Historical background
1. The Russian colonization
of Siberia.
The colonization of Siberia
got under way in the 16th century by Russian Cossacks and traders.
It is supposed that among them were the inhabitants of Novgorod who wanted to
escape persecution after Ivan the Terrible has captured the city in 1570. At
the end of the 16th or at the beginning of the 17th
century small groups of Russians reached the Far North by sea and settled in
military strongholds and settlements along Siberian rivers Lena, Yana,
Indigirka, Kolyma and others in the locality of the Arctic ocean. At that
Russian colonists in Siberia underwent strong cultural influence from the
local population. They married local women of Yakutian, Yukagiric or Tungusic
origin [Gurvich 1966: 62,121; Dolgih 1960]. This practice was widespread all
over Siberia as we can see from documents issued by the Orthodox church in the
last decade of the 17th century who qualified this practice as
negative and criticized it because women were not baptized. [Russkijye
starozhily Sibiri: 124] Anyhow it may be admitted that at that time specific
ethnic communities were formed which included Russian and indigenous ethnic
components.
The colonization of Siberia
which continued during the 18th and especially the 19th
century modified the demographic structure of the region. Large groups of
migrants from the North of European Russia decomposed original communities of
old settlers in the major part of Siberia. This process developed very fast in
the districts where agricultural activities were applicable since the Russian
government stimulated colonization of these districts and donated funds for
the migration of entire families [Aleksandrov 1964: 120-126, 129-130, 136].
Furthermore agricultural districts were not applicable to traditional trades
of aboriginal inhabitants - stock-raising, fishing
and hunting. These two factors minimized contacts between Russian and local
population and advanced dominance of Russian ethnic component in this area. On
the contrary, in the very North of Siberia in tundra area where living
conditions were extremely unfavorable small Russian communities didn’t
experience the influence of posterior migration and were forced to establish
close relations with indigenous population from whom they adopted specific
skills and elements of everyday life. According to [Dolgih 1960] by the end
of the XVII century Russians who settled along the Siberian rivers Lena and
Anadyr were married to Yukagir women 10% of whom lived out of their tribes (p.
440).
2. The fate of Russian
settlers in Yakutia
Hereafter the fate of
Russian groups in the northern part of Siberia was disparate. Old settlers of
upper Lena underwent strong influence of the Yakut population. By the end of
the 19th century 1/3 of men and ˝ of women in originally Russian
settlements didn’t speak Russian [Majnov 1900]. According to [Gurvitch 1966]
Russian population at the lower course of the Siberian rivers Yana and Olenek
lost their native language and shifted to the language of their neighbours -
Yakuts, who regarded Slavic population there as a Yakut sub-ethnic group [p.
202]. A dialectlogist from Yakutsk Prof. Maria Druzhinina observed a similar
situation during her expeditions to the watershed of Lena some 20 years ago (Personal
communication). Aside of the official Russian names they all had
Yakut nicknames. This fact is very significant as we consider the problem of
linguistic allegiance of Russian population in Siberia since nicknames
traditionally formed a privileged system of allocution in Russian villages
(official names didn’t act in everyday communication). In the course of our
last expedition to Yakutia (March 2003) we visited a village of Sinsk on the
bank of Lena the Slavic population of which (descendants of Russian coachmen)
is bilingual (Yakut-Russian), the older generation shows preference for Yakut
in their every-day life. Hereafter by the end of the XIX century only two
groups of Russian population in the North of Yakutia preserved their native
language and showed resistance against cultural assimilation -
indigirtsy (permanent residence in the settlement of Russkoye Ustye in
the lower course of Indigirka; case 1) and kolymchane (inhabitants of
Pokhodsk, a village on lower Kolyma, some 100 kilometers from the Arctic
ocean; case 2) [Gurvich 1966:198-203].
3. The colonization of
Kamchatka
Slavic population appeared
in Kamchatka at the end of the 17th century after the peninsular
was annexed to the Russian Empire. Local population was forced under tribute
and the Russian administration established a number of strongholds to provide
the collection of yasak (tribute) for the state “fur treasury”.
Another reason for colonization was the intent of developing agriculture in
the region. With that end in view a few tens of peasant families were removed
to Kamchatka from East Siberia [Aleksandrov, Vlasova, Polishchuk 1999:78].
Detachment of thin groups of pioneers resulted in a large number of mixed
Russian-Itelmen and Russian-Koryak marriages. Hereafter, since the middle of
the 18th century, groups of mixed population have been formed.
Christening of the sedentary fishing population allowed church matrimony of
mixed couples, while adaptation to local conditions drew together colonists
and indigenous groups. According to the evidence which dates back to the 18th
–19th centuries the every-day lives of Cossaks, removed peasants
and that of the Itelmen people was very much the same (Krasheninnikov
1994:243; Ditmar 1901:473).
Georg Steller who visited
Kamchatka in 1741 wrote that bilingualism was regular within mixed population
but it should be mentioned that this evidence comes from the early years of
colonization. Steller also gives some remarks concerning self-identification
of this population. He indicates that children born from Cossaks and Itelmen
women always supported their fathers in regular conflicts with indigenous
people. They identified themselves with colonists and were very cruel towards
Itelmen population. [1999].
Migratory process and administrative reforms
in the 20th century seriously damaged indigenous and old
settlers’ communities. Nevertheless during our expedition to Kamchatka in summer 2001 we
found two districts where small communities of old settlers still exist:
the township of Milkovo and adjacent villages in the center of the peninsular
(case 3) and the township of Tigil in the Koryak Autonomous region in the
north-west (case 4).
