spring equinox. The arrival of the rooks and the beginning of field work, the Siberian Tatars are celebrating the hag putka. Some Muslim holidays, ceremonies and prayers for sending down rain have also taken root here, Muslim burial places of Sufi sheikhs are revered.
