The Agrarian Development of Siberia in the Second Half of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Abstract

The post-frontier is the least studied stage of the Siberian frontier. The aim of the paper is to analyze the functioning of Siberia within the framework of the post-frontier and identify the mechanisms and consequences of the region's going beyond its borders. The study also provides a brief description of the features of the early and active frontier. The agrarian development of Siberia, which largely determined the frontier processes, provides a basis for the subject area of the paper.
 As a result of the study, it was concluded that the zone of the active frontier in Siberia was constantly shifting. Its most developed territory entered the post-frontier stage. One of the features of the Siberian post-frontier was the formation of a sub-ethnos of the Great Russian ethnos on its territory, namely, the Siberian old-timers. The agrarian system of Siberia at this stage of development also had qualitative features. The specificity of the region was determined by its logistical isolation from the main territory of Russia. The Trans-Siberian Railway put an end to it and allowed the start of mass agrarian migration. One of its consequences, among others, was the beginning of the process of de-ethnicization which ended in the Soviet period. The ethno-social result of collectivization, industrialization, urbanization, and the Cultural Revolution was the transformation of the Siberians from a sub-ethnos of the Russian nation into its geographical group. The agrarian system of the region also lost its qualitative differences. As a result, Western Siberia and a significant part of Eastern Siberia became parts of the Russian heartland.