Celebrating the 300th Anniversary of the Joining of Siberia to Russia in Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk: A Failed Act of Local Historical Politics

Abstract

The article examines the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the annexation of Siberia to Russia in the key East Siberian cities – Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk – from the standpoint of communication science, local historical memory and historical politics, as a symbolic action designed to impose on local communities a certain set of narratives associated with the concepts of “Siberia”, “Russia” and “accession” as significant factors of local life. The purpose of the study is to analyze the significance for the local urban communities of Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk of the 300th anniversary of the annexation of Siberia to Russia as an essential act of local historical memory and an element of local historical politics. The methodological basis of this study is the tools of communication science: the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the annexation of Siberia to Russia is seen as a symbolic act of local historical politics, which was intended to impose on local communities a certain narrative (the key concepts of which are “Siberia” and “joining Russia”), and by the effectiveness of the implementation of which one can judge the self-perception of the urban East Siberian population. The study was carried out on the basis of archival materials (some of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time), materials of personal origin, local journalism and media materials. It is concluded that despite the active attempts of the regionalists and the local business elite to organize the celebration and communicative design of the anniversary as a symbolic act of local historical memory, the 300th anniversary of the annexation of Siberia as a significant narrative was shared by a very limited number of the population. The budgets of the event turned out to be sharply scarce, the dates were unclear until the last moment, and the preparations were chaotic. Contrary to the traditional interpretation of this event of 1881–1882, the 300th anniversary of Siberia as an attempt to form a local symbol was unsuccessful, which did not prevent interested subjects of socio-political communications (regionals, part of local elites and government officials) from presenting this event as significant for local life, doing this in fact according to the classical canons of historical politics.