Staat und Nationalitäten in Russland. Der Integrationsprozess der Burjaten und Kalmüken, 1822-1925 by Dittmar s> Schorkowitz (review)

Abstract

148 SEER, 8i I, I 2003 Schorkowitz,Dittmar. Staatund fationalitdten inRussland. DerIntegrationsprozess der Burjatenund Kalmilken,I822-I925. Quellen und Studien zur Geschichten des ostlichen Europa, 6I. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart, 2001. 6I6 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Figures. Tables. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography . Index. ?96.12. IT has been over a decade since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its fragmentation along national lines. A sudden realization of the importance and continuous relevance of national, ethnic, and religious issues generated much discussion and anticipation of new imperial histories with greater focus on the non-Russian peoples, away from the Russian capital and central Russian region. But for all the talk, such topical and geographical shifts have been slow to take place. The book under review, together with several recent works by American historians (in particular by Robert Geraci and Paul Werth, whose nuanced and sophisticated studies dealt with the Volga Muslims and Volga pagans respectively), makes an important contribution to our understanding of the workings of the Russian empire in its periphery. The volume is an imposing work of over 6oo pages, twenty illustrations, and thirty tables. Its empirical base is enormous. In addition to a large standard bibliography, Dittmar Schorkowitz introduces a large volume of archival materials from both central and local archives. As the subtitle indicates, the book focuses on the integration process of the Buriats and Kalmyks into the Russian empire and the early Soviet Union, I822-1925. The Kalmyks and Buriats belonged to Russia's numerous non-Russian and non-Christian subjects, whose total number by the late nineteenth century exceeded the number of Russians proper. Yet they differed from other nonChristian subjects in two important respects: their religion was Tibetan Buddhism or Lamaism, and they were nomads. These two features defined both the character and the status of these peoples within the empire and government policies toward them. XVhile the large pagan population had been converted to Christianity en masse and expediently, even though often nominally, Buddhism and Islam remained the two most important and deeply entrenched non-Christian religions. It was the religion which defined both the character of Russia's Muslim and Buddhist subjects. From the middle of the eighteenth century to the i 830s, the Russian authorities largely supported and encouraged lamaist clergy to convert the shamanist Buriats to Buddhism. This attitude was consistent with Russian policy which envisioned that the spread of Buddhism among the Buriats, just like that of Islam among the Kazakhs, would turn these people into more civilized and loyal imperial subjects. During the I830s, however, this. policy was reversed, and the government engaged in limiting and undercutting the authority of the lamaist clergy among the Kalmyks and Buriats until the Edict of Toleration of 1905. Throughout the nineteenth century, Russian policy vacillated between leaving the lamaist clergy alone in the hope that this would encourage their greater co-operation with the Russian authorities, and taking a hard line by accusing the lamas of corruption. Russian policy emerges here as a process shaped by different individuals, agencies and government visions. For instance, REVIEWS 149 the zealousand hostileapproachtakenby the Synod towardthe lamaistclergy was supportedby the Ministryof the Interior,but was invariablytemperedby the more pragmaticattitudeof the Ministryof StateDomains. At the core of Russian policy was the issue of the Kalmyks' and Buriats' religious conversion to the Orthodox Christianity. Conversion was always desirable, even though not easily achieved, and was seen as the ultimate and necessary step for the natives to become both civilized and Russian. Schorkowitz remarks that 'civilization was no longer pursued through the means of the Enlightenmentbut indoctrinatedthroughOrthodoxy' (p. 350). Inseparablefromreligiousconversionwas the idea of the forcedsettlement of the Kalmyks and Buriats. In the government's eyes, its Buddhist subjects were nomads and cattle rustlers, wild and primitive people whose mores would be tempered only by settling down, becoming peasants, learning Russian and, of course, joining the Orthodox Church -the attitude that Schorkowitzcalls xenophobic and 'chauvinisticRussocentrism'(p. 3I5). But settlingthem presented severaldilemmas. How was one to classifythe settled Kalmyks and Buriats? Should they be ascribed to the Cossack estate or become state peasants? (p. 356). Later on, the problem of dividing the land and drawing boundaries (pp. I6I-7I) became one of...