# Siberia (Price)/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII
HISTORY OF THE COLONIZATION AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION OF SIBERIA
THE earliest inhabitants of Siberia are lost in the obscurity of the Stone Age. All traces of them were obliterated in the dark northern forests, and on the frozen toundras, and, though a few scattered remains are found on the burial-mounds of the southern steppes, these give us but a faint glimpse of the primitive culture and civilization of the aboriginal Finnish races who had their origin in Western and Central Siberia. That an ancient people in the age of copper and bronze already existed on the upper watersheds of the Obi, Tom, Chulim and Yenisei is proved beyond doubt, and, according to the Russian archaeologist, Aspelen, the earliest traces go back some 1000 years B.C. But who these people were, what was the extent of their culture, and whether they were the same people in evolution from the Bronze to the Iron Age, it is impossible to say. AU we know for certain about these Siberian Finns is, that racially they formed part of the pre-Turanian or pre-Turkish people of those regions, and socially formed part of the civilization which was earher than that of the Mongol Empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries A.D. Originating in the watersheds of the Western and Central Siberian rivers, this early civilization seems ​to have spread in the remote, almost prehistoric, ages across Northern European Russia even as far as modern Finland, where it has since been absorbed. Certain tribes of these Finns are mentioned by name in the earliest Chinese annals, as being a fair-haired, blue-eyed race, and from this and other information it is clear that they inhabited large tracts of what is now Western and Central Siberia about the second and third century A.D. From the third to the sixth century of the Christian era considerable racial movements seem to have taken place, accompanied by numerous wars and contentions for the possession of the best places in Western and Central Siberia. A new racial element began to appear, and the so-called Turkish races, with round brachycephalic skulls, broad cheek-bones and straight hair, began to press up from the south. During the fourth and fifth centuries certain of these Turks, known as "Hunni," were found contending with and alternately ousting and mingling with the Finnish aborigines of Southern Siberia. By the eleventh century the Khan of the Hunni had acquired authority over the whole Altai districts, and many of the races in the Upper Obi and Chulim rivers became modified by this new Turkish element, as is seen from the skulls in their burial-mounds of this date. Two people known as Hakaz and Hunni exerted considerable power from the fourth to the ninth centuries A.D. in these districts, and they traded with Arabia, Tibet and China, as we see from the pottery found in their burial-mounds. Thus it came about that the Finns of Southern Siberia became modified by the Turkish stock, and a population was formed in which both Turkish and Finnish elements were found in every ​stage of admixture. The pressure of the Turks from the south caused those Finns that did not become absorbed into the new type to migrate into the northern forests of Siberia, where they probably mingled with others of the same race as themselves. These Finns the early Russian pioneers called Ugrians.
In the thirteenth century arose the great Mongol Empire. The Mongol nomads set forth on their conquest, somewhere near the upper sources of the Selenga River, just south of Lake Baikal and in the country to the east of that inhabited by the Turkish races, with whom they were probably connected by racial and physical ties. The generals of the Great Khan penetrated into Siberia, subjugated the tribes along the Yenisei, Obi and Irtish, and chased the rest into the forests of the north. The Hakaz and other powerful Turko-Finnish tribes became satellites of the Mongols, joined their forces, and afterwards helped in the formation of the feudal Mongol Empire. Those Finnish tribes who would not submit were forced to retreat to the northern forests or to the upper plateaus of the Altai, and the remote comers of the Upper Yenisei, where their relics are found to this day. But this empire was too ephemeral to last, and in the fourteenth century the Mongol power weakened, and the influence of the "Golden Horde" began to wane. At once certain of these Turko-Finnish tribes of Southern Siberia revolted, and set up independent political authorities or khanates, the chief of which centred round the Ishim and Tobol rivers in Western Siberia and was called the Khanate of Sibir. It was not long before this Turko-Finnish khanate accepted Islam, which was becoming a great religious force in the East about this time, and ​so Sibir became the representative of the Mussulman power in the country east of the Ural. Ancient Finnish culture now had gone. The people of Sibir ceased to use runic writings or to bury their dead in mounds as their Finnish ancestors had done, and assumed the customs of the Mohammedans. From this time forward the Mohammedan khanate of Siberia came into conflict with the ever-growing power of the Slavs on the west of the Urals, and so began the time-honoured struggle between Christian Russia and Mussulman Turk, which has been fought out again and again from that day to this, ever since Russia began to live as a nation.
The first acquaintance of the Slavs with Siberia began in the early part of the eleventh century A.D. The different principalities of which the Slavonic race was at that time composed, the tsardom of Muscovy and the great republic of Novgorod, began first to have relations with the Ugrian-Finnish tribes of North-West Siberia. These regions were rich in boundless supplies of valuable furs, which were highly prized even in those days by the Russians. Thus we hear of the republic of Novgorod early in the eleventh century sending for collectors to Eastern Russia, where they encountered people called Ugrians, who from their descriptions can be no other than the Finnish races as seen in the Samoyedes and Ostiaks of to-day. These pioneers collected furs, exchanged their wares, and returned to Novgorod, but not long afterwards they penetrated again into the great unknown, and this time crossed the Urals, where they found forests stretching in limitless expanse to the east, full of rich furs, and inhabited by other tribes of Finns whom they had never ​seen before. This country east and west of the Urals they now called Ugria. But, as was so often the case in those early days, it was not long before the peaceful interchange of Slavonic wares for Ugrian furs developed into piratical exploitation. The representatives of Novgorod began to demand tribute of furs to be given annualy to "Lord Novgorod the Great," as that early Slavonic republic called itself. But there was resistence at first, and fierce fights took place between the Ugrian tribesmen and the Novgorod tribute collectors during the twelfth century. Novgorod, however, remained virtually the overlord of Ugria until the early fifteenth century, while the Mongol power still extended over the Turko-Finnish races of the Southern Siberian steppes.
In the early fifteenth century, however, arose a new factor in the struggle. The Mongol hordes of Central Asia had by this time lost their power, and the republic of Novgorod showed signs of weakness. But the tsardom of Muscovy was gathering strength, and about the middle of the fifteenth century the Tsar, taking advantage of the growing weakness of the republic and of their failure to collect their tribute in Ugria for some years, sent an expedition of armed men to collect the tribute for himself and to establish his rights in that country. His authority grew till he had established a sort of overlordship over the Ugrians. Henceforth the authority of Novgorod disappeared on the east of the Urals, and before the end of the sixteenth century the proud republic bit the dust under the heel of the Muscovite Tsar, Ivan the Terrible. Moscow thus became overlord of Ugria; but early in the sixteenth century we ​hear no more of Ugria as a name. The northern part of the great fur-bearing forest in the lower waters of the Obi was now known as Kondia and Obdoria, while the lower forest bordering the steppes was known henceforth as Sibir. In Kondia and Obdoria, inhabited by tribes of Finnish hunters, the authority of the Tsar was more or less respected, but in Sibir for the first time the Slavs came in contact with the Siberian-Tartar khanate, and the conquest of this power by the Russians extended over the greater part of the sixteenth century. After the wane of the Mongol power, this Siberian Tartar khanate seized the opportunity for independence, and the centre of the new political power was established at Sibir, near the junction of the Ishim and Tobol tributaries of the Irtish. Much internal dissension marked the history of the Siberian khanate during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for those khans who had just become converted to Islam created much discontent by energetically stamping out all relics of the old Finnish shammanism and nature-worship among their subjects. Numerous faction quarrels, feuds and usurpations took place, and finally Khan Kuchum, who is believed to have been a Turk from Central Asia, and descendant of Dengiz Khan, set up his authority at Sibir. Meanwhile Ivan the Terrible was known to be harbouring designs against the khanate, but he was too much engaged at that time in crushing the Mohammedan khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan, nearer home, to take more than an academic interest in far-off Siberia. At last Kazan and Astrakhan fell and the way to Siberia was clear. Ivan sent to Kuchum in 1569 and demanded tribute, but his envoys were plundered and killed. But he was now in a position to ​attack and to proceed against Kuchum with a view to overthrowing him. Then it was that Yermak appeared upon the scene and enacted the rôle which has caused his name to live in the history of Siberia. But the personality of Yermak is shrouded in myths, and it is not improbable that the exploits of several individuals may have been merged into one heroic national character. Besides the Yermak personality in the conquest of Sibir, a certain Anika Stroganof is also intimately associated with him. Stroganof was alt merchant in the province of Archangel in the north of Russia. He had for some years carried on a trade with some of the Ugrian Finns who came across the Urals to exchange valuable furs for salt. During the khanship of Ediger he had even sent over some servants of his to do barter trade with the Siberian Tartars at Sibir, and to exchange valuable furs for trifling articles of commerce. By this means Stroganof amassed considerable wealth, and the Tsar, Ivan the Terrible, anxious to encourage the relations of Moscow with Sibir, in order to compass the latter's downfall, offered to Stroganof large tracts of land in Eastern Russia on the Kama River, from whence he might open up closer relations with the khanate. While Stroganof was busy at these projects, Yermak appears. According to some stories, Yermak was a brigand, who was continually plundering the trade routes of South-East Russia which Ivan had been trying to open with Bokhara and Persia. One story relates how, on being caught on the Volga and being sent to Moscow for punishment, he begged Ivan to pardon him, if he went forth and reduced the Siberian khanate. Another story is that Ivan's soldiers ​chased him off the Volga and that he took refuge on the Kama River, where Stroganof's concessions lay, and proceeded with him to accomplish the overthrow of Sibir. Undoubtedly both these men worked together for the common end, for Stroganof had the knowledge of the country and Yermak the dashing energy. Both were jointly responsible for the result, but on Yermak has fallen the glamour of the popular hero. With Stroganof's aid, Yermak prepared an expedition to Sibir in 1579, and after eighteen months of great hardship he reached the Tara River with 500 men, only a fraction of the force. Undaunted, however, he met the overwhelmingly superior force of Kuchum Khan on the Tobol River, utterly defeated it, while the khan fled, entered Sibir in triumph in September 1518. The Tartars everywhere submitted, and Yermak found himself transformed from a Cossack freebooter to an autocrat as powerful as the Tsar of Moscow.
But Yermak's triumph was short-lived. The Tartars, who had only retreated into the forest, proceeded to harass the little band of Cossacks. One night, as Yermak was returning to Sibir, after an expedition to reduce an outlying Tartar stronghold, he was surrounded on an island in the Irtish River, his Cossack band was annihilated and he, according to tradition, committed suicide by drowning. This calamity destroyed for a time the power of Russia in Siberia, but in 1587 we hear of a certain Cossack of the name of Chalkoff being sent by the Tsar of Moscow to accomplish the recapture of Sibir. So the Khan Kuchum had not time to recover his power before he was again confronted with these formidable Cossacks, and this time he finally suc​cumbed, and Sibir never again fell from the hands of the Muscovite.
During the next eighty years, up to the middle of the seventeenth century, the Cossacks not only consolidated their hold on the lower and middle Irtish River, but swept across Northern Asia to the shores of the Pacific.
The Siberian Mussulman power being broken, the Cossacks followed the line of least resistance, along the shores of the principal Siberian rivers, building forts and stockades and advancing length by length. In 1591 Beryoza was founded, in 1593 Tara and Obdorsk. From the Irtish they followed up the banks of the Obi, reaching to Surgut and Narim in the early seventeenth century, and thence across to the watershed of the Yenisei, till at length they reached Krasnoyarsk, and the shores of the Chulim. Later in the seventeenth century they reached the Lena River, and the Yakutsk country, and before the end of the century were established on Lake Baikal, where they subdued the Mongol tribes of Buriats. The Finnish tribes in the northern forests submitted everywhere to the new-comers, being of a shy and more peaceable disposition. But the Mongol and Turkish elements, and the remnant of the broken Siberian khanate, took many years before they were really subjugated. Some of them remained in the lower forest zone, and, settling down peaceably undert the Cossacks, became like the Kazan Tartars of European Russia, and are known to-day as the Tartars of Tobolsk. The rest, however, retreated southward into the steppes and plateaus on the Upper Irtish and Obi rivers, and, mingling with the tribes already there, became Tartar nomads of the ​Altaian and Kirghiz type. Farther east, around Lake Baikal, nomad Buriat tribes, a northern branch of the Mongol race, held out for many years against the Cossacks, but were finally subdued. The continuous raiding of these nomads into the Cossack forts and stockades, and the absence of any natural boundary to shut them out, of necessity caused the Cossacks to move southward, as opportunity presented itself, to secure subjugation of these Tartars. The first line of defence in Western Siberia during the eighteenth century reached Chornafsky, on the Tobol River, Omsk at the junction of the Om and Irtish rivers, Büsk on the Upper Obi. A second hue of defence, beyond this, stretched some hundred versts up the Tobol River, to what is now Semipalatinsk. South of these Cossack hues the Kirghiz Tartars roamed and raided, while south-east lay the great natural sanctuary of the Altai Mountains, into the plateaus of which the Altai Tartars and other relics of the Finnish races had been retreating for centuries past.
The Cossack defences consisted of block houses and stockades established across the steppes, between which communications were kept up. This means of defence; although unsatisfactory was only a temporary expedient, and prepared the way for farther advances into the steppe for the purpose of occupying the territory beyond, and of pushing all those who would not submit farther away, till some natural geographical line was reached.
The Russian system of sedentary agricultural colonization was in direct antagonism to the nomad life of the Tartar, and, as was the case in European Russia, so in Siberia these two economic systems were ​for centuries in conflict with one another, until the former and higher system ultimately prevailed. The attainment of this has no doubt been aided by the more peaceable character which the Tartars have been assuming as time goes on, coupled with a gradual tendency on their part to abandon nomadic for sedentary life, through contact with the settled Russian population, and through the gradual contraction of the grazing areas. But the population of the southern steppes of Siberia, being more suited to nomadic than to sedentary life, has naturally been slow to settle down under Russian influence.
So this early Slavonic civilization gradually moved across Central Asia, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the complete subjugation of the Tartars in the southern steppes can only be said to be a comparatively recent accomplishment. For as in the history of European Russia, so in that of Siberia and Central Asia, the Russians were compelled in self-defence to adopt the policy of gradual expansion, across the steppes in order to secure their own safety from Tartar raids, until some natural or strong political boundary mad farther advance unnecessary.
The Southern Siberian steppes, which imperceptibly merged into the steppes of Turkestan, possessed no such natural boundary behind which the Tartars could be driven and kept. The conquest of the Turkestan steppes during the latter half of the nineteenth century was therefore only the consummation of the process which had been going on in South-East European Russia and South-Western Siberia during the previous century. Southward the Russian frontier has in recent times been pushed up to ​the mountains of Afghanistan, and to what is now Chinese Turkestan, where other political powers, assisted by natural boundaries, have arrested the Slavonic wave. In this process of absorption the khans of Khiva and Kokand, the ameers of Bokhara and other relics of the Tartar power in Turkestan, have now fallen from their high estate and are overshadowed by the two-headed eagle, while the begs of Kashgar and other rulers of the eastern portions of this former Mohammedan Empire became absorbed by the Dragon Throne at Peking.
So it came about that the Slavs began their relations with Siberia among the Ugrian Finnish tribes in the northern forests, and then proceeded to overthrow the Turko-Finnish Mussulman power on the Tobol and to spread south-east and eastward, till they were at last stopped by the power of China. Thus the door for the colonization of the richest lands of Siberia, between the steppe and the forests, lay open, and the subsequent history of Siberia shows how a wedge of Slavonic immigrant colonies has been pushed into this fertile zone. This land, being the best for agriculture was suitable to the sedentary Slavs, and the immigrants who pushed into this agricultural zone effectually separated the Tartar nomads in the steppes bordering Turkestan from the Finnish tribes who retreated to the Northern Siberian forests and to the Altai plateaus. In these so-called Finnish aborigines one still sees the impure relics of an ancient and primitive civilization which existed in Siberia before ever the Slavonic or the Turkish or Mongol races were heard of. But the relics of this older civilization only form a fraction of the present population of Siberia. The last three ​centuries have witnessed the overwhelming development of the Slav race, represented in Siberia by the early Cossacks and their descendants, the exiles, and finally the peasant immigrants. Under the Government of the Tsar all are now brought together in one political entity, although the tribal distinctions between Finns, Tartars and Russian are still just discernible. And thus we trace the early development of Russia's Eastern Empire in Northern Asia with all its possibilities of future greatness.
The colonization of Siberia has naturally depended upon the changes and social movements which have gone on in European Russia since the Slavs first crossed the Urals. Through contact with Asia, and through the influence of the Mongol and Tartar invasions during the Middle Ages, the European Russians were prevented from advancing along the same path of agricultural, industrial and social progress as the other nations of Western Europe. Some outlet, therefore, for the increasing population was necessary, and the way was open to the East, where the absence of any considerable natural barrier gave access to the vast regions of Siberia, into which, ever since the fourteenth century, the Slavs of Europe have been gradually penetrating.
Following close after the Cossacks came the commercial pioneers whose object it was to open up trade with the Finnish tribes in the north and the Tartars in the southern steppes, and for a time these two Slavonic social elements were alone in Siberia, uncontrolled by any power in old Russia.
But the authorities in Moscow and St Petersburg were not long content to leave the colonization and ​social evolution of Siberia in the hands of these early settlers. It has not infrequently happened that nations emerging from a mediæval social state, and having an Imperial future before them, use the undesirable portion of their population as a means of colonizing the outlying portions of their empires. The tsars, therefore, in the middle of the seventeenth century, were by no means exceptional in sending convicts to Siberia, and the practice thus begun, was continued in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even the story of Yermak leaves one in doubt whether he should be classed as a convict exile or as a Cossack, who had been sent to conquer the Tartars. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries not only were criminals thus exiled, but prisoners of war from the western frontiers—Poles, Letts, Germans and Swedes—were banished to the wild regions of the East. Such was the zeal for colonizing the new eastern territories that even the lowest and worst criminals were utilized for this purpose, and in the reign of Catherine the Great the death sentence was temporarily commuted in order to give effect to this colonial policy.
This explains how it is that Siberia has come to be popularly regarded as a penal settlement. But although the convicts played their part in the early civilization of these regions, and although their influence on the little Cossack and trading communities, which sprang up side by side with them, was altogether injurious, it must not be forgotten that the immigrants from European Russia during the nineteenth century have been a counteracting force, and it is extremely doubtful whether convict colonization has left its mark on the present in​habitants of Siberia to such an extent as is generally supposed.
The ill effect was certainly intensified in the early years of the nineteenth century, when the discovery of mineral wealth in certain parts of Siberia led to an hysterical scramble for wealth among all classes of the little Siberian population. As soon, however, as these discoveries came to the ears of the home authorities, the doors to all private exploitation were closed, and in the name of the Tsar and his ministers the mineral wealth of the eastern provinces was annexed by Government officials. It was then that the working of the mines by compulsory convict labour originated, and it was during the first half of the nineteenth century that most of the harrowing tales about convicts in Siberia came to be so extensively circulated in Western Europe. Still, it must be remembered that the convict exiles have by no means played so important a part in the colonization of Siberia as is generally believed. In course of time the number of imported convicts began to decrease. They were, moreover, often physically and mentally weak, and, as they were unable to stand the rigours of the Siberian climate, the death toll was enormous, and their descendants, therefore, are far from numerous. The influence of this criminal element on Siberian society was, however, most baneful at the time. Often a prosperous little Siberian village would be invaded by a gang of convicts, who had been ordered by the authorities to settle in the district. It was difficult to confine them to their proper quarters, and they roamed about the country, no better than gangs of thieves. Even when they settled down to work at the respective ​tasks allotted to them, they were forced to live socially separated from the older inhabitants. The absence of women, moreover, among the convicts, and the refusal of the older inhabitants to give their daughters in marriage, tended to generate a moral pestilence. The Russian Government at last realized that the indiscriminate mixing of criminal exiles, harmless political exiles and peaceful colonists was a danger to society, and would be certain to breed more criminality and political discontent, and prevent the peaceful economic development of the country. As early as 1870, therefore, attention was directed towards the Siberian problem, and from that time till the end of the century the Government, by administrative action, has attempted with more or less success to prevent the mixing of criminal exiles with peaceful colonists. The convicts were henceforth confined more and more to the north-eastern territories on the Lena River and to certain parts of the Far East, while political exiles and immigrant colonists were confined to the fertile lands of Western and Central Siberia. This policy is carried out to this day, and all convicts, other than those in the prisons of European Russia, are confined to special prisons in Far Eastern and North-Eastern Siberia and to the island of Saghalien on the Pacific Coast.
Perhaps the most important factor in the social development of modern Siberia has been not the convicts, nor even the Cossacks, but the peasant immigrants from European Russia. These were divided into two classes: those who immigrated under the supervision of the authorities, and those who immigrated independently of it.
​The numbers of the latter class were very great, especially in the early times, and, such immigrants were generally known as "samovolny" or voluntary immigrants. Their coming was largely brought about by the social conditions which at that time existed in European Russia. The growth, of feudal serfdom, which began in the seventeenth century and continued through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, caused the stronger and more independent members of society to become fugitives, and to seek new fortunes in Siberia, where the remoteness and isolation of the country was their refuge. They came in waves corresponding with the severity of the spasmodic feudal oppression which continued in European Russia all through these times and they were accompanied to some extent by the members of certain persecuted religious sects and by dissenters from the Pravo-Slav faith. These religious and voluntary exiles settled in the remote comers of Siberia, as far as possible from the hand of officialdom, and founded communal colonies as in European Russia. They intermarried with the Cossacks and even with some of the native Tartars and Finns, and so their descendants formed the Siberian branch of the Slav race, a strong and independent, though rough and primitive, people, who, while retaining their customs and habits as Russians, have lost their true Russian national sentiment. The samovolny, however, were not favourably regarded by the Russian Government, who, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, did all they could to stop these wandering immigrants and voluntary exiles. But the vast size of the country made the control of immigrants, exceedingly difficult, and it was not ​until the latter part of the nineteenth century that the immigration to Siberia came to be thoroughly regulated. This was largely brought about by the increased power of officialdom in Siberia, which grew as the country developed, and this factor, combined with the abolition of serfdom in European Russia, had the effect of stopping unauthorized immigration, and of paving the way for an organized system under a State scheme.
But another class of immigrants came into prominence during the latter half of the nineteenth century. These were the political exiles, who for offences of a political nature were required by the authorities to settle in some remote part of the empire, where their influence might not be felt. Siberia was naturally a most suitable place, and the Government was not slow to utilize it for this purpose. During the intellectual revival which followed the abolition of serfdom in the reign of Alexander II., wild and often exaggerated ideals of progress and reform seized a certain section of Russian public opinion. It thereupon became the fashion for the authorities in European Russia, as it still is to some extent, to send out cultured Polish, Finnish and Russian youths to exile in Siberia, whenever their views were considered to be too far in advance of the times. These exiles, although not sufficiently numerous to form a large section of the Siberian community, had nevertheless great influence upon its social development, and on the formation of progressive public opinion in the growing Siberian urban centres.
But undoubtedly the chief element in the evolution of Siberian society, especially during the last fifty years, is to be found in the peasant immigrants from ​European Russia, who have voluntarily settled under Government supervision on the fertile lands of Western and Central Siberia. Even from the earliest times, the Government has aimed at colonizing the black earth zone, a large area of country, lying between the northern forest and the southern Tartar steppes, suitable in the highest degree for the agricultural development of the Slavonic people. This colonizing movement spread first along the banks of the rivers of Western and Central Siberia, and was principally directed along the shores of the Tura, Tobol, Tavda, Upper Irtish and Obi. To encourage this colonization, exemption from taxation for three years was granted by the Russian Government in 1889 to all authorized immigrants from European Russia. In addition to this, half the taxes were remitted for a subsequent period of three years, and exemption was also granted for a time from military service. In 1898 a loan of 80 roubles (about £9) was made to each family of immigrants, and this was ultimately increased to 140 roubles (about £15) in cases where special difficulty was experienced by settlers. At the present time grants often reach 200 roubles (about £22) a family in certain localities. These loans are repayable in instalments without interest over a period of years. Within the last ten years a Government survey staff has been appointed, and all new land set apart for immigrant communes is now carefully surveyed, plotted out and assessed for loans and subsequent taxation. In addition to loans in cash the Government now gives to every settler in his first year sufficient seed com to enable him to sow three desatynes (7½ acres) of land. Moreover, in many of the ​immigrant districts agricultural implement depots have been established, where machinery can be bought by the settlers at cost price. The Government has indeed done everything possible within the last twenty years to encourage organized colonization in Siberia, and has to a large extent succeeded in planting communal colonies along the wheat-growing belt of Western and Central Siberia, which are the exact replica of those in European Russia. Some idea of the immigration of peasants from European Russia can be gathered from the following fact. Between 1894 and 1903 there emigrated from European Russia into the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk 590,000 people, the average numbers per annum during these dates being about 60,000 a year. Between 1905 and 1908 over 1,000,000 immigrants settled in the governments of Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yeniseisk and Irkutsk, at the average rate of 300,000 a year. In the year 1909 the immigration of these same regions reached the total of 500,000, which since that time has been exceeded by a still greater figure.
Siberia has therefore been colonized in the past by five distinct social classes of the Russian community:
(1) Cossacks or military pioneers, who laid the foundations of the Eastern Empire.
(2) Convicts, who during the early part of the nineteenth century were utilized for work in the gold mines.
(3) Wandering peasant immigrants or samovolny, who voluntarily immigrated and settled in the remote parts of Siberia without authority.
​(4) Political exiles, who were sent for political offences and settled as colonists in certain districts, from which they were not allowed to move.
(5) Authorized voluntary immigrants, who came from European Russia and settled under Government supervision.
Of these five, during the last twenty years, the latter type of immigrant has played the most prominent part in the economic and social development of Siberia, and the policy of the Russian Government has been to colonize the most fertile parts of Western and Central Siberia with this class, in order to develop the resources of the empire on modern economic lines, and to provide a growing population to strengthen the eastern frontiers.
Since Siberia has always been connected in the eyes of the Western European public with convicts and exiles, it may be of interest here to examine more closely this section of the community, and to see what part it now plays in the evolution of Siberian society. As I have shown above, great changes have come over the exile system in Siberia during recent years, and the growth of peasant immigration has been accompanied both by a diminution of the number of the criminal prisoners sent into the country, and also by a better regulation of those that remain.
There are recognized under the common law of Russia the following classes of prisoners:—
(1) "Katorgeny Rabotniki," or criminal convicts, sentenced for the worst offences to penal servitude in certain parts of the empire.
(2) Common prisoners, sentenced for smaller ​criminal offences to serve short periods in prisons or common gaols, such as exist in each district of the empire.
(3) Political prisoners, who have committed purely political offences, and who are compelled to reside in certain districts under police supervision.
The first class of prisoner is confined to special convict prisons which are under the same regulation and management now as the majority of convict prisons of most European countries. Nearly all the convict prisons in Siberia are in the Far East, at such places as Nerchinsk, on the Amoor River, and on the island of Saghalien. These convicts are forced to do hard labour, but very few of them are now used in mines, because the Government now has practically no mining properties which it works itself in Siberia. Convicts have recently been used as navvies for the construction of the Amoor railway. Thus criminal convicts are no longer seen in Siberia, except in the eastern territories, and, moreover, the number sent from European Russia is much less than it formerly was, for Siberia is no longer looked upon as a convict settlement.
The second class of common prisoner is the same in Siberia as in any other part of the empire. I deal with him in Chapter IV., in describing my visit to a local gaol in Minusinsk.
Perhaps the most important class of prisoner, and one in which the greatest interest is taken by public opinion in Western Europe, is that of the political exile, of which there are two kinds.
There are, first, those sentenced by a court of law under proper legal procedure, and, secondly, those sentenced without trial by "administrative order" ​of the Minister of the Interior. This is one of the worst features of the Russian judicial system, which is still in great need of reform. In effect it means that the Minister of the Interior can under martial law, which is still in force throughout the empire, cause anyone to be arrested and transported to any place, where, it is considered, he may have a less injurious influence on those around him. This, of course, is a great infringement of the elementary rights of citizenship, and so far the reforms in Russia have failed to abolish it. It is generally applied to persons suspected of having taken part in revolutionary movements, and against whom there is not sufficient evidence to allow of an indictment being drawn up and presented before the judges. These two classes of political exiles are further divided into exiles "with rights" and exiles "without rights." The former has practically the same economic rights as the free citizen; thus he can possess land in Siberia, settle on it and derive his profits out of it, and he can also work for wages or engage in trade. This class of exile can have little to complain about. Those, however, who are exiled without rights are in a very different position. They are restricted to a certain number of small trades, and their annual turnover is limited. They are allowed, however, to earn the current wages for their labour, and are employed generally on wharfs, railways and steamships, or, if they are in the remoter districts, on the post roads. A certain number of political exiles belong to this category, and indeed in Western and Central Siberia they amount to very nearly one-third the total number. An able-bodied exile of this class, however, can always earn a good living in some of the towns along the ​railway, and to the ordinary uncultivated Russian there is not much hardship in this form of exile; but it is rather severe upon all those who are physically weak or accustomed to an intellectual life. Many of the political exiles of this class band together and form co-operative societies to protect the interests of their members in some of the larger Siberian towns. They use this organization as a means of obtaining work for each other, and as a sort of labour bureau. It also assists necessitous cases, and acts as a bank where they can lodge their savings. The exile association of Krasnoyarsk in 1907 had funds equivalent to £400, all of which had been accumulated by the members of that society, working in different occupations.
The movement for the reform of the exile system has undergone a chequered career. In the year 1900 an Imperial Manifesto abolished punishment by exile for all kinds of convicts and political prisoners, and for a time it seemed as if the whole system would die out. But in 1904, in the great period of reaction through which Russia passed at the end of the Russo-Japanese War, culminating in the revolution, this punishment was re-established for political offences. In spite of this reaction, however, an improvement, brought about by purely administrative means, took place in another direction. As I mentioned above, the worst classes of criminal convicts gradually came to be confined to certain parts of Siberia, more especially the eastern parts, while the western and central parts of Siberia have been set apart for the politicals only. While there has been a great decrease in the number of the criminal exiles, there has been no abatement in that of the political exiles to ​Siberia. In the year 1906, 45,000 political exiles were sent, and settled mostly as colonists in various parts of Western and Central Siberia, and since then the number sent from old Russia has varied from 8000 to 15,000 a year. In the year 1909 there were in the Yenisei Government a little over 50,000 political exiles undergoing sentences of various lengths. The majority of these will probably remain in Siberia even after their sentence has expired, since all but the most highly cultivated find there an opening for social and economic improvement such as they would never find in European Russia. While, therefore, it does not look as if the Reform movement has tended to reduce the number of exiles for political offences, Siberia has no longer the terrors of a penal colony. The number of convicts has been reduced; those that are sent, being drawn from the worst type of criminal, are strictly confined to special prisons in certain districts, so as not to interfere in any way with the peaceful economic development of Western and Central Siberia. Speaking generally, the economic condition of political exiles has greatly improved during the last decade; but it would be a great reform, without any danger to the Government, if the system of exile by administrative order without trial were abolished. This last is still a serious blot on Russia's judicial system.
The administrative system in Siberia at the present day does not differ from that of European Russia. Civil Government is in operation throughout the western and central provinces. The same liberties are allowed to, and the same restrictions are imposed on, Russian subjects in Siberia as in European ​Russia. The Government, of course, is very centralized. The general administrative council for each Siberian province or government is directly under the authority of the Minister of the Interior. It is presided over by a civil Governor who represents that Minister, and is aided by councillors nominated locally and approved in St Petersburg. The usual weakness of bureaucracy is thus displayed, for responsibility always rests upon the higher authority, who is generally too far away or too much engaged to attend to or direct local policy. On the other hand, without central authority, administration over the vast and isolated districts of Siberia would be impossible, and Siberia would never have become what it is.
The business of the Governor's Council is delegated to committees which control the different executive departments. These generally consist of the following:—A department for Urban Affairs, for Peasant Affairs, and for Justice; a Prison Committee; an Education Board; a Land Valuation Staff, and a Public Health Department. All these departments and committees are ultimately under the control of the Minister of the Interior in St Petersburg. Directly under the authority of the Imperial Finance Minister is the local branch of the Imperial Treasury, which is engaged in the assessment and collection of Imperial and local taxes. Under the Minister of Agriculture comes the Agricultural Organization Committee, the Local Immigration Committee and the Land Survey Staff. Then there is the local branch of the Ministry of Trade and Commerce, the local Department of Justice, and the local military authority. All these departments are under their respective bureaus in St Petersburg, and the local ​Governor is generally ex officio a member of most of them. Thus, theoretically, a most complete administrative system is in operation in almost every part of Siberia, modelled on European lines; but it must be remembered that a great deal of this exists on paper only.
Representative institutions are but little developed in Siberia. Eight members are elected to the Imperial Duma from Siberia by indirect vote. In view of the enormous difficulties of establishing electoral systems in such a vast continent, the chief representation naturally falls on the traders and citizens of the towns.
Local representative institutions have not been formed in Siberia. Zemstvos or provincial councils elected by popular vote are as yet unknown. The chief towns, however, possess their town councils elected by the residents who pay the "Apartment Tax" (Kvarterny Nalog). In the rural districts administration is under the control of a "peasant affairs" official appointed by and responsible only to the Uyesdy Nachalnik, or local representative of the Governor.
The "Zemsky Smet," which is a proportion of the Imperial taxes allotted by the Imperial Treasury for such local purposes as roads, bridges, hospitals, drainage, etc., is administered in the rural districts by the peasant officials, and in the towns by the elected town councils.
As yet, however, slight interest is taken in public matters by the peasants, but there is no doubt that public opinion is developing slowly in Siberia. The more advanced classes of the urban population, influenced by the free and independent life in Siberia, ​are agitating for a progressive policy, and resent the old world stagnation which they think dominates the policy of the St Petersburg Government. The political exiles and their descendants have been not so much a disturbing as an educational element in the Siberian social life, for they have been the means of introducing progressive ideas into Siberia from the seats of culture in the West. Amongst other things there is an agitation among the urban Siberians for greater representation in the Duma, increased Government grants for Siberian education, universities, and public development schemes, while resentment is frequently expressed when Siberian taxes are utilized for constructing military railways, or for similar schemes in other parts of the empire.
Indeed the germ of Siberian national consciousness is developing at the expense of Russian national consciousness, and the traveller in Siberia is forcibly reminded of a similar development in the British self-governing colonies.
I will conclude this chapter by giving a brief review of the principal groups of Siberian natives, and of their past and present relationships with the Russian colonists of Siberia. Although the percentage of Siberian natives to the total population is very small at the present day, still there are large tracts of Siberia which are uninhabited except by them, and, since their economic value as fishers and hunters is of considerable importance to the Russians, it is not out of place to examine the social status of these natives in modern Siberian society. The early Russian colonists who settled in the northern forest ​regions and along the Mongolian frontier before the value of the black earth belt was known, were compelled to live for months and even years among the Finnish and Tartar tribes of those regions. After the establishment of the Cossacks in that country, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, hostility between the two races dwindled, and the relation between Cossack and Siberian traders on the one hand, and native Finns and Tartars on the other, became one of forbearance, if not of cordiality. Being also of a nomadic nature the Cossack and the trader often adopted the habits and sometimes the clothing of the natives, while, on the other hand, the natives would often imitate Russian customs, and even in places show signs of giving up their nomadic life. Many of the Tartars, especially on the plateau steppes, even before the coming of the Russians, engaged in a rude agriculture and sowed rye and millet. The tendency to give up nomadic life and to settle was especially pronounced in the plateau steppes of the Altai, where the Russification of the Tartars has gradually and almost imperceptibly been at work for the last century. The policy of the Russians was everywhere one of peaceful penetration.
Russians, Tartars and Finns lived side by side for months; their children played together; Tartars often became Russian servants, living in the same house with their masters and eating the same meals. Not infrequently marriages took place between Russians and Altai Tartars, and occasionally, although not in response to any organized propaganda, a Tartar became Christian, or nominally Christian, and married a Russian girl.
But, as is the case with every subject race, there ​was an element which would not submit to absorption, and as the Russians dotted their villages along the plains of Western Siberia and began to break up the land and graze over the steppes, those Tartars who did not care to compromise with the new conditions broke away southward into the Kirghiz steppes, or south-eastward into the Altai plateaus, or north-west into the sub-Arctic forests. This process has been continuing gradually for centuries, and in the time of Catherine the Great large tracts of land were set apart as native reserves, where Russians might not colonize and where the natives could have their own land without fear of disturbance.
It is undeniable, however, that in the early days the natives were exposed to some tyranny in the shape of excessive taxation and tribute; but the responsibility for this rested upon the authorities in European Russia, who, ignorant of the local conditions, wished to utilize the natives as a means of obtaining by forced labour the treasures of the fur trade. Thus in 1753 a tribute of ten squirrels and two linxes was levied from each Samoyede hunter, and ten sables and five hundred fish from the Ostiaks. The tribute was arbitrary and unjust, and arrears accumulated annually. The tribal chiefs, moreover, were made responsible for the tribute of each member, just as the Mongol khans are made responsible for the tribute of their subjects in Mongolia to-day.
But in 1822 a commission was appointed by the Russian Government, and the Siberian natives were divided for the purpose of taxation into classes according to their mode of life and livelihood. The old tribal system as a basis of assessment for taxation ​was done away with. The natives were then classified according to their economic position, and tributes were lowered and levied in kind on these different classes of natives according to their different mode of life and occupation. On those that settled and took to partial cultivation a tax of eleven roubles per family, equal to that of the Russian peasants, was levied. Each individual was now made responsible for his tax and the responsibility of the tribal chief was abolished. But although the tribal system was not recognized for purposes of taxation, it was retained, and was used and recognized by the Russian Government as an agent of local administration for all purely native affairs. As shown in a previous chapter, the native divisions are only the old tribal divisions, which are now incorporated into the volosts and administrative divisions of the Russian communal colonies in Siberia. These native communes indeed are placed on an equal footing along with their Russian neighbours. So the old tribal system in Siberia became modified to suit the new economic conditions of the country, the use of money and a rise in the standard of living being influential factors in the change.
But as time went on the Russians unwittingly exercised upon the natives another form of oppression.
During the nineteenth century there was much ruthless economic exploitation, as there is in every country (the British Empire not excepted) where the natives are the smaller and weaker fraction. Ignorant and unsophisticated, they were ruthlessly swindled; their furs were extracted from them for nothing, or were given in exchange for a brick of inferior tea. The spirit curse began to appear and ​to sap the vitality of the natives, and drastic action on the part of the Government could not stop it. Of recent years the efforts of the Russian Government have been more successful, and the Siberian traders themselves have taken action to prevent the selling of liquors to the natives. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the Siberian traders have saved the natives in many places from actual starvation, for in the old days in severe seasons famine and pestilence decimated their ranks. Now, however, such occurrences are rare, since full opportunity is given for the natives to exchange their wares for flour and tea.
The Russian influence on the native Siberian has therefore had both its sunny and its dark side, and in the present intermediate phase it is difficult to forecast the future accurately. Those natives, who do not become absorbed, will probably die out in time, because of their natural unfitness, while those, who do become absorbed, will probably add a new and valuable element to the Slav race. The enormous preponderance of the Slavs everywhere, together with the assimilating power of the Russian colonist, simplifies the native problem very considerably, and in fact no such problem can really be said to exist in Siberia as it does in other parts of the Eastern Empire of Russia.
In the population of Siberia at the present day the Great and Little Russians constitute ninety-two per cent, and the remaining eight per cent, make up the native tribes. These are divided into three main groups—Turko-Tartar, Finn, and Tartarized Finn. Taking the first group, four and a half per cent, of the ​total eight per cent. of native population are Tobolsk and Tomsk Tartars, one per cent. are Kirghiz from the steppes of Western Siberia; the Finnish group is represented by the Samoyedes, Ostiaks and Voguls, who comprise one and a half per cent. of the total population; and the third group of Tartarized Finns is represented by the Altaians, who comprise one per cent. of the total.
The Tobolsk and Tomsk Tartars, who are the direct descendants of the Tartars of the Sibir Khanate overthrown by Yermak, are, along with the Kirghiz, the purest relics of the Turkish stock in Siberia. When the Russians conquered Siberia they found these Tartars a comparatively highly cultivated people living in settlements and even in small towns, cultivating and irrigating the land, and understanding the use of metals. In course of time the Cossacks and Russian immigrants settled and intermarried with them, and the type has become further modified by admixture with the natives of the Altai. These Tartars, representing the relics of the old Siberian Turkish stock, correspond to the Kazan Tartars in European Russia. Their present distribution is in the southern forest belt of the Tobolsk and Tomsk governments. They are found also in colonies along the Ishim and Tobol rivers, and in considerable numbers on the so-called Vasyugan steppe between the rivers Irtish and Obi. They engage in agriculture, fishing and trading—in fact they pursue the same occupations as the Russians round them. Like all Tartars, however, they show considerable talent for commercial bargaining. Their houses are of one or two storeys with log walls and a turfed roof, but they differ from the Russian houses ​in the absence of furniture. Strict Mohammedans though they are, they have largely, through Russian influence, and the cold climate, discarded the habit of secluding and veiling their women.
The other Siberian-Turkish element is found in the Kirghiz, who form the principal native population on the steppes of the Ishim in the south-west Tobolsk province. Here they live a nomadic, semi-settled life, just as they do in other parts of Central Asia.
The two chief Finnish races of North-West Siberia are the Samoyedes, who hve in the far north on the toundras, and the Ostiaks, who live in the forest zone a few degrees farther to the south. These people are probably the oldest inhabitants of the continent, and are the relics of the ancient civilization which once covered all Siberia, having retreated north-west from the pressure of Turk, Mongol and Russian. They have a distinct physical type and language; their nomad habits, their birch-bark habitation, their reindeer culture and their skill in hunting and fishing are also characteristic. Their ancient and primitive civilization, moreover, is shown in their adherence to the old shamman rites and the worship of the spirits of nature. Natural religion was probably once universal among mankind, and its appearance among these people at the present day is an indication of their ancient origin. In the summer the Samoyedes roam with their reindeer over the toundras to the Arctic Sea, where they engage in fishing, returning in winter to the lower latitudes on the edge of the forest zone. The Ostiaks, who in other respects are similar to the Samoyedes, keep more in the southern forests during the summer, specializing more particularly in fur ​hunting. In the tract of country east of the Urals on the Konda and Sosva rivers there is also another tribe of people called the Voguls, very similar in type to the two former and living under much the same conditions.
The third group of Tartarized Finns present with certain modifications features and habits similar to those of the Northern Siberian Finns. As I have indicated elsewhere, along the Mongolian frontier, especially in the Altai plateaus, there are natives comprehensively known as the Altai Tartars or the Altaians. They are probably the rehcs of the oldest Finnish races, which have retreated hither from the lower forest and the black earth steppes for centuries past, taking refuge from the invasion of Cossack and Turk. In comparatively recent times, however, they have become mixed, and they now present certain linguistic and physical characteristics which show distinct traces of Turkish influence. In the Yenisei Government of Central Siberia these Tartarized Finns are represented by the Chulim and Abakansk Tartars, inhabiting the country south of the railway and along the banks of the rivers of those names. The Soiots of the Upper Yenisei along the Mongolian frontier are also closely related to them. Similar tribes are also found in the Tomsk Government in the northern Altai district. In the high plateaus of the Central and Southern Altai, where the Obi River takes its rise, the true Altaian type is seen, containing several subdivisions, of which the principal are the Telengets and the Teluts. They are semi-nomadic, living with their flocks in felt tents during the summer and in hexagonal wooden huts in the winter. They are becoming ​much affected by Russian influences and are even intermarrying with the Russian peasants. But their shamman nature-worship survives, modified, as I show elsewhere, by admixture of Christianity introduced by the Russian.