Siberia: A History of the People

by Janet M. Hartley

Larger in area than the United States and Europe combined, Siberia is a land of extremes, not merely in terms of climate and expanse, but in the many kinds of lives its population has led over the course of four centuries. Janet M. Hartley explores the history of this vast Russian wasteland―whose very name is a common euphemism for remote bleakness and exile―through the lives of the people who settled there, either willingly, desperately, or as prisoners condemned to exile or forced labor in mines or the gulag.
 
From the Cossack adventurers’ first incursions into “Sibir” in the late sixteenth century to the exiled criminals and political prisoners of the Soviet era to present-day impoverished Russians and entrepreneurs seeking opportunities in the oil-rich north, Hartley’s comprehensive history offers a vibrant, profoundly human account of Siberia’s development. One of the world’s most inhospitable regions is humanized through personal narratives and colorful case studies as ordinary―and extraordinary―everyday life in “the nothingness” is presented in rich and fascinating detail.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Russian History

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Shainna · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know how when you order something at a restaurant and it ends up tasting completely different from what you expected, there's that level of disappointment, no matter how nice the dish is? Yeah, that would be how I'd sum up my feelings about "Siberia: A History of the People."

I read the title and figured it would be equal parts indigenous Siberians and the settlers/newcomers. It's not. It's about 85% settlers/newcomers/Russians and 15% indigenous Siberians. That really upset me because I felt that I'd already read most of this in W. Bruce Lincoln's "The Conquest of a Continent". I also found the word choice to feel more sympathetic to the settlers than it did to the native Siberians who had great losses. This was especially apparent when Janet Hartley described how "typical" Peter I's brutal methods were when he would either have the indigenous people bribed, threatened, or killed if they didn't convert to Christianity. In the following section, the words used to describe how difficult journeys were for missionaries, were just so much more pitying, that the bias was just utterly blatant.

Comparing this book to W. Bruce Lincoln's history of Siberia: Janet Hartley's book is shorter than Lincoln's, but it is by no means an easier read. In fact, it was easier to breeze through Lincoln's and his wasn't as dry. Hartley seemed very fond of backing her research up with numbers, a very useful and informative bit of information, but I wish she'd put those in tables/charts.

That said, her chapter on the religious beliefs was extremely fascinating and left me wanting more.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have always looked at maps of Russia in a mixture of puzzlement and awe. The biggest landmass state only rivaled by the mongol empire of which it was a partial historical heir. Russia and Siberia are almost synonyms and get accompanied by snow, forest, oil, prison and Siberian tigers. But off course this huge landmass is much more then the above. Janet M Hartley sets out to widen the scope and to brush off the old stereotypes concerning this huge chunck of the world and give readers a glimpse in the way people have lived in this part of the world.

Hartley’s book is a classic historical overview, first contact, first adventurers, first settlers, state control, forms of settlement and economy, the usual stuff one can expect. The chapters did not surprise me at all, even tough she goes out her way to emphasize Siberia was and is more then a place of exile and prisons. Yet she still includes a whole chapter on exiles and work camps in pre-USSR Siberia and a sizable chunck of the communist era on the Gulags and the forced labor used to build railways in this vast land. Having said that, I do believe Hartley does get her point across, Siberia was different things at the same time for different people and these same images and ideals get repeated over and over again during the 500 years of Russian attention for the lands beyond the Ural. In lesser detail does she go into the dominant political motivation of this rush to the east and more importantly the desire to stay. In order they were, a turn of events involving a lucky soldier (the made legendary cossack Ermak), a hunger for luxury resources, a need for land off one’s own, a quest for scientific knowledge, nationalist pride, a zone for modernization and finally a place for economic exploitation.

Once again a rather classic historical overview that fits Russia’s attention for Siberia neatly with European expansion and colonial history between 1450 and 1960. I would have preferred if she had gone into more details in the early period between 1590 and 1640. Hunters and merchants entered the region looking for furs and stockades were built where they went and Hartley sadly leaves it more or less at that. This reads once again as a classic history book written with the end in mind and thus reducing the how and why to mere paragraphs to be glossed over to get the meat of the story, the intensified settlement. Even if that meat is well worth the read on its own, I still sorely missed a possibility that history could have gone a different way in the back of the authors head, only with something like that in mind can a history book move away from the classic linear story where the end (the present) is made out to be inevitable.

This brings me to my biggest criticism of Hartleys book; when she is talking about a history of the people; she is mostly talking about a history of Russians (and other Europeans) either in or talking about Siberia. The indigenous peoples of the region Siberia never get as much time and space as the Russians do even when discussing the same subject. We get a generous amount of text on Christian sects, the old belief, milkdrinkers and a cult of self mutilation yet the religious live of the indigenous people is discussed from the point of view of the Russian in particular their fascination with shamans. Yes she does talk about the attempts to convert the locals to Russian Orthodoxy and how these people reacted to it, but it is very vague and at times it comes across as if she is lumping these diverse culture together. Equally frustrating is that Hartley does mention some societal developments that happened outside the Russian control, such as a spread of Buddhism among various nomadic cultures in the 16th and 17th century yet that’s it. Where did this come from? Why did it not happen before? How did this impact their way of life and relationship with all their neighbors? Speaking of neighbors the entire book only considers China to be a neighbor of Siberia and this yet again speaks volumes on the points of view Hartley considered important, why is the Mongol culture so neglected and in particular the Zunghar Khanate, a mongol political entity that aggressively tried to establish itself and reached out to all non Chinese and non Russian peoples in Eastern Asia at the same time both the Chinese and Russian were eying Siberia? Or why does she not even mention the attempts of the USSR to create new east Asian socialist states in particular the Tuvan People's Republic? Near the end these peoples are literally reduced to folk dance performers and grateful subjects of a few benevolent politicians. It seems as if Hartley does not consider the indigenous peoples of Siberia to be more then background scenery or distractions in the tale of Russian control of this landmass and it almost makes it seem once again as if this control was inevitable from the start.

A second thing I could not help but notice when reading the final chapters of the book, is how much room is reserved for Siberian regionalism as a political goal, noticeable even more so because Hartley has to conclude again and again that political relevance speaking, it does not exist and never has. It made me wonder if this book (even if it was published in 2014) is some sort of late echo of the concerns raised on the survival of the Russian federation and the possibility of further breaking up of the federation first raised in the early 90ties. I can’t really explain why else so much spotlight is given to a political cause that has so little relevance any way you look at it unless this book was written to combat such notions of a possible break off of Siberia. Several times Hartley repeats how diverse the people and their concerns are and how difficult (impossible?) it is to create a unified goal for all groups. This made me consider some little sidenotes and remarks I could not help but notice throughout the book, such as when discussing the exile of the decemberist group (which included Dostoyevsky) sharing an anecdotal meeting with an archivist blurting out that Siberians are the children of Decemberist group.

I still liked the attempt Harley made to deconstruct the two main ideals/ images projected on this vast land even if it lacked an indigenous one. According to Hartley two contradicting images were simultaneously projected upon Siberia, prison and freedom. Freedom wasn’t a concept I associated with Siberia either but Hartley convincingly shows how for many Siberia was indeed a place were at the very least more freedom was obtainable then in European Russia; be it cossacks out for plunder, serf farmers out for land and away from noble control, religious sects out for a place of heaven for their own, hunters and adventurous merchants looking for less state control and economic opportunity, young soviet men and women looking for a new life and intelligentsia hoping to express themselves and do research without the state or party looking over their shoulders. This ideal of freedom is contrasted with the image of prison that is equally important in Siberian history; the exiles, the with violence enforced tribute taking from local cultures, the prisoners and forced labor lines stretching all the way from the 16th century up until the middle of the 20th century. These two did coexist and no better example of how they interacted can be found, then the stories of exiles; heretics, punished nobles, intellectuals and rebels who decided that staying put and making a new life for themselves in Siberia was preferable to returning home after their exile had officially ended. They spend their time founding schools, theaters and the basic of civil society that would help mold and shape Siberia into something on its own, not only an extension of the Tsarist state no matter how depended it was and is on Moscow.

Siberia a history of the people is a flawed book and should have been called Siberia a history of the Europans who called it home. A classic linear story and a shame that Hartley chose to spend so much time on regionalism in stead of what is still roughly 15% of the inhabitants of this vast landmass. I really would liked to have given more, given the amount of details included in this book, but it is just to linear and written with the end in mind to really be able to appreciate as a whole.

[Rain Cakmak · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this book thinking it would be about the Indigenous tribes in Siberia and was a little disappointed to discover it was basically all about the settlers. Regardless of that, I found Hartley's discoveries to be very intriguing and her personal comments and interviews gave her research depth. Overall, this was enjoyable to read through and enlightening.

[C. B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent short book on the history of Siberia. I'm well enough versed in Russian history, but my Siberian was lagging behind quite a lot. So I got this book to try and solve that.

Though I enjoyed the book very much, I think the previous reviewer, Shainna, gets it right; I was really expecting this book to deal more with the indigenous peoples of Siberia more than it does, considering the title. Saying that though, I was unfamiliar even with the typical story of the settlers, so in any case I now have a good framework to explore the history of the autochthonous people.

[Beata Horała · Rating 2 out of 5]

Niby wszystko ok, ale mam jakiś lekki niedosyt. Jakoś tu tak surowo, sztywno i czegoś mi brak. Mam jednak za to nową bogatą listę książkę z bibliografii to przeczytania.
Ciekawe są porównania zasiedlenia Australii i Ameryki w porównaniu z zasiedleniem Syberii. No i czemu na Syberii nie udało się tak jak tam? Jest też trochę o rdzennych mieszkańcach i pojawia się tu pytanie czemu pisze się tyle o aborygenach i Indianach, a o autochtonach Syberii i ich cierpieniu tak mało.

[Joseph Raborg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot about Siberia from this book. The downside is that the author has trouble presenting the facts in an exciting way. Also, she tends to focus on groups rather than important individuals in Siberia's history--though, these persons are brought up as necessary. This kind of history does not appeal to me that much. Still, it has good information.

[Alex Keen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read although at times a little dull with more focus on the people that moved to Siberia instead of those already there. I'd have liked more sections exploring native people, their beliefs and how they existed in such a difficult environment. Nevertheless, I'm still fascinated with Siberia and this book has only made me want to learn more.

[GreyAtlas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read. Very organized with chapters, coherent writing that had just the right amount of detail. Well done, Ms. Hartley!

[Andy Paul Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Documentary-style accounts on the recorded history of Siberia. What the hell goes on there? Turns out it's a whole lot!

[Logan Streondj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent history of Siberia book, covering much of recorded history of the Siberian peoples. Worth archiving as a fairly impartial history of Siberia.

[Andrew Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative history of Siberia, its settlement and development since seventeenth century, written by a historian Janet Hartley. An interesting description of various national groups making up the population of Siberia.
My notes:
Until the mid-seventeenth century, all peasant in European Russia had some freedom to move, although those rights became more and more restricted until finally they were only able to move off the land on a limited number of fixed days of the year, normally after sowing or harvest time. In 1649, Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich issued a Law Code which institutionalised serfdom by abolishing the right of all peasants of private landowners to leave of their own free will and in effect made them the chattels of their landowners. Such peasaonts became known as serfs – and were distinct from peasants who lived on state land.
The most notorious exile in the seventeenth century was Archpriest Avvakum. He was an opponent of the changes to the liturgy, text and ritual of the Orthodox Church, introduced by the Church in 1660s.
In 1819 Mikhail Speransky was sent by Tsar Alexander I as governor-general to organise administration of Siberia. He divided Siberia into two regions: Eastern Siberia and Western Siberia and cleaned up corruption.
In 1861, Alexander II emancipated the serfs. The Emancipation Act enabled more peasants to leave their villages in European Russia and seek their fortunes in Siberia. The peak migration happened in 1896 when over 177 thousands peasants and their families crossed the Urals.
Migration of peasants to Siberia was boosted further after 1906 as a results of the agricultural reforms of the new Prime Minister Petr Stolypin. He encouraged peasants communes to dissolve their collective responsibilities and reconstitute a whole village as a group of separate farms. The number of migrants rose after 1906 and reached some 600,000 per year over the next three years. The population of Siberia rose from 5.8 million in 1893 to over 10 million in 1913.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book with the subject like Siberia, this work is actually not as dense and dry as it could have been. The author starts by discussing the reasons for writing about Siberia, looking to demystify a part of the world that many really do not know or understand. From there, it is a chronological history of a complex part of the world. Starting with discussions about some of the indigenous peoples, the work picks up steam once the Russians start expanding Eastward (for America, sort of a reverse Manifest Destiny). This history of Siberia tends to read much like the "exploration" of America, where the Russians start to chart and settle the vast unknown lands in the East. It is a long and complex story and Hartley attempts to balance the key dates and events with various accounts and references to those living in that region. It is an eclectic mix of peoples in Siberia, with a combination of Russians either voluntarily or involuntarily settling in the East and mixing with the various natives. However, while somewhat isolated from European Russia, it too becomes swept up in the events in the West. Especially in the 20th century, Siberia's fate was more interconnected with Moscow and the West than it had been previously. The impact of the Russo-Japanese War, World War I and the Russian Civil War would forever impact the peoples of Siberia to a degree that the previous 4oo years of Russian populating the area had not. The policies of Stalin and his successors did much to further impact (for better or worse) the region. Yet, the region still maintains is aura of mystery and opportunity. This book certainly does not attempt to fill in all the details for life in Siberia, but for a one-volume work, it does a decent job of bringing more of the region to life. Worth a read for someone looking to enhance a relatively low knowledge base of the region and a starting point if further research is desired.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tracing back to the origins where the likes of Ermak and the Stroganovs roamed and fur traders and hunters ventured east to tap in and exploit the growing and highly lucrative trade of animal furs who then began the gradual process of slowly opening up the vast region to the outside world. Hartley then traces the development of this vast regions from Tsars, Cossacks and then the eventual opening of the Trans Siberian railway through revolutions, wars and then up to today.

This is a well researched piece of work and the author’s love of her subject comes through strongly. There are no shortage of fairly detailed maps and pictures the text itself can be dry and academic at times and overall I found the style a bit too cold and scholarly for me but there was still enough interesting history and facts to make this is an interesting and worthwhile read.