The Conquest of a Continent: Sibena and the Russians by W. Bruce Lincoln (review)

Abstract

766 SEER, 87, 4, OCTOBER 2OO9 Empire.The Britishcolonywas not sociallyhomogeneous, and the oldestablished clansfeltincreasingly ill at ease.JamesWhishaw,whosefamily had beenin St Petersburg since1770, decidedin 1904tosendhisfamily back to Englandbecause his'Englishcolony'was shrinking and forhis eligible daughters 'therewerefewgirlfriends or youngmenleftwhomwe feltthey shouldmeet'(quotedp. 269).The English colonyas a wholeat thattimewas in factexpanding, butthrough arrivals ofthe'wrong'socialclass.Whishaw' s decisionsavedhisfamily fromtheconsequencesofthe 1917revolution and CivilWar,a disaster fortheBritish community whichceasedtoexistas such. This is a verycompetent piece ofwork,wellsourced,welldefined and well focused, whichsucceedsin 300 pages in encompassing and givinga vivid flavourof the 100-year lifeof a disparatecommunity. The anthropology of migration, withtwo case studiesof the Cattleyand Colley families, is concisely drawn- itwasprincipally 'pull'factors whichbrought nineteenthcentury Britons tothislate-industrializing Europeancountry, whichcombined pioneerfeatures witheconomicdemandfrom a well-heeled and increasingly culturedelite.The exclusivefocuson the two capitalsis understandable, butleavesunanswered questions aboutBritish penetration and workin other areasofthecountry; and eveninthecapitalsnoteverything iscovered- this reviewer was disappointed in his hopes of finding the PanopticonCollege ofArtsbuiltby Samuel Benthamat Okhta in 1807-09.But we have such individuals as theIrishcreatorof thenocturne JohnField and Churchill's interpreter Arthur Birse,suchbodiesas theSt Petersburg Benevolent Society ofBritish Ladies (1841),theQuaker agrarianexpertDaniel Wheeler(1818-) and hiscommunity (though nottheir burialground, stillextant at Shushary), theBritish golfcluband courseat thedacha-colony ofMurino,and ofcourse thegentlemen's clubs- no longerthe'EnglishClubs' ofthetwocapitals, by now overrun by Russianmembers and noteventakingBritish newspapers, butthelaterCommercial, New Englishand British ClubswheretheexpatriateBritish enjoyedtheir owncompany. Whilenotthelastwordon theBritish in nineteenth-century Russia,thissystematic and wide-ranging studyfillsa significant gap. Ludlow Roger Bartlett Lincoln,W. Bruce.TheConquest ofa Continent: Siberia andthe Russians. Cornell University Press,Ithaca,NY and London,2007.xxii+ 500 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes.Bibliography. Index.$25.00:£12.50(paperback). The lateW. BruceLincolnwas a mostprolific historian ofRussia,authoring twelve bookswithin thefield.These maybe dividedbetweenthosethatare morenarrowly focusedand scholarly, suchas Nikolai Miliutin: AnEnlightened Russian Bureaucrat (Newtonville, MA, 1977),and thosethatare broaderand gearedtowarda moregeneralreadership, likeBetween Heaven andHell: The Story ofa Thousand Tears ofArtistic LifeinRussia(NewYork,1998).TheConquest REVIEWS 767 ofa Continent, originally published byRandomHouse in 1994,falls inthelatter category, and servesas a sweepingintroduction to a topic thathas only recently begunto attract significant attention fromnon-Russian historians. Perhapsinspired byNikolaiKaramzin'sand otherearlyhistorians' efforts to coveras muchgroundas humanly possible, Lincolnorganizedthisbookinto sixpartstotalling fifty-two chapters, thefirst partdealingwiththeMongols' westward progression aciuss uic suucuiiiiiiciu 1111 therestcovering theRussians'eventful rolesin Sib Sovietera. Part four,the longest,focuseson the o .dui opean jvussia, ¿iiiu >eriaup to theend ofthe periodbetweenMikhail ivi. operansKii s onei governorsnip 01 1019- 22 ana ine 1917 revolution, inis was a periodofrapidchangeforSiberia,inaugurated bySperanskii's and the SiberianCommittee's so-calledSiberianReforms, whichSergeiS. Uvarov grandiosely predicted wouldbe as epochalas CossackErmakTimofeev's 1582 invasion.Speranskii was himself smitten withthecomparison, writing to his daughter, 'Only Ermakcan competewithme'. The reforms bothacknowlCUgCU OlUCllcl S UlllLJUCllCSS¿U1U WCUUCU 11 111U1C ClUSJCiy LU -LjUIUJJCcUI lVUSSlcl, but a wide gap remainedbetweenperipheraladministrative practiceand centraladministrative policy-making, so thatas late as 1892 the historianethnographer -critic Nikolai M. Iadrintsevcould convincingly argue that Siberia'srelationship to themotherland remained thatofa colony.Nonetheless ,itwas duringthisperiodthattheDecembrists made a cultural impact on Irkutsk and othercitiesthatlaststo thisday; thatNikolaiN. Murav'ev organizedthe annexationfroma weakenedChina of the immenseAmur Territory; thatsome one millionexileswere marchedacrossthe Urals or shipped todestinations as farawayas SakhalinIsland;thatthelongest railroad in theworldwas builtto linkVladivostok withSt Petersburg; thata young Vladimir Ulianovwasassigned moreorlessnearthepowerful river thatseems to haveinspired hisnom deguerre; and thatin 191 2 a massacreoflabourers in thegoldfields alongthissame riverhelpedprecipitate thecataclysm of 1917. SovietSiberiahad itsdrama as well,not least due to the erectionof the Gulag archipelagoand the creationex nihilo of Magnitogorsk and other testaments torapidindustrialization and Communist Party five-year plans.In hisfinalchapterentitled 'Siberia'sSovietHeritage',Lincolnfocuseson the ecologicaldamage wroughtby pulp millsalong Lake Baikal's shoresand otherexamplesofSovietindifference towards polluting one ofthemostbeautiful landscapeson earth.Here, as throughout thebook,he merely touches upon thesubject, and itmaybe said thathisrapidsurvey ofthisand other topicspresents a somewhat distorted picture attimes. Butinthefinal analysis, thisbook accomplishes whata well-written popularhistory should,whichis to interest the uninitiated and to inspirefurther scholarlyinquiry.This is certainly whatitdid forme whenI first read ityearsago. My onlycomplaintregarding thisedition isthata preface shouldhavebeenadded so as to commemorate Lincoln'sefforts to generateinterest in Siberianhistory and Russianhistory moregenerally. School ofHistory, Philosophy, Religion andClassics AndrewA. Gentes University ofQueensland ...