Reviews
Историческая энциклопедия Сибири, гл. ред. В. А. Ламин. Новосибирск: Изд. Историческое наследие Сибири и Институт истории СО РАН, 2010. 3 vols, 713, 805 and 781 pp.
THESE three volumes comprise articles from leading specialists on all aspects of the history of Siberia from early times to the present. Each entry ends with a brief bibliography of major works on the subject, albeit almost entirely in Russian. The social and political entries are particularly strong. There are comprehensive factual entries on administrative structures (the entry on the ‘administrative-territorial structure of Siberia and the Far East’ of Siberia from the seventeenth century to the present is particularly useful and well-illustrated), transport, institutions and population statistics. The entries on national groups in Siberia – for example Poles in Siberia - are particularly valuable as they place forced or voluntary colonisation within a broad chronological framework. The entries on towns and on specific urban institutions and buildings are interesting.
The cultural sections seem a little weaker to me, although there is a very full entry on ‘literature in Siberia’ by K. V. Anisimov. I could find little on the ecological issues which are of such concern to Siberia today. The bibliographical entries seem to have been deliberately kept short and, to my mind, are less helpful as a result. The entry for Mikhail Speranskii, for example, is so short that it would be difficult to guess that he played any significant role in Siberian history (and the bibliography suffers from the exclusion of any works which are not in Russian). The entries on Grigorii Potanin, the leading figure in a Siberian regionalist movement, and for that matter on Stalin, are even less informative. The last volume concludes with lists of leading individuals in administration, commerce, the Church and recipients of honours in the Soviet and post-Soviet period.
The encyclopaedia is not specific to the eighteenth century of course. But some of the richer political and social entries cover the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and are written by some of the leading Russian scholars in the field. The entry on the Decembrists in Siberia, for example, by T. A. Pertseva, is a good overview covering the numbers of exiles, the fate of individuals, condition, cultural activities and the administration of exiles (although the bibliography is very dated). Coverage of administrative bodies and institutions which existed in the eighteenth century (such as the Siberian Prikaz) are useful. The entries on particular towns and regions are good and cover material on the eighteenth century (and the lists at the end include second-guild merchants). There is a useful section on ‘town administration’, which includes information on population, administrative structures, construction, trade and commerce. I found it harder to get a full picture of educational and cultural life in Siberia in the eighteenth century, although there are both general and institutional entries. The entries by R. E. Romanov on Jews and gypsies are useful for their numerical data but are otherwise thin on social and economic aspects.
There are several significant entries on the peasants in the eighteenth century. The main section on krest'ianstvo is divided by centuries; the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are written by T. S. Mamsik and, as one would expect, are strongest on numbers, location of peasants and patterns of colonisation. In addition, there are useful and informative sections on the ‘peasant economy’ by several authors. The best entry on peasants, to my mind, is the one by O. N. Shelegina on material culture, which includes sections (illustrated) on peasant houses, dress and food, and tracks changes over time. I found the entry on the ‘Siberian nobility and the deti boarskie by M. O. Akishin very helpful in explaining the origins, composition and evolution of these groups. There are several entries on Cossacks, but the entry on ‘Cossacks of Asiatic Russia’ by A. S. Zuev is particularly good, and covers composition, size, location, the nature of their service and obligations and the structure and organisation.
The entries on Cossacks, however, point to the major weakness of the volumes, which is a lack of helpful cross-referencing. There are no cross references in the main entry for ‘Cossacks’ to other entries on Cossacks: the ‘Siberian’ Cossacks are under ‘Siberian’ as are ‘Siberian nobility’, and, for that matter, the ‘Siberian state opera theatre’ (there is no entry for ‘opera’) . These entries are followed by rather odd, and brief, entries for ‘Siberia’ and for ‘Siberians’. The entries for ‘Russian’ are mostly confined to institutions with ‘Russian’ in the prefix but also, misleadingly, include an entry on ‘Russian folklore’ – there is a longer entry on ‘Folklore of the People of Siberia and the Far East’. It proved hard to track down the Old Believers – there is no main entry for Old Believers, but there are separate entries on the ‘priestly ‘ and ‘priest-less’ in Siberia, which relate to Old Believers, and on the ‘liturgical singing of Old Believers in Siberia’ and ‘Self-Immolation of Old Believers’ (the latter being a useful, if factual, account by N. N. Pokrovskii). There are, brief, entries under individual explorers but ‘Expeditionary activity of the Academy of Sciences’ is a clumsy title for an entry (although the factual content is fine) and it is hard to locate a major piece dealing with exploration in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
In short, it takes a while to find your way around this encyclopaedia and to understand the logic of some of the entry titles, but the effort is certainly worth it. There is a mine of information in these volumes, much of which is not easily accessible from secondary literature. It is perhaps inevitable, given my current research interests (my Siberia: a History of the People will be published by Yale University Press in the summer of 2014) that I should think that Siberia is worthy of a separate encyclopaedia, but there is material of value here for scholars of many aspects of Russian history, west as well as east of the Urals. The only problem is the cost – at circa 400 Euros, this is not a purchase for any but the most dedicated individual. It is, however, something which should be made available to scholars outside Russia and something every library with a major Russian section should acquire.
- Janet Hartley, London School of Economics and Political Science, London (UK)
j.m.hartley@lse.ac.uk
Back to the contents page.