Colonization Narrative in the «Notes of the West Siberian Department of the Russian Geographical Society» (on the Materials of the Altai District)

Abstract

In 1877, the creation of the West Siberian Department of the Russian Geographical Society in Omsk marked a new stage in the history of scientific study of the Altai Mining District, which was expressed, among other things, in the active expeditionary activities of that time leading scientists to the region. The article analyzes the publication's content of the department's printed organ — «Notes», dedicated to the colonization process and migrations of the second half of the 19th century. The content of the works on the theme, their specificity, and their role in shaping the resettlement agenda are identified. It is emphasized that despite the positive assessment of the role of migration in the development of the Altai territory, experts of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries identified bifurcation points in the work of the «pro-gram» of peasant development of the territory (the relationship with the local Russian and foreign population, the agricultural potential of hotel lacunae, the impact of migration on the scrapping of the type of land use consistent with the natural and climatic conditions of the region, land crowding, rapid plowing of soils, etc.). The article concludes about the unique nature of field materials, their «live» content, the desire for fixation and objectification.