Проблемы управления Сибирью в XIX - начале XX В. В освещении англо- и немецкоязычной историографии

Abstract

The paper objective is to analyze and evaluate the research findings obtained by the English- and German-language scholars who studied the administrative system of Siberia in the 19th - early 20th century, when the regionalist policy of the Russian Empire was gradually replaced by a more rigid centralism, standardization and unification. Anglo-American and German historians using the conception of “Russian eastward expansion” (E.M. Hicks), theories of “frontier” and “colonization” (A. Kappeler, W. Sunderland, S. Becker et al.) analyzed a wide range of problems associated with the administration of pre-revolutionary Siberia. Comparing “instruments of expansion” and “colonial practices” of the Russian empire with the historical experience of other countries, Western authors critically evaluated the results of “civilizing” mission of Russia in Northern Asia, emphasizing in particular negative aspects of aboriginal and penal policy. However, most of researchers the administrative system created in Siberia provided a rather successful integration of the region in the imperial space. Political and socioeconomic factors influencing Siberia's administrative system were studied primarily in Anglo-American historiography (M. Raeff, T. Armstrong) while sociocultural factors - in German historiography (C. Weiss, S. Frank et al.). Western authors paid special attention to analysis of reasons, essence and outcomes of the 1822 Siberian reform introduced by M.M. Speransky which, in their view, largely determined the region's development till the end of the imperial period.