PROBLEMS OF RESETTLEMENT IN THE KOMI REGION IN THE LATE XIX-EARLY XX CENTURY AND THE EXPEDITION OF P. I. SOKOLOV

Abstract

Three stages of studying the problem of the possibility of settling the Komi region are considered. At the initial stage, during the second half of the XIX century, the problems of resettlement were considered in the context of the formation of a new - Pechora - uyezd and the need for its settling, the development of identified reserves of natural resources, the creation of new communication routes within the Northern region, and exits to Siberia. In the first five years of the XX century, while preserving the former motives, single expeditions were organized to study "agricultural colonization" and "Temporary rules for the formation of resettlement sites" were approved, directly affecting Ust-Sysola Uyezd. It was in this uyezd that the first areas were identified that, from the point of view of official researchers and officials, were of interest for resettlement. Their position was opposed by leaders of the local Zemstvo institutions. The starting point of the third stage was the agrarian reform of P. A. Stolypin in 1906. By results of a number of expeditions, first of all under the leadership of P. I. Sokolov in 1908-1909, almost 750 thousand tithes in the territory of 12 volosts of Ust-Sysola Uyezd were defined for settling. The beginning of the wide colonization of the Komi region was close to realization. K. F. Zhakov, famous Komi scientist, actively opposed such a scenario of events and convinced the members of the Arkhangelsk society for the study of the Russian North that he was right. Plans for the practical development of sparsely populated areas of the Komi region were unrealized, not so much because of the protests of scientific and public figures, but because of the clumsiness of the bureaucratic state machine, the lack of active and energetic supporters, the involvement of the Central authorities in resettlement projects in Siberia and because of the death in 1911 of the initiator of all agrarian reforms of the early XX century, P. A. Stolypin.