Ethnic composition and features of the deployment of military formations in Western Siberia according to the results of the First General Population Census of the Russian Empire in 1897
Authors:   Tomsk State University, Semenov Yuri V. 
Published: December 2024

The national (ethnic composition) of the armed forces of the Russian Empire and the specifics of their deployment have been little studied both in pre-revolutionary Russian historiography and in subsequent works by historians of the Soviet and post-Soviet period. The purpose of this study is to show the ethnic (national) composition of the armed forces and Cossack troops of the Russian Empire in Western Siberia (in two provinces - Tobolsk and Tomsk) according to the results of the First General Population census of 1897. An attempt has been made to identify patterns and cause-and-effect relationships (dependence of dislocation, places of residence, military service on their national composition and socio-political qualities and characteristics of the local population). Also, the task is not only to show the management system of national policy in tsarist Russia, but also to preliminarily analyze the causes of its occurrence using the example of two inner Siberian regions.
The main question is where to get reliable data on these aspects, and which comparative characteristics to use for analysis and then make conclusions about the general principles of manning the armed forces of the Russian Empire based on nationality and location in the last peaceful decade of its history. Previously, it was possible to rely on data from the audit inventories of provinces, reports and orders of military districts, but before the census of 1897 there was no complete picture of the entire empire. With its implementation, the final materials provided the data for such work. The population Census of 1897 was and remains today the most valuable source on the history of Russia, and this research is based on it. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to develop a methodology for calculating and analyzing the problems the author is interested in.
For the calculations, data on the volume of the population census in the Tobolsk and Tomsk provinces and a general summary of the results of processing census data were taken. Comparative tables are presented below (table 1 – for the Tobolsk province, table 2 – for the Tomsk province) quantitative indicators were distributed by the categories under consideration: by armed forces: the total population in the provinces, the number of amateur (independent farming) men (in the armed forces and the Cossacks in combat strength - at that time, only men were taken into account) of the population, their family members of both sexes, the percentage ratio for comparative analysis is an indicator of the share of the armed forces from the total number of amateur population of the province; according to the military Cossacks: the Cossack population of men and women, the total number of the Cossack population and the percentage ratio for comparative analysis is an indicator of the share of the Cossack population not from the amateur male population, but from the total population of the province (since the tables do not indicate the amateur population). military Cossacks, but only the male and female population – that is, it is not possible to calculate the number of Cossacks of military age). For both the armed forces and the military Cossacks, all indicators are selected by nationality and presented in the columns: armed
forces - table XXII, military Cossacks - table XXIV, including family members and the female sex of the Cossack population. Comparative analysis - the indicator is available for each nationality, both for military personnel and family members, both within a group and in general indicators of provinces. Data on the armed forces are taken from table XXII of the provincial volumes of the census "Distribution of the population by profession and nationality based on knowledge of the native language"; data on military Cossacks are taken from table XXIV of the provincial volumes of the census "Distribution of the population by native language, class and state". To check the indicators for the whole province, in case of possible discrepancies, tables I "Available population and permanent", tables VIII "Distribution of population by estates" of the same volumes by provinces were used.
As a result of such an analysis of the issue, using the results of the census, we can conclude that the ethnic composition and features of the deployment of military formations in Western Siberia (Tobolsk and Tomsk provinces) are classic for the inner provinces of the empire. The absence of other large and, most importantly, economically significant ethnic groups, with the exception of Russians, ensures the loyalty of the local population to the government. In this regard, the central government planned the number of troops and Cossacks, their national composition and key locations in certain territories of the provinces. In our case, the territory of the provinces of Western Siberia was considered by St. Petersburg as safe from the point of view of the internal political situation and from a military-strategic point of view, based on the capabilities of the opposing border countries (the Chinese Empire). Hence the small number of troops - 5,991 military personnel in the Tobolsk and Tomsk provinces, which have sufficiently large mobilization resources. A relatively high concentration of troops and Cossack detachments was generally found near a small section of the border and around the Altai – Biysk and Zmeinogorsky districts (military factories and mines). All of the above factors made it possible to develop the region without fear of internal and external shocks.