Siberian Regionalism as an intellectual and socio-political movement in the epistolary and scientific-journalistic heritage of G.N. Potanin

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of reception by the leader of the Siberian regionalism G.N. Potanin, factors of formation, circumstances of development and evolution of the regional movement as an ideology that was formed in the conditions of colonization in the outlying (Siberian) regions of the Russian Empire. The object of the research is the socio-political discourse of Russia in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. The subject of the study is Siberian regionalism as an intellectual and socio-political movement in the epistolary and scientific-journalistic heritage of G.N. Potanin. The purpose of this article is to identify the ideas of G.N. Potanin about regionalism as an intellectual and socio-political movement that was formed in the active phase of his life biography. In methodological terms, the formulation of the problem, its solution and conclusions are provided by approaches and practices tested within the framework of the research direction new cultural and intellectual history, one of the problematic fields of which is intellectual biography and discursive practices. Within the framework of this article, the concept of “representation” is the semantic one, reflecting the subjective interpretation of the historical reality by G.N. Potanin in connection with the functioning of the regional movement as a sociocultural phenomenon. The sources of the research are the scientific and journalistic writings of G.N. Potanin and his extensive epistolary heritage, which captured the ideas of one of the leaders of the regionalists about the evolution of the movement in the wide chronological boundaries of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. The author concludes that the history of regionalism as an intellectual and social movement was closely associated with the biographical context of the fate of the leaders of the movement. This fact, according to G.N. Potanin determined the evolution of the regional ideology, which has come a long way from manifestations of local patriotism, radical political delusions, to the construction of an original concept based on the recognition of Siberia as a colony of Russia.