Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Far East of the 17th — 21st Centuries

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to the ethnography of the Russian Far East. Russian explorers reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean around the middle of the 17th century. Here they met many local peoples, previously unknown to them, some of which were “yasaked”, that is, imposed a tax in kind. On the other hand, the local population got acquainted with the Russian culture, which was new for them. The first contacts were sometimes accompanied by conflicts and misunderstanding of the customs and traditions of each other, but gradually the practice of mutually beneficial coexistence developed, friendly, marriage and economic relations were established. After military clashes with Qing China and the defeat of the defense of the Albazin fort, Russia and China signed the Nerchinsk peace treaty (1689), according to which the Russians had to leave the Amur River, and the fort itself was subject to “ruin to the ground”. Therefore, until the middle of the 19th century, the main sources on the ethnography of the Russian Far East relate mainly to the peoples of the Chukotka-Kamchatka cultural region who lived north of the Stanovoy Range. The situation changed with the beginning of the “Amur alloys” in 1854—1858, initiated by the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia N. N. Muravyov, and the signing later of the Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860) treaties with China, as well as the firm consolidation of Sakhalin Island for Russia. From that time on, the development of the Amur and Primorye regions began, which led not only to military, but also to civilian colonization of the region and the beginning of the “golden age” of Far Eastern ethnography. Since that time, the peoples of the Amur-Sakhalin ethnographic region are also included in the orbit of Russian culture. About why and who exactly are referred to as indigenous peoples, about the features of their material and spiritual culture, as well as about modern ethnocultural landscapes of the Russian Far East will be discussed within the framework of this topic.