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Humanitarian sciences in Siberia

2014 year, number

HISTORY AND CULTURE OF BYELORUSSIANS IN SIBERIA IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

Ye.V. Komleva
Institute of History of the SB RAS, Russia, 630090, Novosibirsk, Akad. Nikolaev str., 8
Keywords: Siberia, Byelorussians, historiography, cross-cultural interaction, migration processes

Abstract

The paper presents analysis of contemporary Russian historiography on the history and culture of Byelorussians in Siberia. It is noted that for the last twenty years the history and culture of Byelorussians in Siberia has been studied within several fields of knowledge: folklore studies, ethnography, historical demography, history of settlement and development of Siberia, biographic and local history. The author characterizes key publications of the recent years dealing with different aspects of the Byelorussians’ role in colonization and socioeconomic development of the region. New problems and methodological approaches to the subject in contemporary Russian historiography on the history of Byelorussians in Siberia have been analyzed. Certain complications for researchers have been revealed: the problem of identification of Byelorussians among the whole Siberian population in the XVI-XIX centuries, the lack of methods allowing revealing the Byelorussian folklore sources belonging to the early period. The paper focuses on the integration efforts of various specialists - both from Russia and Byelorussia. Prospects for further investigation are outlined, including such topics as migration links between the populations of Byelorussia and Siberia, economic practices brought by Byelorussians to Siberia, cross-cultural interaction and succession of traditions, as well as development of local history studies dealing with the role of Byelorussians in the history of some Siberian cities and villages.