D. Mamin — a Siberian or Ural native? Literary evidence of Siberia’s boundaries

Abstract

The article by the historian and local history expert V. Korshunkov examines the Ural component of D. Mamin’s works. The writer’s pen-name (D. Sibiryak [a native of Siberia]) still causes some controversy. So far, any attempts to interpret the choice of the pseudonym have remained purely speculative. The author demonstrates that the pen-name corresponds to the old geographical delineation, almost completely obsolete during Mamin’s lifetime. Specifically, it appears that in the middle of the 19th c., the Ural region was thought to be a part of Siberia (which, in its turn, some hesitated to deem actual Russia). The locals believed that the watershed in the Urals marked the boundary between the ‘Raseya’ Russia and Siberia, effectively making East Ural a region in Siberia, with Mamin-Sibiryak’s birthplace located right by the watershed. The article cites mentions of this fact in artistic writings and memoirs of the 18th–19th cc., for example, in L. Travin’s reminiscences and works of the traveller and ethnographer V. Maksimov. The detailed historical analysis of the material helps discover new facts about Ural in the mid-19th c., as well as gain better understanding of Mamin-Sibiryak’s poetics.