Научная статья на тему 'JEWS, GERMANS, AND POLES IN SIBERIA: NEW RESEARCH IN THE STUDY OF THE SIBERIAN POPULATION IN THE 19th – EARLY 20th CENTURIES'

JEWS, GERMANS, AND POLES IN SIBERIA: NEW RESEARCH IN THE STUDY OF THE SIBERIAN POPULATION IN THE 19th – EARLY 20th CENTURIES Текст научной статьи по специальности «История и археология»

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Siberia / Jews / Germans / Poles / national community / diaspora / nationality policy / anti-Semitism / Pale of Settlement / political exile / historiography / Vladimir N. Shayduorv / Сибирь / евреи / немцы / поляки / национальная община / диаспора / наци- ональная политика / антисемитизм / черта оседлости / политическая ссылка / историография / В.Н. Шайдуров

Аннотация научной статьи по истории и археологии, автор научной работы — Naum G. Kats, Carmine J. Storella

During the Soviet era, historical research into the sensitive question of so-called “non-titled” national minorities endured a forced hiatus. Since the post-Soviet opening of formerly closed archives serious historical study of the experiences of these groups has undergone a rebirth. In the context of the contemporary historiography, Vladimir Shaydurov, a leading expert on Siberia and its diaspora populations, examines the history of three ethnic groups – Jews, Germans, and Poles – that resettled in or were exiled to Siberia from various parts of European Russia. A native Siberian, Shaydurov places heavy emphasis on the legal, social, and economic framework established by Imperial nationality policy during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and shows how the minority communities, as well as local Siberian officials, maneuvered within this framework to establish themselves in their new surroundings. The legal issues were particularly significant for Jews from the Pale of Settlement, and Poles exiled as punishment for their revolutionary activities. Shaydurov also provides an extremely valuable, highly detailed, and often fascinating review of pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and post-Soviet historiography on each of these groups. Shaydurov finds that Siberia served the resettled populations as a sort of “melting pot” in which various groups could not only interact more easily, but also enjoy a degree of economic opportunity, and even financial or professional success, rarely possible in the European parts of the Empire. This book may be profitably read by specialists as well as non-scholars who have an interest in Siberia or in any of the ethnic groups under discussion.

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Евреи, немцы и поляки в Сибири: Новое в изучении сибирского народонаселения XIX – начала XX веков

В советскую эпоху исследование острого и болезненного вопроса – истории так называемых «не титульных» национальных меньшинств в России и СССР – пережило вынужденную паузу. После горбачевской перестройки открытие для исследователей ранее недоступных архивных документов создало широкие возможности для глубокого изучения прошлого этих групп населения. В контексте современной историографической ситуации авторы статьи оценивают новую книгу российского историка В.Н. Шайдурова, одного из ведущих специалистов по истории этнических групп Сибири. В его книге исследуется история трех этнических групп – евреев, немцев и поляков, которые переселялись в Сибирь из разных уголков Европейской России. По оценке авторов статьи, В.Н. Шайдуров, сам сибиряк, создал чрезвычайно ценный, очень подробный и часто увлекательный историографический обзор дореволюционной, советской и постсоветской российской литературы о судьбе каждой из этих этнических групп в Сибири. В.Н. Шайдуров уделил большое внимание правовым, социальным и экономическим аспектам национальной политики правительства Российской империи в течение XIX – начала XX вв. По мнению авторов статьи, это дало историку возможность всесторонне показать, как сами национальные общины пытались в рамках, установленных имперским правительством, устроить свою жизнь в новых условиях и в новом окружении. Вместе с ними маневрировали в этих же рамках и местные власти Сибири, решая вопросы, связанные с этими тремя национальными меньшинствами. Правовые вопросы были особенно важны для евреев, прибывших из-за черты оседлости, а также для поляков, которые были высланы в Сибирь в виде наказания за участие в национальноосвободительной и революционной борьбе. Авторы статьи считают обоснованным мнение В.Н. Шайдурова о том, что Сибирь стала своего рода «плавильным котлом», в котором евреи, немцы и поляки могли не только легче взаимодействовать друг с другом, но также достичь материального благополучия, коммерческого и профессионального успеха, редко возможных для них в Европейской части Российской империи.

Текст научной работы на тему «JEWS, GERMANS, AND POLES IN SIBERIA: NEW RESEARCH IN THE STUDY OF THE SIBERIAN POPULATION IN THE 19th – EARLY 20th CENTURIES»

У КНИЖНОЙ ПОЛКИ Book Reviews

N.G. Kats and C.J. Storella

JEWS, GERMANS, AND POLES IN SIBERIA: NEW RESEARCH IN THE STUDY OF THE SIBERIAN POPULATION IN THE 19th - EARLY 20th CENTURIES

Н.Г. Кац, К.Дж. Сторэлла

Евреи, немцы и поляки в Сибири: Новое в изучении сибирского народонаселения XIX - начала XX веков

As Vladimir Shaydurov, Associate Professor at the Saint Petersburg Mining University, reminds readers in the introduction to his highly informative, Jews, Germans, and Poles in Western Siberia from the 19th to the Early 20th Centuries (Saint Petersburg, 2013)1, throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries Siberia was not just a frontier land where two continents and two civilizations happened to meet, it was also a territory inhabited by practitioners of all the world's religions, and a "melting pot" where a variety of ethnic groups "actively interacted."

A native Siberian, Shaydurov has set out to elucidate and compare the histories of three of the distinct European ethno-religious groups that, as a result of the Russian Empire's centuries-long territorial expansion and the social, political, and economic ramifications this set in motion, resettled (under compulsion or voluntarily) in the vast land beyond the Urals.2

Rather than delving into the internal or religious life of the communities under discussion, however, Shaydurov directs his attention to the legal, demographic, and social-economic contexts in which Siberia's Jews, Germans, and Poles lived, worked and, in some cases, thrived. As he demonstrates, by finding and settling into various economic "niches" these three groups were instrumental in developing the territory and, consequently, in helping to integrate it more fully into European Russia.

It is worth noting here that the history of the peoples of Siberia has long attracted the attention of historians in the United States. American historiography contains numerous general studies of the region and its native peoples along with works that fully examine the dynamics of Tsarist colonial policy. Of the three groups comprising Shaidurov's

study, American historians have devoted primary attention to the Russian Jews and the Germans. The Poles, however, remain a relatively understudied group.3

Shaydurov's overall conception of the territory's development requires him to examine both the "vertical" connections by which the Imperial government defined the place of each nationality and minority group in the Russian state and legal system, and the "horizontal" connections through which these groups interacted with each other. Shaydurov accomplishes this task remarkably well through a deep knowledge of pre-revolutionary and contemporary historiography, primary sources such as newspapers, letters, and memoirs, and the archival resources that have been made available to researchers since the collapse of the USSR. During the Soviet era, the definition of the Russian Empire as a "prison house of nations" dominated official historiography, and directives concerning the elucidation of the historical development of so-called "titled" indigenous peoples and nationalities precluded research into the development of other, smaller national groups. Newer research into the history of the peoples of Russia has introduced a comparative-historical approach to the analysis of their development. Researchers today, including the author of this study, are now focusing attention on the general and the specific features in the development of peoples situated on certain territory, in this case Siberia, in a given period.

How did these groups come to be in Siberia? What drove them to this region, so remote from central Russia, with its often harsh climate? Into what economic niches did the settlers tend to gravitate? Why? What obstacles did they face? And finally, what role did the representatives of these newly formed communities play in the economic development of the territory? The author has tried to provide answers to these and numerous other questions.

Shaydurov has gathered a tremendous wealth of sources including material from central and Siberian archives, as well as the archive of the History of the Jewish People located in Jerusalem. He also draws on pre-revolutionary and recently published document collections and laws, statistics and record compilations, letters from exiles, and the pre-revolutionary press. This varied source base enables him to investigate the Imperial government's nationalities policy in Siberia and to show that quite often, despite official directions and control from St. Petersburg, local Siberian authorities helped the representatives of national communities take part in the life of the region. Also of interest is Shaydurov's use of previously unknown or restricted memoirs of participants in events under discussion, and of published historical research in Russian, German, and Polish.

In the first chapter, Shaydurov provides an extremely valuable and comprehensive critical review of the historical literature and sources that concern the three national communities in Western Siberia. This is the first review of sources on the subject, and scholars will profit much from

the author's presentation. He notes, for example, that the historiography of each community neatly divides into the exact same periods. In the first period, which began in the second-half of the 19th century and continued to 1917, the writings of conservative and liberal representatives of the state school dominated the literature. During the second period, from the 1920s to the 1960s, official restrictions severely limited the study of non-titled national groups. Researchers could include such material only as part of a more general narrative. The third period, running through the 1970s and 1980s, witnessed the establishment of the main lines of study of these communities. Finally, in the fourth, post-Soviet period, methodological pluralism and archival access made it possible to reappraise earlier findings that, in turn, stimulated research in the field of nationality studies.

Taken together these sources provide the author the opportunity to explore the dynamic workings of the Polish, Jewish, and German communities in Western Siberia on the basis of comparative legal and demographic analyses, which enables him to detail the legislative basis of Imperial relocation policy and the source of the migratory flow that led to the formation of these national communities in Siberia. In addition, he displays a masterly understanding of the vertical and horizontal connections that affected the development of these communities, particularly in the evolution of the civil and legal status of their members and in regard to their economic life.

Regarding the Jewish community, he writes that at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century there existed in domestic Jewish studies an "external" and an "internal" approach. If the first was based on research that included Jewish as well as non-Jewish sources, the second relied, on the whole, on documents generated within the Jewish community. The author points out that at the beginning of the 20th century interest in the history of the Jewish people increased in connection with the increasing frequency of pogroms and the discussions arising out of the Beilis Case and the Dreyfuss Affair. A no less significant factor, less touched on by the author, was the Jewish emigration from Russia to the USA.

Examining previous research, particularly that of Yu. Ostrovsky's, The Jews of Siberia (St. Petersburg, 1911), which was based on data gathered in the 1897 census, Shaydurov emphasizes the small size of the Jewish population in the region (35,000 people) and their dispersion across an enormous territory. Following Ostrovsky, the author notes that the so-called "Jewish question" in Siberia was created by local authorities for their own purposes.

Recent research by Russian historians, especially representatives of the Siberian school of Jewish studies, has established a tradition of looking at the history of Jewish communities in Siberia within the borders of distinct provinces. One result of this approach is to highlight the legal situation and economic activity of Siberia's Jewish population in the pre-

reform period. L. Kalminova, on the basis of Eastern Siberia, demonstrated that Imperial ethnic policy toward the non-native population carried a more liberal character than in European Russia. She also concluded that, as in other regions of the country, representatives of the Siberian Jewish community tried to find their economic niche in activities that did not bring them into conflict with existing legislation. According to Kalminova, for a long time carting and lamp oil production prevailed as forms of Jewish business activity. In trade and industry, Jews often took up work like photography that did not hold the promise of large profits.

In response to their growing economic influence, Imperial policy toward the Jews became harsher at the beginning of the 20th century. The government now took measures to limit their economic activity. As the concentration of Jews in Siberian cities increased, the state introduced prohibitions on Jewish access to certain professions in an effort to restrict Jews in the region to handicraft and artisanal production.

Shaydurov, then, sees the current research situation positively, as the beginning of a qualitatively new period in the development of Siberian Jewish studies, particularly in connection with the formation of academic centers in Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude. In addition to the territorial-chronological approach, researchers are now using a problem-chronological approach. From this position, many authors are analyzing problems internal to Jewish social life and the place of the Jews in the Imperial penal system. He does not hesitate, however, to identify some general problems with recent scholarly output. Overall, these shortcomings may be grouped under the heading of treating the subject in a sort of provincial isolation. In contrast, he calls for the application of a macro-regional approach that would avoid the pitfalls of limiting research within the framework of a single province. Likewise, he bemoans the absence of comparative analyses of the legal, economic, and religious situations of the Jewish population and those of other nationalities in the region.

In his review of the historiography concerning the Polish diaspora in Siberia, Shaydurov emphasizes that despite the significance of the "Polish question" in 19th century Russia, until now scholars have paid insufficient attention to the Polish community in Siberia due to severely restricted access to archival materials.

According to Shaydurov, "Russia failed to transform Polish lands and their population into an integral part of its organism." To prove this argument, he discusses the Russian-Polish antagonism that resulted in numerous uprisings and the relocation of Poles on Imperial territory, including Siberia.

Soviet historiography of the 1920s through the 1960s viewed the history of this community mainly through the prism of Siberian exile, a topic that continues to elicit scholarly interest. Researchers from this period managed to amass statistical information about the exiles from the archives - their social origins and location in the provinces and regions of Siberia. Through this work, it came to light that the majority of exiled

Poles were gentry and that their situation in exile depended primarily on their relations with the local administration. The exiled participants in the national liberation movement also encountered sympathy across the broad spectrum of Russian society.

Irkutsk University, where a center for the study of Siberian Poles arose in the late 1960s, is now a leading site for Russian-Polish academic exchanges. Today regional historiography has assumed a large place in the history of Polish exiles, the community's religious life, and its social and political activities. An overwhelming number of publications dedicated to the Poles in Western Siberia in the second half of the 19th century and late-Imperial period have appeared. Nevertheless, Shaydurov notes with regret that important historical issues have not received the attention they deserve, including the social-demographic makeup and economic life of the community. As a result, when compared to the achievements of Siberian Jewish studies, work on the Siberian Poles remains underdeveloped, dominated as it is by the history of political exile.

The second chapter details the formation and development of the Jewish community in Western Siberia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. According to the author, the "Jewish problem" in Russia remained latent for a long time. Only in the second half of the 19th century did it become central to tsarist nationality policy. Of particular interest is the analysis of sources on the formation of this community in the pre-reform era. Relying on documents from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts and the pre-revolutionary publications of Iu.I. Gessen, Shaydurov addresses the role of hard labor and exile in the first stage of the community's formation.

At the beginning of the 19th century, however, efforts turned to transforming the Jews into farmers, and dispatching them to agricultural colonies outside their traditional areas of residence. Various plans were drawn up to relocate Jews to Novorossiya and even Tobolsk province. Proposals to solve the "Jewish question" by assimilating them into the general Russian population through Christianization or through various acculturation measures were also floated at the highest state levels. Jews were made liable for military recruitment in 1827.

By the 1830s, the poverty that reigned among the Jewish population of the Pale of Settlement and the Jews attempt to improve their economic situation had created the internal preconditions to include them in the resettlement process. The absence of sufficient finances at the local and provincial levels resulted in the cessation of this process in 1837, and there soon followed a decree on returning all resettled parties to their previous places of residence or to Kherson province. By the end of the 1830s, the autocratic state had successfully eradicated the Jews from Siberia. The materials in this chapter place in question the standard conclusions found in the literature that more than one thousand Jews had been resettled in Siberia by 1836. In fact, the number was significantly less.

The exile and settlement of Jews in Siberia raised the question of their

inclusion in the economic life of the region. Exiles were usually sent to work in metallurgical plants. Some managed to find support themselves through trade. While Petersburg circles considered Jews nothing more than a "harmful" group, Siberian administrators granted exceptions which allowed them to engage in local trade and distilling. Secret instructions during Nicholas I's reign prohibited Jews from working in government and private factories in the Urals, and in the Altai mining territory in order to prevent them from stealing precious metals and "corrupting the local population." On the whole, as the chapter emphasizes, the legislative acts of this period regarding the Jews were restrictive. Norms were established limiting the growth of Jewish trade, while a decision admitting Jews into the Siberian merchant guilds was left to the Ministry of Finances. On the whole, only admittance to the state-peasant category was open to them.

In Siberia, the Jews found themselves in a complicated and muddled legal situation. Though outside the Pale of Settlement, the legal norms of the Pale were still applied to them. At the same time, they also fell under the jurisdiction of the Regulation on Exiles. As a result, Jews had to struggle enormously to achieve any semblance of legal recognition and justice.

The reforms of the 1860s and 1870s granted Jews the legal standing to resettle in Siberia. The first to do so were those with higher education such as doctors and teachers. Another group consisted of cantonists (kan-tonisty) and their children, and artisans who received the right to reside together. Nevertheless, by the 1890s the authorities again returned to the idea of removing the Jews from Siberia, and numerous campaigns were undertaken to uncover people who had no right to live in the region. The question of a Pale of Settlement for Jews in Siberia was also discussed extensively. However, in as much as Jews gravitated to economic centers where they might earn a living rather than to their places of registration, local authorities often reported to the provincial police administration that no Jews lived in the area under their control.

In 1901-1902, the Senate issued clarifications on the application of the "Pale of Settlement" concept to Siberia, indicating that in this region the Pale of Settlement for each Jew was the territory (okrug) or district (uezd) in which he was registered. Shaydurov discusses the discriminatory policies of Alexander III and Nicholas II in detail. P.A. Stolypin tried to carry out his "Jewish policy," but this did not lighten, and in a number of cases even worsened, the anti-Jewish laws by preserving legal discrimination. It required the February Revolution to eliminate discriminatory restrictions on civil rights. On March 20, 1917, the Provisional Government's Ministry of Justice, under Alexander Kerensky, passed a preliminary resolution that by legislative act abolished all limits on civil rights based on religion and nationality.

Shaydurov also details the Jewish population's urban experience. Like other national groups in Siberian cities, Jews tended to congregate

in specific religious and ethnic enclaves. Poverty forced many to take up begging - often on a full-time basis - as a source of income. Local materials, especially from Tobolsk, enable Shaydurov to discuss the "economic niches" in which Jews settled in order to survive. Several helpful tables in this chapter provide statistics on Jewish economic activity. Trade and transport, particularly carting, assumed importance for Jews in Tobolsk. In post-reform Siberia, private capital began to play an important role. Jewish entrepreneurs could be found in gold and the mining of precious stones, as well as mineral processing. Money lending, trade, construction work, distilleries and gold mines served as the sources of primary, especially merchant, capital accumulation. By the beginning of the 20th century, Jews in Western Siberia had moved into new niches like processing agricultural products, jewelry making, and manufacturing artistic and luxury items. In conclusion, the author emphasizes that by assuming and reinforcing their role in certain economic activities the Siberian Jews created the conditions under which social institutions connected with religion, education, and charity, could successfully operate.4

In the third chapter, Shaydurov turns his attention to the Germans of Western Siberia. German military personnel, bureaucrats, and mining specialists began moving into Siberia in the 18th century. In contrast to the Poles and others, few Germans had been exiled to Siberia. They settled in cities and administrative-economic centers. Like the Jews, members of the German community in Western Siberia also found their economic niches. German specialists played an important role in the development of the mining and metallurgical industries in Altai and the Trans-Baikal regions. In Altai, an entire German industrial dynasty emerged. Germans also rose to prominent political positions; four governors of Western Siberia in the 19th century could claim Prussian or Baltic German origins. The Germans also played a significant role in professional education, and as doctors in the territory. But, as the author points out, by passing their knowledge and expertise on to the Russian population, the Germans undermined their unique position, eventually enabling new Russian specialist to displace them.

In the first period of its history, which ended in 1880, the German community rapidly assimilated into the Russian population. In addition to the large number of marriages to Russian women, the absence of religious organizations also helped to accelerate this process, especially in the 18th century. As a result, the size of the German community in the region remained small in the early post-reform period. With two hundred and fifty members, Omsk claimed the largest number of Germans.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, as the land questioned assumed acute proportions in European Russia, more German settlers began to move into Siberia. The author suggests that German settlers could already be found in Tobolsk province and Altai in the first half of the 1880s. Lutheran peasants who had resettled from central Russian provinces, however, categorically refused to live near Russian peasants because of

religious differences.

In the 1890s and early 20th century, resettlement began to gather momentum. Volga Germans dominated this movement in the years 1907 and 1908. German colonists from Ukraine and Crimea soon followed. These newer arrivals founded over two-hundred settlements beyond the Urals. Shaydurov identifies three groups of settlements: Altai, Omsk, and Pavlodarsk. These were characteristically mono-ethnic and mono-confessional, i.e. in each settlement only Germans who belonged to the same religion - Lutheran, Catholic, or Mennonite - lived. Notably, the overwhelming majority of inhabitants consisted of middle peasants. The share of middle and wealthy-peasant farms reached 40 % to 50 % by the start of World War I. Citing figures from the 1917 census, the author notes that the number of proletarians in districts of German settlement declined by almost two times as workers moved into the middle peasant ranks. The economic activity of the Germans looks quite similar to that of the Poles. In both communities the majority were involved in land cultivation, processing raw materials, and working as domestic servants and day laborers in the cities.

Based on a comparison of German, Estonian, Russian, and Ukrainian demographic statistics, Shaydurov argues that "traditional" families predominated among the two Slavic groups, while the families of Estonians, Germans, like other minority groups from the western parts of the empire, displayed evidence of "modernization." In support of this thesis, Shaydurov points to indicators like family size (smaller among Germans and Estonians), marriage age (slightly higher than the average for Germans of both sexes), and literacy (much higher among Germans).

Shaydurov labels the sharp rise in the fortunes of the German colonies in Altai in 1917 as an "economic miracle." In many ways, the German colonists' success was determined by their former place of residence. The most successful colonists originally hailed from Novorossiya, 58 % of whom had advanced into the well-off peasant category. The majority of those who relocated to Altai from this German region, like the Germans who relocated from the Black Sea, were well-off before their departure. In contrast, among settlers from the Volga provinces, the number of poor peasants lacking arable land and draft animals remained high even five to ten years after resettling. Mennonites held the largest share of wealthy farms, Catholics the least. German farms in Altai employed advanced agricultural machinery at a time when other settlers and long-time residents still relied on manual labor. Cooperatives and credit associations exerted an important influence on the development of German farms in the region.

By the mid-1920s, the German community in Western Siberia numbered approximately 80,000 people, making it one of the largest non-Russian ethnic groups in the region. Originally a closed corporate group that on its arrival in the 18th century congregated in large cities, by the turn of the 20th century German settlers were more likely to be propri-

etors of small and medium-sized farms in which capacity they became one of the important driving forces in the agricultural development of South-Western Siberia.5

In the fourth and final chapter Shaydurov turns his attention to the Polish community of Western Siberia. Prisoners from Russia's wars with Poland in the 17th century formed the nucleus of this community. Later, during the 18th and 19th centuries, exiled participants in the Polish liberation movement increased the community's size.

After the 1830 uprising, two-thirds of Poles exiled to Siberia hailed from the gentry (dvoriane). Many of these who had received sentences of more than five years retained their status as gentry and their property as well. At the end of their sentences, they could return to the European provinces of Russia. Another large group of exiles included noblemen (shliakhty), townsmen (meshchanine), and peasants. Deprived of their status and property, they endured the worst conditions Siberia could offer. (Interestingly, former noblemen were legally entitled to an annual government payment, but receipt of this money often proved difficult and depended entirely on the whims of the provincial authorities.) Having lost the right to return their previous places of residence in European Russia, they assumed the status of state peasants at the conclusion of their ten-year sentences. Children of exiles who had been born before their parents' conviction retained their previous social status, while children born in exile were registered in the revision and responsible for payment of the soul tax.

In an effort to tie them to Siberian territory, beginning in 1838 exiled Poles were allotted fifteen desyatinas of farmland. According to Shaydurov, the Poles looked with favor on this measure. In one related and curious incident, Poles in Smolinsk volost petitioned the land court in Kurgan okrug to grant them allotments together in one place. The court granted their request, and they received land that had previously been held by several of the Decembrists. As Shaydurov comments, thus began the "succession" of one group of political exiles by those of a later era.

Exile was not without its effect on the individual's national identification. Rather than remain permanent aliens, many exiles preferred to "blend into Siberian society," and accept its norms and laws. Marriage to local women reinforced this tendency and resulted in the exiles becoming, in effect, Siberians. Economic necessity forced some to become agricultural laborers. Others produced handicrafts for sale at local markets. There were those, however, who held to their dreams of returning to Poland, and tried to preserve elements of their national and religious life.

Higher education afforded some Poles the opportunity to work as support staff in trade and industry. Siberian industrialists relied on Polish technical specialists to facilitate the introduction of the latest technological innovations. Poles assumed a prominent place in processing industries, particularly those related to cedar which was widespread in Siberia.

The production of cedar oil for sale in European Russia proved especially lucrative. According to Shaydurov, the oil plant belonging to a certain Savichevskii in Irkutsk produced 12,000 rubles worth of such oil in 1859.

By no means did all exiles attain this level of success. A good number depended on the support of friends and acquaintances while others survived on money and parcels sent from their homeland through the police. Descendents of veterans of the Confederation of Bar and the Kosciuszko uprising, by contrast, fared much better. Some from this group served as elected officials, others attained administrative posts. This degree of integration extinguished all but the deepest aspirations to return to Poland. By the beginning of the 19th century, descendents of the exiles who remained in Siberia knew Polish poorly or not at all and had assimilated to the point of considering themselves native Siberians.

By 1860, cumulative legislation - most notably the "Regulations on Exiles" (1822) and the "Criminal Justice Code" (1845) - had established the legal framework governing political exile. Numerous other special rules and instructions regulated the exiles' conditions of transport, their disposition and material security, their conduct, and their relationship with the state agencies responsible for them. Still, when participants in the Polish uprising of 1863-1864 were sent to Siberia, many rules and regulations proved difficult to apply given the unprecedented number of exiles - approximately 18,000 - involved. The new arrivals came from all social stations and classes; based on the available, incomplete evidence, Shaydurov is convinced that former gentry predominated. The documents innocuously listed them all as "Polish settlers." The post-emancipation reform era of the 1860s initiated the rehabilitation of the participants in the Polish uprising and exiles were granted the right to return to the Kingdom of Poland ruled by the Russian autocracy. Exiled settlers could also enter the peasant or urban (meshchanstvo) estate.

Like the members of the Jewish and German communities, Polish settlers in Siberia gradually carved out an economic niche for themselves. They pursued the dual goals of preserving their ethnic unity while integrating into Siberian society. Although the law forbad exiles from assuming state and public service, exiled Poles performed such work in many provinces. Due to their high levels of literacy, many Poles became clerks who often exerted influence on volost' and village leaders. Many of them also worked as tutors, instructing the children of merchants and bureaucrats in a variety of subjects. Despite prohibitions, exiles also were granted special patents as wholesalers of spirits. Some even tried to open hotels or photography shops, but the authorities usually denied such requests. Figures from Tobolsk show that up to 40 % of Poles in the province worked in the industrial or handicraft spheres. A high number (24.5 %) were dependent for their existence on money sent from relatives.

In the 1870s and 1880s, former Polish exiles were allowed to join merchant guilds and engage in gold extraction and other trades. Those

not under police surveillance were welcomed into state and public service. Combined with other legal changes, Poles now had sufficient incentive to remain in Siberia. By the turn of the 20th century, these changes had transformed the Siberian Polish community, which now consisted of Poles from two distinct backgrounds: voluntary settlers from the Polish peasantry, military personnel, physicians, and engineers; and descendants of former exiles.

According to the 1897 census, there were 30,500 Poles beyond the Urals. Only 25 % lived in cities, however, as a significant portion settled in rural locations. The majority of Poles (43 % of families) worked cultivating the land or as domestic servants in cities (15 %). Part worked in various branches of the extractive industries, oil processing in particular, 80 % of which was exported to European Russia. Others operated milling facilities in Western Siberia, especially in the grain-producing Altai region.6

Shaydurov concludes his study on a positive note. Thanks to Siberia's economic underdevelopment, he finds that each group under discussion succeeded in discovering the economic niche appropriate to its unique "spirit" (a concept that contemporary readers may find dated). Jews came to play an important role in regional trade; Germans established themselves as capitalist farmers; and the Poles, by virtue of their elite status, entered the administrative and military realms, as well as becoming successful industrial entrepreneurs. By the early 20th century, thanks to the developmental opportunities the territory offered, each had established for itself an integral place in Siberian society.

Given the important contributions this volume makes to both ethnic and regional studies, one hopes to see the author's work continue into the Soviet period when these three communities faced extreme difficulties and complications, and whose histories still contains many blank pages. This unique monograph will be of great interest to foreign researchers as well as the larger circle of international readers who wish to uncover the facts about their historical roots. This is reason enough for it to be translated into foreign languages.

Notes Примечания

1 Шайдуров В.Н. Евреи, немцы, поляки в Западной Сибири XIX - начала XX в. Санкт-Петербург, 2013.

2 Шайдуров В.Н. О некоторых особенностях формирования и экономического развития еврейской общины Западной Сибири во второй половине XIX в. // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. История. 2007. № 4. С. 77-84; Шайдуров В.Н. Польская община Западной Сибири в конце XIX - начале XX в.: Особенности формирования и развития // Известия Алтайского государственного университета. 2009. № 4-3. С. 253-258.

3 Williams, Hattie P. The Czar's Germans: With Particular Reference to the Volga Germans. Amer Historical Society of Germans, 1975; Wood, Alan. The

Development of Siberia: People and Resources. Palgrave Macmillan, 1990; Desind, Philip. Jewish and Russian Revolutionaries Exiled to Siberia, 1901 - 1917. Edwin Mellen Press, 1991; Forsyth, James. A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581 - 1990. Cambridge University Press, 1994; Hartley, JanetM. Siberia: A History of the People. Yale University Press, 2014.

4 Шайдуров В.Н. Евреи, немцы, поляки в Западной Сибири XIX - начала XX в. Санкт-Петербург, 2013. С. 39-108.

5 Шайдуров В.Н. Евреи, немцы, поляки в Западной Сибири XIX - начала XX в. Санкт-Петербург, 2013. С. 110-158.

6 Шайдуров В.Н. Евреи, немцы, поляки в Западной Сибири XIX - начала XX в. Санкт-Петербург, 2013. С. 160-192.

Authors, Abstract, Key words

Naum G. Kats - Professor, Department of History, Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

kats@andrew.cmu.edu

Carmine J. Storella - Adjunct Instructor, Department of History, Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

caro@pitt.edu

During the Soviet era, historical research into the sensitive question of so-called "non-titled" national minorities endured a forced hiatus. Since the post-Soviet opening of formerly closed archives serious historical study of the experiences of these groups has undergone a rebirth. In the context of the contemporary historiography, Vladimir Shaydurov, a leading expert on Siberia and its diaspora populations, examines the history of three ethnic groups - Jews, Germans, and Poles - that resettled in or were exiled to Siberia from various parts of European Russia. A native Siberian, Shaydurov places heavy emphasis on the legal, social, and economic framework established by Imperial nationality policy during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and shows how the minority communities, as well as local Siberian officials, maneuvered within this framework to establish themselves in their new surroundings. The legal issues were particularly significant for Jews from the Pale of Settlement, and Poles exiled as punishment for their revolutionary activities. Shaydurov also provides an extremely valuable, highly detailed, and often fascinating review of pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and post-Soviet historiography on each of these groups. Shaydurov finds that Siberia served the resettled populations as a sort of "melting pot" in which various groups could not only interact more easily, but also enjoy a degree of economic opportunity, and even financial or professional success, rarely possible in the European parts of the Empire. This book may be profitably read by specialists as well as non-scholars who have an interest in Siberia or in any of the ethnic groups under discussion.

Siberia, Jews, Germans, Poles, national community, diaspora, nationality policy, anti-Semitism, Pale of Settlement, political exile, historiography, Vladimir N. Shayduorv.

References (Articles from Scientific Journal)

1. Shaydurov V.N. O nekotorykh osobennostyakh formirovaniya i ekonomi-cheskogo razvitiya evreyskoy obshchiny Zapadnoy Sibiri vo vtoroy polovine

XIX v. [On Some Features of the Formation and Economic Development of the Jewish Community in Western Siberia in the Second Half of the 19th Century.].

Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta. Istoriya, 2007, no. 4, pp. 77-84. (In Russ).

2. Shaydurov V.N. Polskaya obshchina Zapadnoy Sibiri v kontse XIX -nachale XX v.: Osobennosti formirovaniya i razvitiya [The Polish Community in Western Siberia in the Late XIX - Early XX Centuries: Peculiarities of Its Formation and Development.]. Izvestiya Altayskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2009, no. 4-3, pp. 253-258. (In Russ.).

(Monographs)

3. Desind, Philip. Jewish and Russian Revolutionaries Exiled to Siberia, 1901 - 1917. Edwin Mellen Press, 1991, 732 p.

4. Forsyth, James. A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581 - 1990. Cambridge University Press, 1994, 476 p.

5. Hartley, Janet M. Siberia: A History of the People. Yale University Press, 2014, 312 p.

6. Shaydurov V.N. Evrei, nemtsy, polyaki v Zapadnoy Sibiri XIX - nachala

XX v. [Jews, Germans, and Poles in Western Siberia from the 19th to the Early 20th Centuries.]. St. Petersburg, 2013, 260 p. (In Russ.).

7. Williams, Hattie P. The Czar's Germans: With Particular Reference to the Volga Germans. Amer Historical Society of Germans, 1975, 236 p.

8. Wood, Alan. The Development of Siberia: People and Resources. Palgrave Macmillan, 1990, 266 p.

Авторы, аннотация, ключевые слова

Кац Наум Григорьевич - профессор кафедры истории Карнеги-Меллон университета (Питтсбург, США)

kats@andrew.cmu.edu

Сторэлла Кармин Джон - преподаватель кафедры истории Карнеги-Меллон университета (Питтсбург, США)

caro@pitt.edu

В советскую эпоху исследование острого и болезненного вопроса -истории так называемых «не титульных» национальных меньшинств в России и СССР - пережило вынужденную паузу. После горбачевской перестройки открытие для исследователей ранее недоступных архивных документов создало широкие возможности для глубокого изучения прошлого этих групп населения. В контексте современной историографической ситуации авторы статьи оценивают новую книгу российского историка В.Н. Шайдурова, одного из ведущих специалистов по истории этнических групп Сибири. В его книге исследуется история трех этниче-

ских групп - евреев, немцев и поляков, которые переселялись в Сибирь из разных уголков Европейской России. По оценке авторов статьи, В.Н. Шайдуров, сам сибиряк, создал чрезвычайно ценный, очень подробный и часто увлекательный историографический обзор дореволюционной, советской и постсоветской российской литературы о судьбе каждой из этих этнических групп в Сибири. В.Н. Шайдуров уделил большое внимание правовым, социальным и экономическим аспектам национальной политики правительства Российской империи в течение XIX - начала XX вв. По мнению авторов статьи, это дало историку возможность всесторонне показать, как сами национальные общины пытались в рамках, установленных имперским правительством, устроить свою жизнь в новых условиях и в новом окружении. Вместе с ними маневрировали в этих же рамках и местные власти Сибири, решая вопросы, связанные с этими тремя национальными меньшинствами. Правовые вопросы были особенно важны для евреев, прибывших из-за черты оседлости, а также для поляков, которые были высланы в Сибирь в виде наказания за участие в национально-освободительной и революционной борьбе. Авторы статьи считают обоснованным мнение В.Н. Шайдурова о том, что Сибирь стала своего рода «плавильным котлом», в котором евреи, немцы и поляки могли не только легче взаимодействовать друг с другом, но также достичь материального благополучия, коммерческого и профессионального успеха, редко возможных для них в Европейской части Российской империи.

Сибирь, евреи, немцы, поляки, национальная община, диаспора, национальная политика, антисемитизм, черта оседлости, политическая ссылка, историография, В.Н. Шайдуров.

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