Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2020 number

An active Russian colonization of Siberian lands took place in the late XVI - early XVII centuries. The processes of adaptation to new conditions at various levels, including the level of the worldview, occurred. In order to understand the role of symbols and signs in the worldview of immigrants who came from the European part of the country to Siberia, the author sets a goal to identify and analyze the work of modern researchers in various humanitarian disciplines studying this topic. To achieve the goal, the author studied foreign and domestic publications of the XX-XXI centuries, having undertaken a continuous review of publications. The depth of the historiographic survey covered the first half of the 1950s with single excursions to the earlier period. The author revealed more than two thousand works written by more than two hundred and fifty researchers, the closest of which to the study are considered in the article. The analysis showed that studies on the role of symbols and signs in Siberia during the XVI-XVIII centuries in the framework of historical disciplines, art criticism, history of architecture were carried on by domestic scientists. They researched specific symbols and signs, both authentic and borrowed, including signs of social status, charms and magic symbols and signs, symbols of historical realities, architectural Orthodox symbols, iconography, and symbols associated with Orthodoxy and the affirmation of the role of state and government. In studying the role of symbols and signs in the worldview of established communities and immigrants, the theoretical works of domestic and foreign researchers in the field of sociology and psychology stand apart. They are indirectly related to investigating the role of symbols and signs in Siberia, but can be used as a methodological basis. There are no special theoretical and methodological works based on Siberian materials from the late XVI - early XVIII centuries, as well as there is no comprehensive generalizing study of dynamics in the symbolic sphere of the migration community evidently for Russians in Siberia.

The dwelling in the human traditional culture is a model of the world and has all its features. The folk housing shows the people’s worldview, it is the main element of human life support system. In the early XVIII century, the indigenous population of Khakassia - the Khakass - created traditional dwellings different in design and architecture, their appearance was determined by environmental features, the lifestyle and economic activities. An archaic type of Khakass dwelling was “at ib” of frame structure with a truncated-pyramidal shape. The paper is devoted to studying this type of dwelling. The research relevance is due to the fact that “at ib” has been poorly studied in the Khakass material culture. The work objective is to investigate genesis and problems of existence of “at ib” in the system of traditional life support. The study tasks are to reconstruct the genesis of “at ib” dwelling, to describe in details the housing design for classification purposes, to give full characteristics of its structure, to solve the issue of interpretation of “at ib” nomination, and to define its autochthonous nature. The work is based on a comprehensive and systematic historical approach using historical and ethnographic methods. Chronologically, the study covers the period of XVIII-XX centuries. The initial time frame of research is a period of existence of main traditional types of housing of the indigenous population in Khakassia. The study results are: a detailed description of “at ib” design features, its variations and dwellings classification. The questions of “at ib” chronology, evolution and existence in the Khakass people material culture. The author gives his own variant of interpreting the problem of “at ib” nomination. According to the author’s view, the origin of the dwelling’s nomination has an ancient pre-Turk history and semantics reflecting the dominant cult place of the “horse” in the worldview and material culture of Khakassia’s ancient population. In the ethnographic time - the first half of the XVIII - early XX centuries - the nomination perception was already associative, that was due to semi-nomadic nature of Khakass culture and their cattle-breeding orientation. As for “at ib” genesis and origin, its design features allow speaking about the autochthonous housing and about convergence with the ancient population’s dwellings of the Karasuk archaeological culture of X-IX centuries BC in Khakassia based on research of Torgazhak settling complex by archaeologists.

The author believes that the potential for using narrative in ethnographic research is not fully understood yet. At the same time, such a source in the field ethnographic practice can be considered massive. The article is devoted to a narrative analysis of the first published autobiographical text by F.E. Tokarenko, a descendant of the Poltava settlers in Siberia, in terms of cognitive possibilities of the “ethnocultural identity” concept’s content. The autobiographical text created in the 1980-1990s is not devoid of artistic expression, reflects the author’s ability to write about himself as a conditionally independent character, causality is traced in the presentation of events. In terms of methodology, the author proceeds from the fact that a person achieves self-awareness through narrative, its interpretation, continuous self-interpretation, with which he highlights certain moments of life meaningfull for him. Following psychologists, we consider narrative as the main cultural tool which helps to form and provides existence of ordinary consciousness or folk psychology, as well as “personality and I” (Bruner, 2004; Barsky, Gritsuk, 2010). In the research the author is guided by the conceptosphere concept, which is understood as the terminological designation of any set of concepts including those characteristics of a particular text (Kharchenko, Safonova, 2013). Narrative by F. E. Tokarenko reveals the atmosphere of Ukrainian peasant life, pictures of resettlement, hardships of immigrants’ way and arrangement in a new place through the prism of ethnocultural identity. F.E. Tokarenko describes the life of his grandfather, father and his own as a chain of events determined by fate over several historical periods of our country. In its presentation, we deal not just with factography, but moments of comprehension of life in the form of an autobiography, which traces the relationship of the Siberian, regional identity with Russian, Ukrainian ethnic identities. The autobiographical text by F. E. Tokarenko reflects transformations of his ethnocultural identity.

The study of ornamentation of female needlework is relevant from the viewpoint of identifying conservation strategies and reasons for actualization of ornamental motives during the XX century up to the present. This work is the first attempt to overview study of women needlework ornamentation of the Russian population of the Altai Mountains. The regional materials are interesting as they have not been comprehensively studied before. The study of these materials provides the opportunity to trace a number of factors affecting the existence of ornamental motives at the local level among the Russian population that lived in a different ethnic environment and was heterogeneous in terms of faith and time of arrival to Gorny Altai. The study results will allow to show the existence of this tradition in the XX century and move on to disclose mechanisms and strategies for preserving and actualizing traditional ornamental motives of female needlework. The paper shows a variety of ornaments of Russian peasants based on the analysis of material sources stored in museum collections, and the author’s field data collected in different years. It is established that the Uimon Old Believers handicrafts stand out by specific features against the general background. Their ornamentation peculiarities existed in villages located in the Peschany River valley (Baragash, Ilyinka, Mariinka). There is a bear’s motif not previously seen in the embroidery of Russian Siberians. As a result of systematization and analysis of ornamental series made on female needlework, the author identifies ornamental motives that either lost their value or remained stable during the XX century. Traditional anthropomorphic images observed in the late XIX - early XX centuries are not traced in needlework of the second half of the XX century. Various images of fantastic animals and paradise birds recede into the past as well. Moreover, geometric motives (crosses, rhombuses), motives of vine, roses, flower sockets, images of roosters and pigeons have been actively used in the second half of the XX century. Local features of economic activity and environmental perception are reflected in multi-temporal zoomorphic compositions. Defining conservation strategies and updating mechanisms for identified peculiarities is a challenge of further research.

The work is devoted to identification and analysis of the set of the Buryat traditional representations of the horse. The research source base is made up of literary sources containing ethnographic, linguistic and folklore data. The paper uses a structural-semiotic method that identifies symbols associated with a horse. The study allows us to state that the horse image was ambiguous and characterized by an ambivalence of a connotation in the Buryat traditional worldview. The horse was a revered animal, a totem of a Buryat ethnic division. The Buryat mythological representations attributed to it some human qualities, in addition, they contain the motif of a horse’s soul relationship with a human one. The Buryat traditional worldview characterizes this animal with a multi-valued symbolism. It bears an aerial, more widely celestial symbolism, which, in particular, determines ornithomorphic features of its image. Horse ornitho-morphisity was reflected by existence of images of horse-bird, Khulan horse and shaman’s eight-legged horse Zagalmai in the Buryat folklore. Fire and solar symbols are associated with this animal. It was revealed that the horse served as a conductor of the supreme beings’ will and mediator between the worlds, as well as a visionary function in Buryat folklore and ritual. The author determines that the Buryats attached special importance to the horse color symbolism: it was believed that the color reflects the animal’s belonging to the Upper or Lower world in their shamanic poetics. Finally, the horse was a sign of male fertility in Buryat representations. The research reveals that some horse morphological features (head, mane, tail, urine) have supernatural properties in the Buryats’ mind. In the Buryat folklore, a horse was likened to a bear and a jerboa, and compared with a squirrel. In shamanic rites and poetics, this animal is associated with the idea of the shaman’s shapeshifting, and the sacrifice and initiation topic. The study shows that the horse image reflected in the Buryat mythological views and rituals is related to the Eurasian peoples’ cultures.

The aim of the work is to characterize the images of the mouse and mole in the traditional worldview of the khakases. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were solved: identifying their image in folklore, determining their significance in the ritual practice of the people in question. The chronological framework of the work covers the end of the XIX - the middle of the XX centuries. The choice of such time limits is due to the state of the source database on the topic of the study. The main sources are folklore, linguistic and ethnographic materials. Archival materials are introduced into scientific circulation. The work is based on the methodological principles of historicism. Historical and ethnographic methods are used - relic and semantic analysis. The linguistic technique - etymology is applied. The study revealed that in the Khakas worldview, the mouse and mole were symbolically significant animals. They were given a special place in folklore and in the traditional beliefs of the people. It was revealed that in the culture of this people they belonged to the category of chthonic creatures. All the vital activity of the animals in question is closely connected with the earth and the underground space. Along with this, their mythological characteristics were greatly influenced by the morphology and volumes of their bodies, as well as the features of their zoological behavior. The negative perception of the mouse image in the khakas culture was due to its mythological connection with the underworld, as the abode of the dead, as well as its biological characteristics. According to the beliefs of the people, the animal in question was not only directly related to the evil spirits, but was often perceived as their embodiment. According to popular beliefs, the mouse’s malevolence manifested itself in real harm caused by its dwelling, household buildings, utensils, and clothing, as well as the destruction of food supplies and mystical desecration, which, according to popular belief, entailed illness and death of domestic animals and people themselves. The image of the mole in oral folklore and Khakas beliefs, contrary to its chthonic nature, had a positive connotation. They believed that the mole has access to secret knowledge and has mystical power; therefore this animal has a role in the system of shamanistic views.

Based on a critical discourse analysis of texts published in the religious and educational journal “Bozhiya Niva” for 1905-1907 the article reveals the attitudes of these texts’ authors to the First Russian Revolution; clarifies headings and genres where the “revolutionary” topic was actualized in the journal; defines some rhetorical techniques, key words which helped to describe revolution and some contexts in which they were used most often; determines the measures of “salvation from the revolution” proposed as effective and what aftereffect of readers was expected after these measures. The monthly pedagogical journal “Bozhiya Niva” was published by the Holy Trinity St. Sergius Lavra with subtitles “Troitsky interlocutor for parochial schools” (1902-1905), and “Troitsky interlocutor for Orthodox school and family” (1906-1917). The magazine editor was the bishop (later the archbishop) Nikon (in the world N. I. Rozhdestvensky), a supporter of the “popular” Orthodoxy. The magazine’s key topic from January 1905 to December 1907 was the revolutionary threat. Advanced articles, didactic texts from the internal review of “Our Diary”, critical reviews of periodicals were devoted to it, besides it was raised in the bibliographic section. The following main issues related to the revolution were reflected in the magazine: 1) the fear of revolution, which was one of the symptoms impending the monarchy’s disintegration (described by metaphors of disease, death, destruction), the triumph of atheism, mass egoism and militant utilitarianism; 2) the Russian intellectuals, who uncritically assimilated Western ideas, as the turmoil of social upheavals, and the Russian people, strong with their sincere Orthodox faith, as the main savior of the country; 3) the theme of children’s suffering and sacrifices related to the pernicious experience of the revolution as the triumph of the “modern plague of nihilism” and “western ideas” 4) heroes-rescuers of Russia from revolutionary ideas.

The paper objective is to establish directions of the credit policy of the Irkutsk Branch of the Siberian Trade Bank in 1904-1907. The following tasks have been set and solved: to find archival documents relating to credited persons and entities in the Branch; to identify the range of individuals and organizations credited to the Branch during the specified period; to structure and analyze data on borrowers’ compartment; to conclude on the Branch policy related to credited individuals and organizations range. The article relevance is due to the lack of information in the scientific circulation about the private banking sector activity in the region, in general, and the local branch of the Siberian Commercial Bank, in particular. At present, there is no analysis of the lending volume, composition of credited individuals and organizations, and therefore it is impossible to make a more or less reliable idea on the direction of the regional banking policy during the pre-revolutionary period. This work is intended to fill a gap in the history of the private banking sector’s development in the Irkutsk Province concerning the local branch activity of the Siberian Commercial Bank in terms of lending. The research is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. The author used along with general scientific approaches of cognition, which include analysis, synthesis, generalization, also methods of special historical research: historical-genetic, historical-comparative, and historical-systematic ones. Based on the study the author made conclusions about the absence of a well-regulated policy of the Bank’s Branch in relation to borrowers while maintaining a tendency to increase the credit limit depending on the annual turnover and commodity security of customers; the exclusivity of the banking institute’s attitude to the community of the largest entrepreneurs applied to the Bank for credit resources; the preferential lending to small and medium-sized business segments by the Irkutsk Branch of the Siberian Commercial Bank in pre-revolutionary Russia.

The article is devoted to the modern stage of studying private trade entrepreneurship during the NEP years. The fundamental difference is that under modern conditions researchers have an opportunity to use different theoretical approaches, apply various methods, and rely on various historical sources. A significant distinctive feature of the modern stage of historiography is a closer integration of domestic and foreign researchers, wide use of interdisciplinary and integration approaches in studying the past. The new economic policy as a model of transition economy includes various methods of state regulation, implying both planned and market beginnings, both economic and administrative measures of influence, assumes the existence of a multi-layered economy and a complex system of links between its constituent elements. Under these conditions, trade mediation played a significant role in NEP economics’ system of relations. While at the previous historiographical stage it was not given adequate attention, then under conditions of market relations formation, it attracted greater interest. Accordingly, attention to these relation carriers - private entrepreneurs - increased. Being the most economically active part of population, private entrepreneurs were discriminated on the basis of their profession and deprived of the right to vote. The procedures of deprivation and restoration of rights are a special subject of research, as they help to understand the process of constructing a new society, principles of its social stratification. The attention of researchers to marginal social strata and groups is another distinctive feature of the historiographical stage under consideration. Contemporary studies in private commercial entrepreneurship emphasize social aspects of the problem as opposed to the political ones that dominated during the Soviet period. Thanks to using such historical sources as personal files of “lishentsy”, reports of the Joint State Political Directorate, judicial and investigative cases, memoirs, it became possible to address the fate of private entrepreneurs, to get information from the first person. The modern period is characterized by both attention to macroeconomic processes and study of economic practices at a micro level, as well as traditional attention to public policy, and investigating the individuals’ fate based on an anthropological approach. The diversity of research and differences in approaches of modern scientists are organically consistent with the diversity of NEP decade, in this regard, the author concludes on the relevance and good significant prospects to study this topic on the eve of NEP’s centenary.

The study focuses on the activities of Siberian urban consumer cooperation in 1912-1917 in the context of the problems of civil society and developing civil self-government. The author investigates the topic using a wide range of literature and sources within the framework of modernization theory, diffusionism concept, and «actor» approach. During the pre-revolutionary period, consumer cooperatives had an institutional, ideological, and real legal basis for autonomy from the state, self-activity, and self-government. This contributed to forming a new culture of social action related to the public control development over cooperative’s affairs and local life. Cooperatives performed an important function of social transformation of peasants who had moved to the cities into responsible citizens, mobilization of innovatively active people. The author analyzes data on 75 general meetings in 14 large Siberian city cooperatives; shows examples of cooperatives’ significance in economic, social and cultural spheres of Siberian cities, formation of new modern models of shareholders’ behavior. Pre-modern values of a part of shareholders, social disunion within cooperatives, and abuse of the cooperative-administrative resource by the left socialists had a deterrent effect on this process. The determining factors were not financial or technical, but organizational ones: collegiality, transparency, involvement of professional expertise, responsible specialists. Forming consumer societies as democratic self-governing public organizations led to strengthening their influence on the social life, especially during the First World War, when cooperation developed effective links with municipal government to solve food, school and other issues of local life.

The study objective is to assess the experience of municipal elections within the frame of the authoritarian political regime in Siberia during the Civil War. To achieve this goal the following tasks were solved: to establish the chronology and scale of electoral processes in the anti-Bolshevik camp, to analyze the organization, progress and results of municipal elections. The research source base includes the records of urban councils, documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs municipal department of the Russian government, and periodicals. There are gaps and discrepancies in numerous sources, and data on elections in different cities are fragmentary. However, a comprehensive approach to the study elections allows us to get closer to understanding electoral processes. The research results reveal that the municipal election campaign in Siberia lasted from early February to mid November in 1919. In other words, the election process was launched during the success of the anti-Bolshevik authoritarian political regime and lasted until its transition to the terminal stage, when the front of the struggle against the Red Army began to collapse. During this period, elections were held in 47 regional cities covering the vast majority of administrative centers of provinces (guberniya), regions (oblast) and counties (uyezd). The deep-rooted urban population of Siberia took an active part in the elections, but mobilized soldiers and officers, refugees and seasonal workers were not permitted voting. The voters turnout at the election amounted approximately 17.0 %. This level was considered low, but sufficient for the election to be recognized as valid. According to the vote results, non-political groups and organizations gained an advantage in the municipal Dumas. Despite the conditions of the Civil War and military dictatorship, the elections were general, equal, secret, direct, competitive ones at the municipal level based on a system of approval voting in multi-mandate districts. These elections ensured the will of citizens and changes of the self-government bodies composition. However, the success of a well-thought-out electoral policy was devalued by its late implementation.

The article discusses the problem of collective farmers’ exclusion from agricultural cartels («purge») in West Siberia in the 1930s. The author distinguishes two approaches in modern historiography to study the topic. According to the first one, purges were instruments of the state administrative and repressive pressure. The second approach is related to research of the collective farm society and processes taking place in it. The article objective is to show the possibility of implementing both methodological approaches using documentary materials of West Siberian Region; to answer the question - which approach seems the most acceptable? The article shows that the study of the issue will depend primarily on the approach of a researcher and archival sources he used. The state policy in the countryside during the 1930s varied. Therefore, the period chosen for studying plays an important role. Periods of tightening administrative and repressive actions were changed by periods of their weakening. Depending on this, the nature of the purges changed as well. Periods of weakening pressure on the village created an opportunity for collective farmers to regulate relations within their collectives without external pressure. Purges were used by them as a way to resolve conflicts arising in the collective farm society. This is pointed out in the works on social history. Policy of the state leadership and arbitrariness of local authorities did not exclude the “creativity” of collective farm masses, which solved the problems of collective farm societies using purge instruments.

This article offers the review of the urban environment components that can be seen on the photo documents of the Soviet period kept in the State archive of Sverdlovsk region. The fonds F-1 of the State archive of Sverdlovsk region contains 46546 photo documents (42772 are negatives, 3340 are positives) and 434 albums. The potential of the fonds for conducting the city environment research can be estimated as a large one. The author analyzed information about 9791 photographs presented in the archive books to evaluate the relevance of the search results for the search query concerning the evolution of urban environment process and concerning the elaboration of the classification of urban environment elements. The relevance acquired was 47%. 34% of the documents show the city areas and its improvement (buildings and monuments, streets, squares, the processes of construction and reconstruction of different spaces). The amount of photographs of the industrial objects and operation processes is also big. The documents describing the objects related to culture, education, medicine, sport, trade, recreation and other facilities create the image of safe and comfortable urban environment. In the 30th of XXth century Sverdlovsk was becoming an experimental area for the new technologies, new urban planning decisions and household samples implementation. Photo documents of this period are devoted to the topic of renovation and industrialization. Some aspects of improvement of public services and household practices are demonstrated in the documents of the 1940s and 1950s. The volume of documents of the period of the Great Patriotic War is small. The documents of the period after war get a certain political tint. In the middle of the 1960s, when the city population came closer to the first million, the process of creating photo documents became more status and scale oriented. The image of Sverdlovsk during the period from year 1937 until 1979 transformed a lot and this evolution can be seen with the help of photo documents. We can also make some conclusions about the factors of transformation which include the central policy and choosing Sverdlovsk as a platform of the socialistic experiment in building the “city of future”, the complex approach to the urban planning and of course the industrialization which played an enormous part in the city development. By the end of the 1970s the status of Sverdlovsk as the regional industrial center of Urals became undisputable.

The article focuses on the Museums along the ancient Silk Road that runs from Southeast Asia to Central Asia and then to Europe. Since early times there was always the movement of peoples from West to East. The ancient caravan routes promoted development of numerous cultures of the existing ethnical groups and their specific skills and creativities. In this concern we should think first about the equivalence of each of the cultures. Besides the vice versa migration, each of them participated the international exchange connected with material and immaterial acquisitions. On one hand, there was a lively trade of valuable goods as silk, gold, silver, glass, ceramics, tools and artifacts. On the other hand, there were influence of immaterial enrichment such as the living conditions, the inner spirit, customs, rituals and rites. A very important highlight is the interchange of life-philosophies as well as world religions. When we think about the most important cities like Chang’an, the ancient capital, we are convinced of the internationality, cross-culturality and especially religious influences that have inspired and motivated the whole life and communication. Without these inspirations, the capital of Chang’an would have never produced such an extraordinary level of skill, artifacts, and a high standard and pattern in creating art and culture. Related to contemporaneous conditions the high-developed Silk Roads are still important ways for the international, even global trade and exchange, as well as for further cultural developments. In the future, the Museum-landscape has more opportunities to consider the museological possibilities in the international cooperation along the Silk Roads than in the past. One of these forms is the Tea-Culture, well known since the Tang-Dynasty, China (618-907 AD), and as a component of culture and civilization. There were lots of tea houses in Japan already in the XV century. They were regarded as particular sites for discussing issues of philosophy, religions, aesthetics, literature, ethics, and, arts of course. The tea-house social role contributed the private communication through tea. For many historical periods the idea of tea and tea-house has acquired a transnational quality and become the object of study by scientists from different countries.

The article deals with the socio-cultural practices of Siberian merchants to develop remote and hard-to-reach territories of North Asia. Merchants proved themselves both as discoverers and explorers, active participants in the economic colonization of new areas, and generous benefactors, with the assistance and direct participation of which the region’s mental development took place, i.e. its inclusion into the country’s unified cultural and spiritual space. To a large extent, development of public education, establishment of educational institutions, scientific researches, and church construction were carried out thanks to merchant donations. The merchants’ support of the Russian Orthodox Church’s missionary activities was of great importance. The ethnic and religious composition of merchantry, upbringing of merchant youth, along with changes taking place over time in the cultural and educational level of the Siberian merchants influenced their socio-cultural practices. In particular, expanding intellectual horizons stimulated the activity of merchants in the field of public education, scientific research, accumulation and promotion of information about the region’s nature and population. It is interesting, that since the late XVIII century merchants had highly valued their professional activities to develop the state, considered themselves useful members of society, whose efforts led to spreading civilization and progress. A brief overview of all multilateral activity of merchants shows that it should be considered as a complex system of actions to incorporate the region into the Russian Empire. Moreover, this result was achieved regardless of what goals were pursued by individual representatives of the merchant class and how consciously they sought to help the state in developing new, inaccessible and sparsely populated territories. Largely thanks to their efforts, these areas were secured as part of the state being included in its economy and entering a single Imperial mental space.

The article relevance is due to the necessity to generalize historical stages of functioning of the Great Silk Road in relation to its revival in the context of globalization. It reveals the important role of this transcontinental trade route for the international relations development of the peoples in Kazakhstan and Central Asia states. The author represents initiatives and strategies of Kazakhstan, China, and Russia on the development and implementation of promising for Asian countries project “New Silk Road”; gives the characteristic of its main areas of cooperation in the economic and sociocultural spheres; pays attention to popularization of the Great Silk Road and its Siberian component as the longest object of world cultural heritage significant for tourism development.