СИБИРЬ И СИБИРЯКИ В ИДЕЙНО-ТВОРЧЕСКОМ ОСМЫСЛЕНИИ ПИСАТЕЛЕЙ-НЕОНАРОДНИКОВ (КОНЕЦ XIX — НАЧАЛО ХХ в.)

Abstract

The article examines the attitude of the neo-populism representatives, known for their political, literary and journalistic activities, to Siberia as part of the Russian Empire. It is shown that the followers of the populist ideology of the late 19th — early 20th centuries clearly distinguished the Siberians’ mental traits from the psychology of the majority of natives from the metropolis — European Russia, explaining this specificity by the conditions of existence of local residents and migrants, as well as the peculiarities of interethnic and intercultural communications that have been developing in Siberia for centuries and can serve as an example of a civilizational meeting of East and West. Attention is drawn to the genre features of the neo-narodnik creativity: it is correct to present their Siberian essays as a “travelogue”, where the descriptive component is organically intertwined with the problem-psychological. The author reveals ideological closeness of the neo-narodnik journalism and Siberian regionalism (oblastnichestvo), a movement that first declared of Siberia’s colonial status and aimed at expanding its administrative, managerial and cultural independence, that is, its regional autonomy. It is concluded that, recognizing the imperfections of the imperial policy towards Siberia and its population, populist ideologists did not raise the question of the possibility of complete independence of this territory from the state center. Highly appreciating the economic and humanitarian prospects of Siberia, they considered a fait accompli its overcoming the colonial status and counted on the progressive development of local selfgovernment institutions both in Siberia and in Russia as a whole.