Sibirica

Older readers of Sibirica will recall (though more recent subscribers may not know) that this journal had its origins as a newsletter and report of the proceedings and papers delivered at the early conferences of the British Universities Siberian Studies Seminar (BUSSS). In September 1981, at my invitation, a dozen or so English and Scottish academics assembled for a weekend meeting at Lancaster University, UK, to present informal papers and discuss our mutual—but as yet uncoordinated—interest in Siberia, the Russian North, and Far East. (Small beginnings, but remember that there were only twelve apostles, and a mere nine delegates at the first meeting of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party—the future CPSU—in Minsk in 1898. There was even a brief report of our meeting in the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, under the headline “No Salt Mines in Siberia!”) Among the participants was the eminent Arctic geographer, the late Dr. Terence Armstrong of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, who offered to host a second meeting of the group at his own institution. This duly took place in April 1983, and was attended by 26 scholars, not only from Britain, but also from France, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Four papers were read, including one by Violet Connelly, the eighty-two-year-old doyenne of modern Siberian studies in the West. The papers were subsequently published in samizdat format by the now defunct Department of Russian and Soviet Studies at Lancaster University, and it is that pamphlet that may be properly regarded as the very first issue of Sibirica.

Itelmen people of the Kamchatka Peninsula have felt and experienced the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church for over 300 years. Explorers' reports tell us that at the same time that Itelmens rebelled violently against the tsar's representatives, they accepted and appropriated the power of the church. This article examines religiosity in Itelmen history as it is revealed through a critical approach to sources, especially by focusing on Itelmen actions. Missionaries and ethnographers' preconceptions gave shape to their depictions of Itelmen religious beliefs and practices as (1) Christian beliefs, (2) anathema to Christian beliefs, or (3) mere superstitions. In order to speak about Itelmen perceptions, the article focuses primarily on actions taken during this early period of recorded Itelmen history and on the writers who showed an interest in describing how Itelmens thought about religious questions. The article also recounts the little known story of the 1848 Kutkh rebellion.

This article investigates the interaction between late imperial Russian colonization in Primor'e and the region's forest environments. Drawing on the records of administrators concerned with resettlement, as well as naturalists, travelers, and other contemporary observers, the article shows that Russian settlement, together with migration from China and Korea, had evident effects on Primor'e's taiga, but these changes were also accompanied by the emergence of widespread conservationist sentiment. The article argues that both increased exploitation of forests as well as conservation ultimately derived from the desire to project Russian imperial power. Settlement, which had many consequences for the natural world, was primarily a means to hold the territory against competitors. Conservation measures focused on limiting the actions of East Asian migrants and peasant settlers, as their role in deforestation seemed to impede the success of colonization. To conserve forest resources and ensure long-term growth, officials advocated rational exploitation through industrial timbering paired with state oversight, both of which were intended to fulfill the broader goal of securing imperial power in the Far East.

This article presents the particularities of the formation and development of the population in the Russian northeast. It demonstrates that the negative balance of migration and natural growth reduction has become a key reason for the depopulation of the region, and a direct correlation has been established between fertility and mortality and the age structure of the population. The article also shows that the main trends with regard to marriage reflect the trends observed in the course of demographic processes; the deterioration of the marital status among the indigenous peoples of northeastern Russia is attributed to the narrowness of the marriage market.

This report reviews various legends, stories, and tales, as well as texts of shamanic rituals recorded by various scholars. The report focuses on the significance and role of a shaman in the Odul (Yukaghir) culture, and summarizes the functions a shaman carried out in the society as presented in these recorded texts.

David G. Anderson, ed., 1926/27 Soviet Polar Census Expeditions John McCannon

László Károly, Deverbal Nominals in Yakut: A Historical Approach Jenanne Ferguson

Matthew P. Romaniello, The Elusive Empire: Kazan and the Creation of Russia, 1552–1672 Elaine Mackinnon

Mikhail V. Chevalkov, Testament of Memory: A Siberian Life David Z. Scheffel

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