For many centuries the peoples of Siberia lived in small settlements. Each individual village had its own clan. The inhabitants of Siberia were friends with each other, ran a joint household, were often relatives to each other and led an active lifestyle. But due to the vast territory of the Siberian region, these villages were far from each other. So, for example, the inhabitants of one village were already leading their own way of life and spoke an incomprehensible language for their neighbors. Over time, some settlements disappeared, and some became larger and actively developed.

History of population in Siberia.

The Samoyed tribes are considered to be the first indigenous inhabitants of Siberia. They inhabited the northern part. Their main occupation is reindeer herding and fishing. To the south lived the Mansi tribes, who lived by hunting. Their main trade was the extraction of furs, with which they paid for their future wives and bought goods necessary for life.

The upper reaches of the Ob were inhabited by Turkic tribes. Their main occupation was nomadic cattle breeding and blacksmithing. To the west of Lake Baikal lived the Buryats, who became famous for their ironworking craft.

The largest territory from the Yenisei to the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bOkhotsk was inhabited by Tungus tribes. Among them were many hunters, fishermen, reindeer herders, some were engaged in crafts.

Along the coast of the Chukchi Sea, the Eskimos (about 4 thousand people) settled down. Compared to other peoples of that time, the Eskimos had the slowest social development. The tool was made of stone or wood. The main economic activities include gathering and hunting.

The main way of survival of the first settlers of the Siberian region was hunting, reindeer herding and fur extraction, which was the currency of that time.

By the end of the 17th century, the most developed peoples of Siberia were the Buryats and Yakuts. The Tatars were the only people who, before the arrival of the Russians, managed to organize state power.

The largest peoples before Russian colonization include the following peoples: Itelmens (indigenous inhabitants of Kamchatka), Yukaghirs (inhabited the main territory of the tundra), Nivkhs (inhabitants of Sakhalin), Tuvans (the indigenous population of the Republic of Tuva), Siberian Tatars (located on the territory of Southern Siberia from Ural to the Yenisei) and the Selkups (inhabitants of Western Siberia).

Indigenous peoples of Siberia in the modern world.

According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, every people of Russia received the right to national self-determination and identification. Since the collapse of the USSR, Russia has officially become a multinational state and the preservation of the culture of small and disappearing nationalities has become one of the state priorities. The Siberian indigenous peoples were also not ignored here: some of them received the right to self-government in autonomous regions, while others formed their own republics as part of the new Russia. Very small and disappearing nationalities enjoy the full support of the state, and the efforts of many people are aimed at preserving their culture and traditions.

Within the framework of this review, we will give a brief description of each Siberian people, the number of which is more than or close to 7 thousand people. Smaller peoples are difficult to characterize, so we will limit ourselves to their name and number. So, let's begin.

1. Yakuts- the most numerous of the Siberian peoples. According to the latest data, the number of Yakuts is 478,100 people. In modern Russia, the Yakuts are one of the few nationalities that have their own republic, and its area is comparable to the area of ​​an average European state. The Republic of Yakutia (Sakha) is territorially located in the Far Eastern Federal District, but the ethnic group "Yakuts" has always been considered an indigenous Siberian people. The Yakuts have an interesting culture and traditions. This is one of the few peoples of Siberia that has its own epic.
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3. Buryats- this is another Siberian people with its own republic. The capital of Buryatia is the city of Ulan-Ude, located to the east of Lake Baikal. The number of Buryats is 461,389 people. In Siberia, Buryat cuisine is widely known, rightfully considered one of the best among ethnic ones. The history of this people, its legends and traditions is quite interesting. By the way, the Republic of Buryatia is one of the main centers of Buddhism in Russia.
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5. Tuvans. According to the latest census, 263,934 identified themselves as representatives of the Tuvan people. The Tyva Republic is one of the four ethnic republics of the Siberian Federal District. Its capital is the city of Kyzyl with a population of 110 thousand people. The total population of the republic is approaching 300 thousand. Buddhism also flourishes here, and the traditions of the Tuvans also speak of shamanism.
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7. Khakasses- one of the indigenous peoples of Siberia, numbering 72,959 people. Today they have their own republic as part of the Siberian Federal District and with the capital in the city of Abakan. This ancient people has long lived on the lands to the west of the Great Lake (Baikal). It has never been numerous, which did not prevent it from carrying its identity, culture and traditions through the centuries.
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9. Altaians. Their place of residence is quite compact - this is the Altai mountain system. Today Altaians live in two constituent entities of the Russian Federation - the Republic of Altai and the Altai Territory. The number of the ethnos "Altaians" is about 71 thousand people, which allows us to talk about them as a fairly large people. Religion - Shamanism and Buddhism. The Altaians have their own epic and a pronounced national identity, which does not allow them to be confused with other Siberian peoples. This mountain people has a long history and interesting legends.
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11. Nenets- one of the small Siberian peoples living compactly in the area of ​​the Kola Peninsula. Its number of 44,640 people makes it possible to attribute it to small nations, whose traditions and culture are protected by the state. The Nenets are nomadic reindeer herders. They belong to the so-called Samoyedic folk group. Over the years of the 20th century, the number of Nenets has approximately doubled, which indicates the effectiveness of state policy in the field of preserving the small peoples of the North. The Nenets have their own language and oral epic.
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13. Evenki- the people predominantly living on the territory of the Republic of Sakha. The number of this people in Russia is 38,396 people, some of whom live in areas adjacent to Yakutia. It is worth saying that this is about half of the total ethnic group - about the same number of Evenks live in China and Mongolia. The Evenks are the people of the Manchu group, who do not have their own language and epic. Tungus is considered the native language of the Evenks. Evenks are born hunters and trackers.
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15. Khanty- the indigenous people of Siberia, belonging to the Ugric group. Most of the Khanty live in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, which is part of the Ural Federal District of Russia. The total number of Khanty is 30,943 people. About 35% of the Khanty live on the territory of the Siberian Federal District, and their lion's share falls on the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The traditional occupations of the Khanty are fishing, hunting and reindeer herding. The religion of their ancestors is shamanism, but recently more and more Khanty consider themselves Orthodox Christians.
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17. Evens- a people related to the Evenks. According to one version, they represent an Evenk group, which was cut off from the main halo of residence by the Yakuts moving south. For a long time away from the main ethnic group, the Evens made a separate people. Today their number is 21,830 people. The language is Tungus. Places of residence - Kamchatka, Magadan region, Republic of Sakha.
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19. Chukchi- a nomadic Siberian people who are mainly engaged in reindeer herding and live on the territory of the Chukchi Peninsula. Their number is about 16 thousand people. The Chukchi belong to the Mongoloid race and, according to many anthropologists, are the indigenous aborigines of the Far North. The main religion is animism. Indigenous crafts are hunting and reindeer herding.
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21. Shors- Turkic-speaking people living in the southeastern part of Western Siberia, mainly in the south of the Kemerovo region (in Tashtagol, Novokuznetsk, Mezhdurechensk, Myskovsky, Osinnikovsky and other areas). Their number is about 13 thousand people. The main religion is shamanism. The Shor epic is of scientific interest primarily for its originality and antiquity. The history of the people dates back to the VI century. Today, the traditions of the Shors have been preserved only in Sheregesh, since most of the ethnic group moved to the cities and largely assimilated.
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23. Mansi. This people has been known to Russians since the foundation of Siberia. Even Ivan the Terrible sent an army against the Mansi, which suggests that they were quite numerous and strong. The self-name of this people is the Voguls. They have their own language, a fairly developed epic. Today, their place of residence is the territory of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. According to the latest census, 12,269 people identified themselves as belonging to the Mansi ethnic group.
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25. Nanais- a small people living along the banks of the Amur River in the Far East of Russia. Relating to the Baikal ethnotype, the Nanais are rightfully considered one of the most ancient indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Far East. To date, the number of Nanais in Russia is 12,160 people. The Nanais have their own language, rooted in Tungus. Writing exists only among the Russian Nanais and is based on the Cyrillic alphabet.
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27. Koryaks- the indigenous people of the Kamchatka Territory. There are coastal and tundra Koryaks. The Koryaks are mainly reindeer herders and fishermen. The religion of this ethnic group is shamanism. Number - 8 743 people.
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29. Dolgany- a nationality living in the Dolgan-Nenets municipal district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Number - 7 885 people.
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31. Siberian Tatars- perhaps the most famous, but today a few Siberian people. According to the latest population census, 6,779 people identified themselves as Siberian Tatars. However, scientists say that in fact their number is much larger - according to some estimates, up to 100,000 people.
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33. soyots- the indigenous people of Siberia, which is a descendant of the Sayan Samoyeds. Compactly lives on the territory of modern Buryatia. The number of Soyots is 5,579 people.
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35. Nivkhs- the indigenous people of Sakhalin Island. Now they also live on the continental part at the mouth of the Amur River. In 2010, the number of Nivkhs is 5,162 people.
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37. Selkups live in the northern parts of the Tyumen, Tomsk regions and in the territory of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The number of this ethnic group is about 4 thousand people.
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39. Itelmens- This is another indigenous people of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Today, almost all representatives of the ethnic group live in the west of Kamchatka and in the Magadan Region. The number of Itelmens is 3,180 people.
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41. Teleuts- Turkic-speaking small Siberian people living in the south of the Kemerovo Region. The ethnos is very closely connected with the Altaians. Its number is approaching 2 and a half thousand.
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43. Among other small peoples of Siberia, such ethnic groups as the Kets, Chuvans, Nganasans, Tofalgars, Orochi, Negidals, Aleuts, Chulyms, Oroks, Tazy, "Enets", "Alyutors" and "Kereks". It is worth saying that the number of each of them is less than 1 thousand people, so their culture and traditions have practically not been preserved.

The average number of peoples - West Siberian Tatars, Khakasses, Altaians. The rest of the peoples, due to their small number and similar features of their fishing life, are assigned to the group of “small peoples of the North”. Among them are the Nenets, Evenki, Khanty, noticeable in terms of numbers and the preservation of the traditional way of life of the Chukchi, Evens, Nanais, Mansi, Koryaks.

The peoples of Siberia belong to different language families and groups. In terms of the number of speakers of related languages, the first place is occupied by the peoples of the Altaic language family, at least from the turn of our era, which began to spread from the Sayano-Altai and the Baikal region to the deep regions of Western and Eastern Siberia.

The Altaic language family within Siberia is divided into three branches: Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus. The first branch - Turkic - is very extensive. In Siberia, it includes: the Altai-Sayan peoples - Altaians, Tuvans, Khakasses, Shors, Chulyms, Karagas, or Tofalars; West Siberian (Tobolsk, Tara, Baraba, Tomsk, etc.) Tatars; in the Far North - Yakuts and Dolgans (the latter live in the east of Taimyr, in the basin of the Khatanga River). Only the Buryats, settled in groups in the western and eastern Baikal region, belong to the Mongolian peoples in Siberia.

The Tungus branch of the Altai peoples includes the Evenki (“Tungus”), who live in scattered groups over a vast territory from the right tributaries of the Upper Ob to the Okhotsk coast and from the Baikal region to the Arctic Ocean; Evens (Lamuts), settled in a number of regions of northern Yakutia, on the coast of Okhotsk and Kamchatka; also a number of small peoples of the Lower Amur - Nanais (Golds), Ulchis, or Olchis, Negidals; Ussuri region - Orochi and Ude (Udege); Sakhalin - Oroks.

In Western Siberia, ethnic communities of the Uralic language family have been formed since ancient times. These were Ugrian-speaking and Samoyedic-speaking tribes of the forest-steppe and taiga zone from the Urals to the Upper Ob. At present, the Ugric peoples - Khanty and Mansi - live in the Ob-Irtysh basin. The Samoyedic (Samoyed-speaking) include the Selkups in the Middle Ob, the Enets in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, the Nganasans, or Tavgians, in Taimyr, the Nenets, who inhabit the forest-tundra and tundra of Eurasia from Taimyr to the White Sea. Once upon a time, small Samoyedic peoples also lived in Southern Siberia, in the Altai-Sayan Highlands, but their remnants - Karagas, Koibals, Kamasins, etc. - were Turkified in the 18th - 19th centuries.

The indigenous peoples of Eastern Siberia and the Far East are Mongoloid according to the main features of their anthropological types. The Mongoloid type of the Siberian population could genetically originate only in Central Asia. Archaeologists prove that the Paleolithic culture of Siberia developed in the same direction and in similar forms as the Paleolithic of Mongolia. Based on this, archaeologists believe that it was the Upper Paleolithic era with its highly developed hunting culture that was the most suitable historical time for the widespread settlement of Siberia and the Far East by “Asian” - Mongoloid in appearance - ancient man.

Mongoloid types of ancient “Baikal” origin are well represented among modern Tungus-speaking populations from the Yenisei to the Okhotsk coast, also among the Kolyma Yukagirs, whose distant ancestors may have preceded the Evenks and Evens in a significant area of ​​Eastern Siberia.

Among a significant part of the Altaic-speaking population of Siberia - Altaians, Tuvans, Yakuts, Buryats, etc. - the most Mongoloid Central Asian type is widespread, which is a complex racial-genetic formation, the origins of which date back to Mongoloid groups of early times mixed with each other (from ancient times until the late Middle Ages).

Sustainable economic and cultural types of the indigenous peoples of Siberia:

1. foot hunters and fishermen of the taiga zone;
2. wild deer hunters in the Subarctic;
3. sedentary fishermen in the lower reaches of large rivers (Ob, Amur, and also in Kamchatka);
4. taiga hunter-reindeer breeders of Eastern Siberia;
5. reindeer herders of the tundra from the Northern Urals to Chukotka;
6. sea ​​animal hunters on the Pacific coast and islands;
7. pastoralists and farmers of Southern and Western Siberia, the Baikal region, etc.

Historical and ethnographic areas:

1. West Siberian (with the southern, approximately to the latitude of Tobolsk and the mouth of the Chulym on the Upper Ob, and the northern, taiga and subarctic regions);
2. Altai-Sayan (mountain-taiga and forest-steppe mixed zone);
3. East Siberian (with internal differentiation of commercial and agricultural types of tundra, taiga and forest-steppe);
4. Amur (or Amur-Sakhalin);
5. northeastern (Chukotka-Kamchatka).

The Altaic language family was initially formed among the highly mobile steppe population of Central Asia, outside the southern outskirts of Siberia. The demarcation of this community into proto-Turks and proto-Mongols occurred on the territory of Mongolia within the 1st millennium BC. Later, the ancient Turks (ancestors of the Sayano-Altai peoples and Yakuts) and the ancient Mongols (ancestors of the Buryats and Oirats-Kalmyks) settled in Siberia later. The area of ​​origin of the primary Tungus-speaking tribes was also in Eastern Transbaikalia, from where, around the turn of our era, the movement of proto-Evenki foot hunters began to move north, to the Yenisei-Lena interfluve, and later to the Lower Amur.

The era of early metal (2-1 millennia BC) in Siberia is characterized by many streams of southern cultural influences, reaching the lower reaches of the Ob and the Yamal Peninsula, to the lower reaches of the Yenisei and Lena, to Kamchatka and the Bering Sea coast of the Chukotka Peninsula. The most significant, accompanied by ethnic inclusions in the aboriginal environment, these phenomena were in Southern Siberia, the Amur Region and Primorye of the Far East. At the turn of 2-1 millennia BC. there was a penetration into southern Siberia, into the Minusinsk basin and the Tomsk Ob region by steppe pastoralists of Central Asian origin, who left monuments of the Karasuk-Irmen culture. According to a convincing hypothesis, these were the ancestors of the Kets, who later, under the pressure of the early Turks, moved further to the Middle Yenisei, and partially mixed with them. These Turks are the carriers of the Tashtyk culture of the 1st century. BC. - 5 in. AD - located in the Altai-Sayan Mountains, in the Mariinsky-Achinsk and Khakass-Minusinsk forest-steppe. They were engaged in semi-nomadic cattle breeding, knew agriculture, widely used iron tools, built rectangular log dwellings, had draft horses and riding domestic deer. It is possible that it was through them that domestic reindeer breeding began to spread in Northern Siberia. But the time of the really wide distribution of the early Turks along the southern strip of Siberia, north of the Sayano-Altai and in the Western Baikal region, is, most likely, the 6th-10th centuries. AD Between the 10th and 13th centuries the movement of the Baikal Turks to the Upper and Middle Lena begins, which marked the beginning of the formation of an ethnic community of the northernmost Turks - the Yakuts and the obligated Dolgans.

The Iron Age, the most developed and expressive in Western and Eastern Siberia, in the Amur Region and Primorye in the Far East, was marked by a noticeable rise in productive forces, population growth and an increase in the diversity of cultural means not only in the shores of large river communications (Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Amur ), but also in deep taiga regions. Possession of good vehicles (boats, skis, hand sleds, draft dogs and deer), metal tools and weapons, fishing gear, good clothes and portable dwellings, as well as perfect methods of housekeeping and food preparation for future use, i.e. The most important economic and cultural inventions and the labor experience of many generations allowed a number of aboriginal groups to widely settle in the hard-to-reach, but rich in animals and fish taiga areas of Northern Siberia, master the forest-tundra and reach the coast of the Arctic Ocean.

The largest migrations with extensive development of the taiga and assimilation intrusion into the “Paleo-Asiatic-Yukaghir” population of Eastern Siberia were made by Tungus-speaking groups of foot and deer hunters of elk and wild deer. Moving in various directions between the Yenisei and the Okhotsk coast, penetrating from the northern taiga to the Amur and Primorye, making contacts and mixing with foreign-speaking inhabitants of these places, these “Tungus explorers” eventually formed numerous groups of Evenks and Evens and Amur-Primorye peoples . The medieval Tungus, who themselves mastered domestic deer, contributed to the spread of these useful transport animals among the Yukagirs, Koryaks and Chukchi, which had important consequences for the development of their economy, cultural communication and changes in the social system.

Development of socio-economic relations

By the time the Russians arrived in Siberia, the indigenous peoples of not only the forest-steppe zone, but also the taiga and tundra were by no means at that stage of socio-historical development that could be considered deeply primitive. Socio-economic relations in the leading sphere of production of conditions and forms of social life among many peoples of Siberia reached a fairly high level of development already in the 17th-18th centuries. Ethnographic materials of the XIX century. state the predominance among the peoples of Siberia of the relations of the patriarchal-communal system associated with subsistence farming, the simplest forms of neighborly kinship cooperation, the communal tradition of owning land, organizing internal affairs and relations with the outside world, with a fairly strict account of “blood” genealogical ties in marriage and family and everyday (primarily religious, ritual and direct communication) spheres. The main social and production (including all aspects and processes of production and reproduction of human life), a socially significant unit of the social structure among the peoples of Siberia was the territorial-neighbor community, within which they reproduced, passed on from generation to generation and accumulated everything necessary for existence and production communication material means and skills, social and ideological relations and properties. As a territorial-economic association, it could be a separate settled settlement, a group of interconnected fishing camps, a local community of semi-nomads.

But ethnographers are also right in that in the everyday sphere of the peoples of Siberia, in their genealogical ideas and connections, for a long time, living remnants of the former relations of the patriarchal-clan system were preserved. Among such persistent phenomena should be attributed generic exogamy, extended to a fairly wide circle of relatives in several generations. There were many traditions emphasizing the holiness and inviolability of the tribal principle in the social self-determination of the individual, his behavior and attitude towards people around him. Kindred mutual assistance and solidarity, even to the detriment of personal interests and deeds, was considered the highest virtue. The focus of this tribal ideology was the overgrown paternal family and its lateral patronymic lines. A wider circle of relatives of the paternal “root” or “bone” was also taken into account, if, of course, they were known. Proceeding from this, ethnographers believe that in the history of the peoples of Siberia, the paternal-tribal system was an independent, very long stage in the development of primitive communal relations.

Industrial and domestic relations between men and women in the family and the local community were built on the basis of the division of labor by sex and age. The significant role of women in the household was reflected in the ideology of many Siberian peoples in the form of the cult of the mythological “mistress of the hearth” and the associated custom of “keeping fire” by the real mistress of the house.

The Siberian material of the past centuries, used by ethnographers, along with the archaic, also shows obvious signs of the ancient decline and decay of tribal relations. Even in those local societies where social class stratification did not receive any noticeable development, features were found that overcame tribal equality and democracy, namely: individualization of the methods of appropriation of material goods, private ownership of craft products and objects of exchange, property inequality between families , in some places patriarchal slavery and bondage, the separation and exaltation of the ruling tribal nobility, etc. These phenomena in one form or another are noted in documents of the 17th-18th centuries. among the Ob Ugrians and Nenets, the Sayano-Altai peoples and the Evenks.

The Turkic-speaking peoples of Southern Siberia, the Buryats and Yakuts at that time were characterized by a specific ulus-tribal organization that combined the orders and customary law of the patriarchal (neighborly-kindred) community with the dominant institutions of the military-hierarchical system and the despotic power of the tribal nobility. The tsarist government could not but take into account such a difficult socio-political situation, and, recognizing the influence and strength of the local ulus nobility, practically entrusted the fiscal and police administration to the ordinary mass of accomplices.

It is also necessary to take into account the fact that Russian tsarism was not limited only to the collection of tribute - from the indigenous population of Siberia. If this was the case in the 17th century, then in subsequent centuries the state-feudal system sought to maximize the use of the productive forces of this population, imposing on it ever greater payments and duties in kind and depriving it of the right of supreme ownership of all lands, lands and riches of the subsoil. An integral part of the economic policy of the autocracy in Siberia was the encouragement of the commercial and industrial activities of Russian capitalism and the treasury. In the post-reform period, the flow of agrarian migration to Siberia of peasants from European Russia intensified. Centers of an economically active newcomer population began to quickly form along the most important transport routes, which entered into versatile economic and cultural contacts with the indigenous inhabitants of the newly developed areas of Siberia. Naturally, under this generally progressive influence, the peoples of Siberia lost their patriarchal identity (“the identity of backwardness”) and joined the new conditions of life, although before the revolution this took place in contradictory and painful forms.

Economic and cultural types

Indigenous peoples by the time of the arrival of the Russians, cattle breeding was developed much more than agriculture. But since the 18th century agricultural economy is increasingly taking place among the West Siberian Tatars, it is also spreading among the traditional pastoralists of the southern Altai, Tuva and Buryatia. Accordingly, material and everyday forms also changed: stable settled settlements arose, nomadic yurts and semi-dugouts were replaced by log houses. However, the Altaians, Buryats and Yakuts for a long time had polygonal log yurts with a conical roof, which in appearance imitated the felt yurt of nomads.

The traditional clothing of the cattle-breeding population of Siberia was similar to the Central Asian (for example, Mongolian) and belonged to the swing type (fur and cloth robe). The characteristic clothing of the South Altai pastoralists was a long-skinned sheepskin coat. Married Altai women (like the Buryats) put on a kind of long sleeveless jacket with a slit in front - “chegedek” over a fur coat.

The lower reaches of large rivers, as well as a number of small rivers of North-Eastern Siberia, are characterized by a complex of sedentary fishermen. In the vast taiga zone of Siberia, on the basis of the ancient hunting way of life, a specialized economic and cultural complex of hunters-reindeer herders was formed, which included Evenks, Evens, Yukaghirs, Oroks, and Negidals. The fishing of these peoples consisted in catching wild elk and deer, small ungulates and fur-bearing animals. Fishing was almost universally a subsidiary occupation. Unlike sedentary fishermen, the taiga reindeer hunters led a nomadic lifestyle. Taiga transport reindeer breeding is exclusively pack and riding.

The material culture of the hunting peoples of the taiga was fully adapted to constant movement. A typical example of this is the Evenks. Their dwelling was a conical tent, covered with deer skins and dressed skins (“rovduga”), also sewn into wide strips of birch bark boiled in boiling water. With frequent migrations, these tires were transported in packs on domestic deer. To move along the rivers, the Evenks used birch bark boats, so light that one person could easily carry them on their backs. Evenki skis are excellent: wide, long, but very light, glued with the skin from the legs of an elk. Evenki ancient clothing was adapted for frequent skiing and reindeer riding. These clothes, made of thin but warm deer skins, were swinging, with floors that did not converge in front, the chest and stomach were covered with a kind of fur bib.

The general course of the historical process in various regions of Siberia was drastically changed by the events of the 16th-17th centuries, connected with the appearance of Russian explorers and, in the end, the inclusion of all of Siberia into the Russian state. The lively Russian trade and the progressive influence of Russian settlers made significant changes in the economy and life of not only the cattle-breeding and agricultural, but also the fishing indigenous population of Siberia. Already by the end of the XVIII century. Evenks, Evens, Yukaghirs and other fishing groups of the North began to widely use firearms. This facilitated and quantitatively increased the production of large animals (wild deer, elk) and fur-bearing animals, especially squirrels - the main object of fur trade in the 18th-early 20th centuries. New occupations began to be added to the original crafts - a more developed reindeer husbandry, the use of the draft power of horses, agricultural experiments, the beginnings of a craft based on a local raw material base, etc. As a result of all this, the material and everyday culture of the indigenous inhabitants of Siberia also changed.

Spiritual life

The area of ​​religious and mythological ideas and various religious cults succumbed to progressive cultural influence least of all. The most common form of beliefs among the peoples of Siberia was.

A distinctive feature of shamanism is the belief that certain people - shamans - have the ability, having brought themselves into a frenzied state, to enter into direct communication with the spirits - patrons and helpers of the shaman in the fight against diseases, hunger, loss and other misfortunes. The shaman was obliged to take care of the success of the craft, the successful birth of a child, etc. Shamanism had several varieties corresponding to different stages of social development of the Siberian peoples themselves. Among the most backward peoples, for example, among the Itelmens, everyone could shaman, and especially old women. The remnants of such "universal" shamanism have been preserved among other peoples.

For some peoples, the functions of a shaman were already a specialty, but the shamans themselves served a tribal cult, in which all adult members of the clan took part. Such “tribal shamanism” was noted among the Yukagirs, Khanty and Mansi, among the Evenks and Buryats.

Professional shamanism flourishes during the period of the collapse of the patriarchal-tribal system. The shaman becomes a special person in the community, opposing himself to uninitiated relatives, lives on income from his profession, which becomes hereditary. It is this form of shamanism that has been observed in the recent past among many peoples of Siberia, especially among the Evenks and the Tungus-speaking population of the Amur, among the Nenets, Selkups, and Yakuts.

It acquired complicated forms from the Buryats under the influence, and from the end of the 17th century. generally began to be replaced by this religion.

The tsarist government, starting from the 18th century, diligently supported the missionary activity of the Orthodox Church in Siberia, and Christianization was often carried out by coercive measures. By the end of the XIX century. most of the Siberian peoples were formally baptized, but their own beliefs did not disappear and continued to have a significant impact on the worldview and behavior of the indigenous population.

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Literature

1. Ethnography: textbook / ed. Yu.V. Bromley, G.E. Markov. - M.: Higher school, 1982. - S. 320. Chapter 10. "Peoples of Siberia".

Siberia is a region in the northern part of Asia, bounded from the west by the Ural Mountains, from the east and north by the oceans (the Pacific and the Arctic, respectively). It is subdivided into Western Siberia, Eastern Siberia. Sometimes Southern Siberia is also distinguished. The origin of the word "Siberia" is not fully established. According to Z. Ya. Boyarshinova, this term comes from the name of the ethnic group "sipyr", whose linguistic affiliation is controversial. Later, it began to refer to the Turkic-speaking group that lived along the river. Irtysh in the area of ​​modern Tobolsk.

One of the glorious deeds that every Russian, and even more so you and me, should be proud of is the development of Siberia in the feudal period. In order to better imagine the life of Russians at that time in a vast region, one must know what kind of houses they had, how they dressed, what they ate. The analysis of the material culture of the Russian peasants of Western Siberia in the feudal period is important in connection with the discussion of the result of the annexation of Siberia to Russia in the conditions of the development of new territories. In this paper, the features of the development of the material culture of the West Siberian peasants over a century and a half are considered on the example of residential, economic and cultural buildings, clothes, utensils of all categories of the Russian peasantry in different natural and climatic zones of the region, taking into account the influence of socio-economic processes, migrations, government policies, contacts with the native population of the region.

1. Colonization and land development

Ermak's campaign and the defeat of Kuchum led the Siberian Khanate to collapse. The struggle against Kuchum continued until the end of the 1590s. The Russian administration built strongholds (Tyumen - 1586; Tobolsk - 1587; Pelym - 1593; Berezov - 1593; Surgut - 1594, etc.). The entry of Siberia into the Russian state took place over decades as it was mastered by Russian settlers. The state power, establishing strongholds in Siberia - stockades, which later became cities with a trade and craft population, attracted new settlers with various benefits. Such strongholds were overgrown with villages, and then settlements, which in turn became centers that united the rural population. Such agricultural areas gradually merged and formed larger areas of Russian settlement. The first of these regions in Western Siberia was Verkhotursko-Tobolsk, which developed in the 1630s in Western Siberia in the basin of the Tura River and its southern tributaries. Self-sufficiency of Siberia with bread as a result of the economic activity of settlers became possible from the 1680s. By the end of the 17th century, four West Siberian counties - Tobolsk, Verkhotursky, Tyumen and Turin - became the main breadbasket of Siberia. The more eastern area of ​​agricultural development by Russian settlers in Western Siberia was the territory between Tomsk and Kuznetsk, founded respectively in 1604 and 1618.

The main cities, prisons and winter quarters of Siberia in the 17th century

The penetration of Russian fishermen into Eastern Siberia began in the 17th century. With the development of the Yenisei basin, on its middle reaches up to the mouth of the Angara, the second most important grain-producing region began to be created, which extended to Krasnoyarsk, founded in 1628. To the south, until the end of the 17th century, the Mongol state of Altyn-khans, the Kirghiz and Oirat rulers prevented agricultural land development. Further commercial development of the East of Siberia began to cover Yakutia and the Baikal region. A grain-producing region was created in the upper reaches of the Lena and along the Ilim. On the largest rivers - the Indigirka, Kolyma, Yana, Olenyok, and especially at the mouth of the Lena, part of the industrialists began to settle for permanent residence, and local groups of a permanent old-timer Russian population formed there.

Traditionally, the colonization of Siberia is classified in two directions: government and free people. The purpose of the government's resettlement policy was to provide the serving population with bread allowances through the use of the natural resources of the annexed territories. In the XVIII century, it was planned to create an agricultural region in Siberia, which not only provided for the needs of the region, but also covered the growing needs of the center in bread. Realizing the prospects of the development of Siberia, the state could not and did not intend to reduce control over the course of economic development. The government resettled the arable peasants to Siberia “according to the device” and “by order”. Those wishing to move to Siberia "on the sovereign's arable land" were given benefits for two, three years or more, assistance and loans of various sizes. The device of the peasants was carried out by the region in the form of a duty. "In total, regardless of the sources of formation of the peasant class, the main groups of farmers in Siberia in the 17th century were plowed and quitrent peasants." They performed feudal duties in favor of the owner of the land - the state.

For the cultivation of the sovereign's arable land, peasant hands and peasant farming were needed - draft power, agricultural implements. “By decree”, the “transferees” selected by the local administration in the Chernososhnye counties were sent with their families, horses, other livestock, agricultural implements, food and seeds for their own sowing to a new place of residence. At first, the peasants sent to Siberia were given assistance in their old place. For example, in 1590 it was ordered in Solvychegodsk and in the county to take 30 families of plowed peasants to Siberia and that each person had three good geldings, three cows, two goats, three pigs, five sheep, two geese, five hens, two ducks, bread for a year, a plow for arable land, a sleigh, a cart and "all kinds of worldly junk." The government made sure that the peasants moved to Siberia with a full economy.

Such a measure of the government for the settlement and agricultural development of Siberia, as the establishment of large agricultural settlements there - settlements, which concentrated the bulk of the peasant population, formed from the former inhabitants of the European part of the country, mainly Pomortsy, turned out to be effective. The construction of settlements has become more widespread in Siberia than in Pomorye and other regions of the country. The initiative in their creation at first belonged to the state, and then passed to enterprising natives of the people - Slobodchik. Slobodchiki sometimes met with resistance from the governor. This happened in 1639 during the organization of the Murzinskaya Sloboda. Slobodchik Andrei Buzheninov, who received permission in Tobolsk to organize a settlement, met with sharp opposition from the Verkhoturye governor V. Korsakov when recruiting those wishing to move to a new village on the rights of quitrent peasants with a six-year benefit. The governor forbade recruiting on the territory of the county and informed Moscow that the slobodchik was violating the established rules of recruitment, calling not only children from their fathers, but the whole family.

Already in 1674, 3,903 peasant households were concentrated in the most populated Verkhotursk-Tobolsk district, of which 2,959 were arable peasant households and 944 were grain-growing households. By the end of the XVII century. the number of peasant households there reached 6765. On the banks of the river. Parabels in the Narym district by the beginning of the 18th century. 13 families of arable peasants lived. A small center of agriculture remained on the river. Keti with 17 yards of arable peasants. Within the boundaries of the Tomsk district in 1703, 399 peasant families associated with the processing of tithe arable land, and 88 grain-growing households were settled. 96 families of arable peasants lived in the Kuznetsk district.

Within Western Siberia at the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries. 7378 families of plowed and grain-growing peasants lived. On the territory of Eastern Siberia, they lived in 5 counties: in Yenisei - 917 families, Krasnoyarsk - 102, Bratsk - 128, Irkutsk - 338, Ilimsk - 225.

The formation of a contingent of arable and quitrent peasants proceeded on the initiative and under the control of the governors of Siberian cities, who systematically reported to the Siberian order on the state and expansion of state arable land, the volume and consumption of the harvest.

The achievements of Russian settlers in Siberia are explained by the specifics of this process. The development of Siberia took place with the participation of peasants who moved to Siberia and cultivated the lands of the new region with their labor. From the very beginning, a broad wave of peasant colonization went to Siberia. By the end of the XVII century. the peasant population of Siberia accounted for 44% of the total Russian population. In addition, the majority of servicemen and townspeople, by the nature of their occupations, were farmers. For some part of the service people, agriculture was a source of subsistence, others, receiving a grain salary, nevertheless, were engaged in agriculture and had a more or less significant plowing, and still others, in addition to their monetary and salt salaries, plowed the land. The state peasants for the received land allotment served corvee on "tithe arable land". Initially, each peasant was obliged to plow 1 dess. state arable land. This was due to the desire to quickly increase the sovereign's plowing, but it led to the fact that the peasants could not plow the arable land for several years. The first Yenisei peasants, even in the fifth year after their settlement, could not plow sob arable land, since they were completely occupied in processing the sovereign's arable land. Gradually, the size of the arable land changed depending on the economic capabilities of the peasant from 0.25 to 1.5 acres per field. The basis of the peasant economy was the "sobin" plot of land. The use of this site was formalized by "this charter". The Sobin area included arable and fallow land, as well as hay meadows. The size of the peasant "sob arable land" was in a certain proportion with the state arable land. For example, in the Yenisei district, the usual ratio between peasant and sovereign arable land was considered to be 4.5:1, i.e., for 4.5 acres of his plowing land, a peasant was obliged to plow 1 acres of sovereign arable land. In Tomsk Uyezd, on average, one peasant household accounted for 1.8 acres in the field of arable land. Labor rent was the dominant form of service throughout the 17th century. The appearance of cash and food rent was of great importance, but in the 17th century. they have not yet become dominant.

Thus, the colonization of Siberia in the XVII - early XVIII centuries. is predominantly agricultural. Moreover, its successes are inextricably linked with the development of agriculture. The Russian people, having vast agricultural experience, were able to adapt it in Siberia and create a new agriculture, higher in its level.

During the 17th century, two trends were determined in Siberia: the first - in the Western and Central Siberian regions - gravitated towards the establishment of a three-field system, the second - in the eastern region - towards a two-field one. The introduction of fallow and fallow systems with the beginnings of a three-field system into agriculture meant a qualitative leap in the development of the productive forces of Siberian tillage. With the arrival of the Russians in Siberia, agricultural crops typical of the central and northern part of the Russian state were established. These are, first of all, rye and oats. These crops were the only ones cultivated on the sovereign's tithe arable land. The composition of crops on sob plowing was wider. Here, along with rye and oats, wheat, barley, spelt, egg, peas, millet and buckwheat are found. But rye, oats and barley remained the dominant crops on sob arable lands as well.

In the 17th century crops of industrial crops begin to take root. In 1668, by order of P.I. Godunov, in Siberia, hemp planting was introduced for the sovereign. In addition to the "sobin" plowing, the peasants allotted space for vegetable gardens.

The allotment of vegetable gardens was carried out simultaneously with the entire land management of the peasant, for example, in 1701 on April 16 "it was given to him in the Tushamskaya district for a yard and a garden from empty places of land against the brothers of the farmers." There are three equivalent names of the garden - "gardens", "gardens", "vegetable" gardens. All gardens had a consumer purpose. There is absolutely no information about the harvesting and sale of vegetables, and prices for them. The state did not tax the peasants with any vegetable supplies. Cabbage was mainly cultivated in the gardens. Other vegetables were less common. This can be established on the basis of injury claims. “Garden vegetables, both in the city of Ilimsk and in the county, are native: cabbage, retka, beets, carrots, turnips, onions, garlic, cucumbers, pumpkins, beans, peas. And there are no more vegetables.”

For the entire period from the end of the XVI to the beginning of the XVIII centuries. cultivated fields appeared in 17 out of 20 Siberian counties. By the end of the XVII - beginning of the XVIII centuries. centers of agriculture existed almost all the way from Verkhoturye to Yakutsk. The size and importance of these regions decreased as they moved away from the European part of the country - the farther the region was, the less it had an agricultural population and, accordingly, cultivated land. However, over time, there was an increase in the peasant population and cultivated land with a gradual movement to the south in more favorable soil and climatic conditions. The Verkhotursko-Tobolsk region was the first in its significance, the Yenisei region was the second. The Tomsk, Kuznetsk and Lensk districts were regions with weak development of arable farming.

Thus, the development of Siberian agriculture in the XVII - early XVIII centuries. characterized by a clear territorial unevenness. Some counties did not know agriculture, others took the first steps towards its development. Verkhotursko-Tobolsk and Yenisei regions in the 17th century. became the granaries of Siberia and supplied other regions with surplus grain.

The uneven development of agriculture led to the formation of regions with marketable grain and regions that did not have it. This, in turn, led to the formation of districts that needed grain subsidies and, accordingly, high grain prices, and districts that more or less provided themselves with bread. The considerable distance between the districts made it difficult to supply bread within Siberia. Therefore, in Siberia, the buying up of grain by dealers with further resale to small-grain and grain-free regions developed.

By the 18th century grain production in the grain regions reached such a level that the population of all Siberia, mastered by the Russian population, was satisfactorily supplied with bread, and supplies from European Russia were practically not required.

2. Clothing and material culture

In Western Siberia, the rational basis of the Russian folk costume has been preserved. The clothes of the peasants were represented by 74 (66.0%) elements that are traditional for rural residents of Russia. The sundress complex with the corresponding women's headdresses, the composition and method of wearing of which was similar to those established in the European part of the country, played a leading role in the wardrobe of West Siberian peasant women. Men's costume, its main elements - a shirt and ports, outer fabric (zipun, armyak, shabur) and fur clothing (fur coat, short fur coat, sheepskin coat) were the same as in the entire territory inhabited by Russians. The Old Believers used the most ancient types of clothing by origin - epanechka, kuntysh, single-row, ponyok, high men's hat, ubrus, pistons, which were out of use in other regions of the country.

In the material culture of the Russian population of Western Siberia in the feudal period, some specific traditions of the places where the settlers came out were also preserved. At the end of the XVII century. in the areas of the initial development of the region, in the inventories of the property of peasants, the most ancient by origin, known in the Russian North, boxes, boxes for storing things were recorded. The names and arrangement demonstrate the genetic connection of "fixed" furniture (shops, beds, stalls) in the dwellings of the population of Western Siberia and the Russian North. The diversity in the designation of objects with the same functions (a washcloth - northern, a towel - Tver, a handkerchief - Novgorod, Ryazan dialects) in the counties of the forest-steppe zone also indicates the preservation of the traditions of the places of migrants' exit. In the old-timers' villages in Altai, there were "huts" belonging to the former inhabitants of South Russia, the walls of which were covered with clay and whitewashed from the outside and inside. Altai Old Believers painted, painted walls, ceilings and furniture out of habit in bright colors.

The wardrobe of West Siberian peasant women included 12 costume elements that had a local existence in European Russia. The northern Russian complex includes oak, top, top, shamshur, cap; to the Western Russian - an andarak skirt, a basting, a bodice; to the South Russian - zapon, half-patterns. The breastplate was a characteristic detail of the attire of the Ryazan migrants. The types of men's outerwear that spread in Western Siberia: aziam, chekmen, chapan - existed respectively in the northeast, in the eastern and southeastern provinces of Russia. The identified local forms of clothing confirm the preservation of the traditions of the places where the settlers came out in the new conditions. This was due both to the functional conformity of the previously used clothing, and to the desire to fix the memory of the homeland in some iconic elements of the women's costume. In general, the maintenance of Russian traditions in the material culture of the peasants living in Western Siberia was facilitated by the creation of an agricultural economy on this, as well as on the original, territory, the influx of immigrants from Russia, the development of trade relations and crafts, and the peculiarities of the people's consciousness.

An essential factor determining the development of the material culture of the West Siberian peasantry was urban influence. Its origins are connected with the processes of initial settlement and development of the region. In the 17th century agriculture was the primary and necessary element of the socio-economic structure of the Siberian city. Citizens-farmers (service people, townspeople, peasants) became the founders and residents of the surrounding villages.

3. Construction

3.1 Houses

Such observations testify to the commonality of the development of culture in the territories inhabited at different times by Russians. In the 17th century in Siberia, the methods of wooden architecture, characteristic of most of the state, were used: the construction of the foundations of houses “on chairs”, piles, racks, stones; the technique of fastening logs into quadrangular log cabins in the "corners", "in the oblo"; gable, male and truss roof structures3. All types and variants of the horizontal and vertical layout of the dwelling, known in the European part of the country at the time of the resettlement of peasants beyond the Urals, depending on the natural and climatic conditions, migration processes, were embodied in the West Siberian region.

In the early years, in the forest-steppe and steppe zones, where there was a shortage of building materials, the new settlers built only huts. Over time, the proportion of buildings of the two-part type reached 48%. Three-part houses in the steppe and forest-steppe regions accounted for 19 - 65%.

Ascribed peasants preferred the option "hut - canopy - cage". The local administration contributed to its preservation. There were very few multi-chamber buildings, which included several living quarters and a canopy, in all regions of Western Siberia - up to 3%. They were owned by families with a complex structural and generational composition, trading peasants, rural priests and philistines.

The planning structures corresponded to the property qualification of the peasantry: the poor had single-chamber and two-part dwellings, the rich had multi-part dwellings and depended on the population of the rural yard: families of 10 people. and more had houses of the three-part type with the option “two huts, canopy”.

3.2 Churches and cathedrals

Sophia Cathedral in Tobolsk (1621–1677)

The Tobolsk Cathedral of Sophia the Wisdom, built in 1686, is known as the first stone church building in Siberia. It also had its own “wooden prehistory” spanning more than fifty years – from 1621, the time of the construction of the first wooden cathedral, to 1677, when the church was destroyed in a fire that engulfed the city. The period of the existence of the St. Sophia Cathedral, built in stone, is considered in detail by the researchers, and the wooden version of the building, despite the published description, was left aside, excluding a few comments in the works of architectural historians. However, it was at the beginning of the XVII century. Tobolsk acquires the importance of a major military-administrative, commercial, cultural, church center, becoming the actual capital of Siberia. In the 20s. 17th century Metropolitan Cyprian was sent to the Tobolsk diocese, whose name is associated with the construction of the first building of the St. Sophia Cathedral. The construction of the temple was given a special meaning.

As follows from the materials of the census and copy books of 1620–1636. Tobolsk Bishop's House, the wooden Cathedral of St. Sophia was built in 1621-1622. according to the royal decree to the Siberian governors in 1620. For the construction of the church, log houses purchased from Tobolsk residents were used. It was impossible to prepare wood specially for the construction, or rather, there was no one to hire for this, since in those years Tobolsk was depopulated due to hunger. However, the acquisition of ready-made log cabins for the construction of a building was quite a common practice. Among the buildings bought was a half-built log cabin of the church, which in 1620 the priest Ivan, with the blessing of the Vologda Archbishop Macarius, laid ten sazhens from the Trinity Church and which was conceived as a five-domed church in the name of Sophia the Wisdom. Cyprian completed this church as a cathedral church, leaving behind it the name Sofiyskaya (consecrated on October 21, 1622), although a charter from Moscow ordered to name the Church of the Ascension.

A detailed description of the erected temple allows us to reconstruct its appearance. The height of the church from ground level to the apple was 13.5–14 sazhens (more than 28 m), the floor was at the level of 14 crowns, which, with a log diameter of 25–28 cm, was 3.5–3.9 m. ”, which was a groined barrel covering, there were 26 crowns (about 7 m). Thus, the frame structure rose to a height of 10–11 m, which was about a third of the height of the entire building. The term "zakomary" is more familiar to specialists from stone structures, but, apparently, they used it for the forms of a building made of wood, which can indirectly confirm the relationship between the interpretations of the forms of these two types of structures. On the base of the groin barrels, three on each of the four sides of the log house, a spectacular drum was installed, made up of smaller centrally located barrels. The cathedral had three altars and a porch that covered the log house from three sides. A covered staircase with three porch platforms led to the porch, the upper of which had a roof with a barrel covered with a plowshare, the two middle ones had barrels covered with bent boards. The cathedral had five domes, with the central dome placed on a barrel drum, and four smaller domes on corner baptismal barrels.

Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Tomsk.

The Trinity Church is the first significant religious building in Tomsk, built shortly after the founding of the city. It is known that it was rebuilt in the middle of the 17th century. in connection with the construction of a new Tomsk fortress. The Trinity Church existed in a tree until 1811. Descriptions of the church and its images on panoramas and city plans remained. According to them, V.I. Kochedamov reconstructed it as a squat four-sided single-apse temple with an extensive refectory and a three-sided gallery, which has a tented top, replaced in the 18th century. curvilinear coating in the Ukrainian baroque style.

However, a careful study of the documents and a different reading of them forces us to propose a different reconstruction of this outstanding monument of wooden architecture. First of all, it is clear from them that the Trinity Church, built in 1654, was hipped. The length of the actual church (ship) was 3.5 sazhens (7.5 m), the length of the refectory was 3 sazhens (6.5 m), the height of the log cabins to the tent was 13 sazhens (27.9 m), the height of the tent to the neck was 7 sazhen (15.1 m). Under the church there was a high, no less than 1.5 sazhens (3.15), basement, and stairs leading from the ground led to the porch-gallery enclosing the building on three sides.

The height of the church attracts attention: without the dome, it is 20 sazhens - about 43 m (this calculation was made by A. N. Kopylov). This immediately allows the Trinity Church in Tomsk

include the Trinity Church of 1654 in a number of the most significant hipped churches known in Russian architecture. Using the proportions of the tent and the dome crowning it, known from other monuments, we get the total height of the building up to the apple under the cross 48–51 m, which coincides with the height of the Vladimirskaya Church in the village. Belaya Sluda and Resurrection in the village. Piyala, which are considered the highest hipped churches.

The Church of the Trinity had a complex functional purpose of a cult, residential and industrial (“grand granary”) character. It is impossible to underestimate the town-planning significance of the Trinity Church. Rising 50 m above the city mountain, it acted as a materialized axis of the city, was its main vertical dominant. The river facade of the city was extremely expressive, since the height of the church was equal to the height of the mountain itself above the water's edge. With the loss of such buildings within the city, the idea of ​​the monumentality of ancient wooden structures was also lost. Meanwhile, such a building as the Trinity Church would not be "lost" among modern buildings (with an average height of a residential building of about 30 m). You can be sure that the impression it made on contemporaries, against the backdrop of a dense one-and-a-half-story building, was enormous.

CONCLUSION

Despite the fact that interest in the ethnic culture of Russians in Siberia has not weakened for several centuries, this topic remains one of the poorly studied. The main part of the publications on this topic was devoted to individual groups of the Russian ethnos, which, due to their isolation of life, have retained many features of traditional culture. The majority of the Russian population does not belong to any ethnographic groups, although, due to various circumstances, it has some local features. Continued research will solve the problem of the ethnocultural development of Russians in Siberia, may contribute to the development of programs for the preservation and revival of the traditions of Russian culture, and in the future - writing a generalizing work on the ethnic history of Russian Siberians

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

Lyubavsky M.K. Review of the history of Russian colonization from ancient times to the twentieth century. - M., 1996.

Butsinsky P.N. The settlement of Siberia and the life of its first inhabitants. - Kharkov, 1889.

Ethnography of the Russian peasantry of Siberia: XVII - the middle of the XIX century. - M., 1981.

http://www.ic.omskreg.ru/

http://skmuseum.ru/

http://www.rusarch.ru/

A new reader on the history of Siberia

The Novosibirsk publishing house "Infolio-Press" publishes "Anthology on the history of Siberia", addressed to schoolchildren who independently or together with their teachers study the history of our region. The compilers of the manual are Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Novosibirsk Pedagogical University V.A. Zverev and Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Novosibirsk Institute for Advanced Studies and Retraining of Educational Workers F.S. Kuznetsova.
The reader is part of the educational and methodological set "Siberia: 400 years as part of Russia", intended for students of educational institutions. Earlier, in 1997-1999, A.S. Zuev "Siberia: milestones of history", as well as three parts of the textbook under the general title "History of Siberia" (authors - V.A. Zverev, A.S. Zuev, V.A. Isupov, I.S. Kuznetsov and F. S. Kuznetsova). "History of Siberia" has already passed the second mass edition in 1999-2001.
"Anthology on the history of Siberia" is a textbook that helps to create a full-fledged national-regional component of education in grades VII-XI of Siberian schools. But it does not contain ready-made answers to problematic questions. This is a collection of legislative acts, bureaucratic reports, materials of administrative and scientific surveys, excerpts from the memoirs of Siberian townspeople and literate peasants, essays by travelers and writers. Most of these people were eyewitnesses and participants in the events that took place in Siberia in the 17th - early 20th centuries. Other authors judge Siberian history by the material remains of a past life, by the written, oral, and pictorial evidence that has come down to them.
The texts of the documents are grouped into eight chapters according to the problem-chronological principle. Taken as a whole, they give the reader the opportunity to form their own idea of ​​the past of the region, to answer important questions that interest many Siberians. What peoples lived on the territory of our region in the XVII-XVIII centuries and why some of them cannot be found on the modern map of Siberia? Is it true that the Russian people, having settled in North Asia, over time have so adapted to the local natural features, mixed so much with the indigenous people, that by the middle of the 19th century. made up a completely new "Chaldon" people? Did Siberia strongly lag behind European Russia in its development by the beginning of the 20th century? Is it appropriate to say that it was "a country of taiga, prisons and darkness", a realm of "semi-savagery and real savagery" (these are assessments that were expressed in Soviet times)? What achievements of our great-grandfathers-Siberians "Russia grew" in the old times, and what can we, Siberians of today, be proud of in the historical heritage of our ancestors?
The compilers of the anthology tried to pick up evidence in such a way that they would highlight the state of traditional folk culture, everyday life and customs of Siberians - "indigenous" and "alien", rural and city dwellers. By the end of the XIX century. established orders began to crumble, unusual innovations penetrated culture and way of life. The modernization of society that began then was also reflected on the pages of the anthology.
To delve into the problems of a particular chapter, you must definitely read the introduction placed at its beginning. Such texts briefly characterize the significance of the topic, speak about the main assessments and judgments that exist in historical science and in the public consciousness, and explain the principles for selecting materials.
Each document is preceded by small information about the author and the circumstances of the creation of this text. After the document, the compilers placed questions and tasks - under the heading "Think and answer." The assignments are designed to help students read documents carefully, analyze historical facts, draw and argue their own conclusions.
At the end of each chapter, "Creative tasks" are formulated. Their implementation involves working with a complex of texts. The compilers of the anthology recommend schoolchildren to carry out such work under the guidance of a professional historian. The result of the creative assignment may be a historical essay, a presentation at a scientific and practical conference, the creation of an exposition in a family or school museum.
Since the manual is intended primarily not for scientific, but for educational work, the publication rules are simplified. Notes are not specified in the text, except for the omission of words inside or at the end of the sentence (the omission is indicated by ellipsis). Some long texts are divided into several parts. Such parts, as well as entire texts, are sometimes preceded by headings in square brackets, invented by the compilers of the anthology. In square brackets are also taken the words placed by the compilers in the text of the document for its better understanding. Asterisks indicate comments made by the author of the document. The notes of the compilers of the anthology are numbered with numbers.
The fifth chapter of the anthology is offered to the attention of readers - “What was everyday life in the life of generations” (the title has been changed in a newspaper publication).

Vladimir ZVEREV

Life and traditions of Siberia

Family of Siberian peasants.
Engraving by M. Hoffmann (Germany)
according to the sketch by O. Finsch, made in
Tomsk province in 1876

This chapter of the reader is devoted to the description of the traditions characteristic of the culture and way of life of the Siberian peasantry in the 18th - early 20th centuries.
Traditions are such elements of culture or social relations that exist for a long time, change slowly and are passed on without a critical attitude towards them from generation to generation. For centuries, traditions have played the role of the foundation, the core of the daily life of the people, therefore, Russian society - at least until the "complete collectivization" of the turn of the 1920s-1930s. - some historians call the society of the traditional type, and the then mass culture - traditional culture.
The meaning of peasant life was the labor produced by the forces of family members on “their” arable land (legally, the main part of the land in Siberia belonged to the state and its head, the emperor, but peasant land use was relatively free until the beginning of the 20th century). Agriculture was supplemented by animal husbandry and crafts.
The knowledge of the environment, the “way” of family and community relationships, the upbringing and education of children were also traditional. The entire material and spiritual culture of the village turned out to be traditional - the objective world created by one's own hands (tools, settlements and dwellings, clothes, etc.), beliefs preserved in the mind and "at the heart", assessment of natural and social phenomena.
Part of the folk traditions was brought to Siberia from European Russia during the settlement of this region, the other part was already formed here, under the influence of specific Siberian conditions.
The research literature reflects different approaches to the assessment of traditional folk culture, rural life in Russia and, in particular, Siberia. On the one hand, already in the pre-Soviet period, a purely negative view of “patriarchalism, semi-savagery and real savagery” (Lenin’s words), which allegedly reigned in the pre-revolutionary, pre-kolkhoz village and interfered with the authorities and intelligentsia, this village "cultivate". On the other hand, for a long time there has been and has recently become more active the desire to admire the old folk traditions, even to their complete “revival”. These polar assessments, as it were, outline the space for the search for truth, which, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle.
For publication in the anthology, historical documents have been selected that describe and explain some aspects of the traditional culture of Siberians in different ways. The views of the peasants are also interesting, as are the judgments of external observers - scientists (ethnographers, folklorists) and amateurs - a local doctor and teacher, an idle traveler, etc. Basically, the situation is presented through the eyes of Russian people, but there is also the opinion of a foreigner (an American journalist).
The questions of modern readers will be legitimate: how did the culture and life of our ancestors fundamentally differ from today's everyday life? Which of the folk ideas, customs and rituals retains its viability in modern conditions, needs to be preserved or revived, and which is hopelessly outdated by the beginning of the 20th century?
It is unlikely that the picture highlighted by the sources allows unambiguous answers ...

F.F. Devyatov

The annual cycle of working peasant life

Fedor Fedorovich Devyatov (c. 1837 - 1901) - a wealthy peasant from the village of Kuraginskoye, Minusinsk district, Yenisei province. In the second half of the XIX century. actively collaborated with scientific and educational institutions and the press in Siberia.

[Take] the average family in terms of labor force. Such a family usually consists of a household worker, his [wife], an old father and an old mother, an adolescent son from 12 to 16 years old, two young daughters and, finally, a small child. These families are the most common. This family is busy all year round. No one here has time for extraneous earnings, and therefore, during the harvest, help is often collected here, which occur on a holiday.
Such a family, having 8 working horses, 2 plows, 5-6 harrows, can sow 12 acres. She releases 4 scythes for mowing, 5 sickles for reaping. With such an economy, it seems possible to keep up to 20 heads of cattle, horses, mares and adolescents, 15 heads in total; sheep up to 20-30 heads and pigs 5. Geese, ducks, chickens are an integral part of such a farm. Although fishing exists, all the fish is spent at home and is not sold. Fishing is usually done by an old father or grandfather. If he sometimes sells part of the fish, then only in order to get a few coppers to God for candles.
6 tithes are sown with rye and yaritsa, 3 tithes with oats, 2 tithes with wheat; and barley, buckwheat, millet, peas, hemp, all together 1 tithe. Potatoes and turnips are sown in special places. In the years of average harvest, the entire harvest from 3 acres of rye, from 2 acres of oats, from 1 acres of wheat goes to household consumption. All small bread is also left at home. Bread is sold from 3 acres of rye, from 1 acres of oats and from 1 acres of wheat. All other products of the economy, such as cattle and sheep meat, pork, poultry, milk, butter, wool, feathers, etc. - all this goes to their own consumption in the form of food or clothing, etc.
Dealers in manufactured and petty goods, and in general with all peasant needs, are almost always buyers of bread and other products of the peasant economy; in the shops, peasants take various goods according to the bill and pay with household products, bread, livestock, etc. In addition, due to the remoteness from cities, doctors and pharmacies, their own home self-help. This is not like the treatment of healers, but just every thrifty old housewife has five or six infusions, for example: an infusion of pepper, troel, birch bud, cut grass ... and St. John's wort, and more thrifty camphor lotion, lead lotion, strong vodka , turpentine, mint drops, chilibuha, various herbs and roots. Many of these medicinal substances are also bought from the shop.
The peasants make carts, sledges, arches, plows, harrows and all the necessary implements of agriculture themselves. A table, a bed, a simple sofa and chairs are also made by many at home - with their own hands. Thus, the total expenditure in the aforementioned peasant family is up to 237 rubles per year. The arrival of money can be determined up to 140 rubles; the rest, therefore, is paid in products.
Not included in the account of income, as well as in expenditure: bread given for work in kind, for example, for sewing ... sheepskin coats, azyam from home cloth, shoes (many of these things are sewn at home by women, family members), for wool yarn , flax, soap factory for making soap, etc.; bread is also exchanged for lime for whitewashing the walls. Muravlenaya utensils, wooden utensils, seeders, vessels, troughs, sieves, sieves, spindles, tarsals are delivered by settlers from the Vyatka province and are also exchanged for bread. The exchange is made in this manner: whoever wants to buy a vessel pours it with rye, which he gives to the seller, and takes the vessel for himself; This is called the "scree price".
This expresses almost the entire annual cycle of working peasant life. Its source is the labor force. The labor force arrives in the family, the development of the land arrives and increases; the sowing of grain, cattle breeding is increasing; in a word, income and expenditure are growing.

Devyatov F.F. Economic life of the Siberian peasant /
Literary collection. SPb., 1885.
pp. 310-311, 313-315.

Notes

1 Help- Collective neighborly mutual assistance. The church did not allow work on holidays, but the time of suffering was expensive, and the peasants circumvented the ban by working not on their own farm, but on help.
2 tithe- the main dometric measure of area in Russia, equal to 1.09 ha.
3 Rye and rye- in this case - winter and spring rye.
4 Azam- men's outerwear, a kind of caftan or sheepskin coat.
5 etched dishes- glazed.
6 tarsus- a wooden tube, part of a device for spinning or weaving.

THINK AND ANSWER

1. What types of occupations were traditional in the peasant economy?
2. What type (natural, market, mixed) can be attributed to the described economy? Why?
3. What, according to F. Devyatov, is the main "source of peasant life"? What character of the peasant economy is indicated by this statement of the author?
4. Does your family have a medical "home care"? What is it made up of?

N.L. Skalozubov

The peasants admired the plowing ...

Nikolai Lukich Skalozubov - Tobolsk provincial agronomist, prominent public figure. As part of the Kurgan exhibition in September 1895, he organized two competitions for plowmen. In total, 87 local peasants took part in them, who were supposed to plow the paddocks allocated to them "soon and well."

First competition

The assessment [of the results of plowing] was given to the peasants themselves, and the deputies treated their task with the utmost conscientiousness. If there were disagreements among them, the field was carefully examined again by all, and in most cases the verdicts were unanimous. The commission was also accompanied by some of the plowmen participating in the competition, carefully listening to the assessment.
The results of the assessment were eagerly awaited by the plowmen; the excitement of some was very great. One old man approached the manager and asked: “What is it, to know, my plowing didn’t look like?” - “Yes, the old people say, you plow small, you need to plow better!” Without saying a word, the old man falls off his feet and lies unconscious for several minutes. It is said that another plowman wept when he learned that his arable land was rejected.
Contrary to the existing opinion that the Siberian peasant is chasing the productivity of arable implements to the detriment of the quality of work, it turned out to be quite the opposite: appraisers recognized the best arable land where there were more furrows per pen, and it is remarkable that this feature was found out last, i.e. first, the arable land was evaluated by the thoroughness of the development of the land, by depth, and only then the furrows were counted.

Second competition

The best arable land, like last time, was considered to be the one that, at the greatest depth, seemed to be more even, with a large number of furrows in the corral, small-blocky, without virgin soils, with straight furrows and well-covered stubble. The best arable land, as was to be expected, and by the unanimous verdict of the peasants, was the arable land made by the Sacca plow. The peasants admired this plowing: not a single straw was visible on the arable land, the clods were crushed so finely and the layers covered one another so well that the field looked like a hedgerow. Nevertheless, half of the votes of the commission did not [immediately] agree to value this arable land above excellent ploughshare.
The appraisers did not even want to compare plow plowing with plow: “But this is a factory plow, it will plow well wherever you like; we love our own plow: it’s cheap, but you can plow well.” “It’s good, but the road is not for us,” was the review [about the factory plow].

Skalozubov N.L. Report on [agricultural and handicraft]
exhibition [in Kurgan] and its catalogue. Tobolsk, 1902. S. 131-132, 134-135.

Notes

1 Plow Sacca- a steel plow manufactured by Rudolf Sakk (Kharkiv).
2 Sosh plowing- in this case - made by a Siberian plow with two wooden openers and blades.

THINK AND ANSWER

1. What criteria were presented by the peasants when assessing the quality of plowing?
2. What in the above description indicates the serious attitude of the peasants to the work of the plowman?
3. Why did the peasants prefer the plow rather than the plow in their daily work? How does this fact characterize their economic life and mentality (world outlook)?

Eyewitnesses about family agricultural rites

The first spring plowing in Western Siberia as described by F.K. Zobnin

Filipp Kuzmich Zobnin - a native of Siberian peasants, a village teacher, author of a number of ethnographic works.

Early in the morning, after breakfast or tea, they began to gather for arable land. Every business must begin with prayer. This is where the plowing begins. When the horses are already harnessed, the whole family gathers in the upper room, closes the doors and lights candles in front of the icons. Before the start of prayer, according to custom, everyone should sit down, and then get up and pray. After prayer in good families, the sons who go to the arable land bow at the feet of their parents and ask for blessings. Before leaving the gate, they often send to see if there are any women on the street. It is considered a bad omen when a woman crosses the road at such an important exit. After such a disaster, at least go back ...
This is what they do if they have not yet left the yard: they go back to the upper room to wait, and only then they leave.

Zobnin F.K. From year to year (description of the cycle of peasant life
in with. Ust-Nitsinsk, Tyumen District) //
Living antiquity. 1894. Issue. 1. S. 45.

The beginning of spring sowing in Eastern Siberia as described by M.F. Krivoshapkin

It's time to sow. We are planning to go to the field tomorrow. Preparations begin. First of all, they certainly go to the bathhouse and put on clean linen; and not only is it clean, but more moral men put on underwear even completely new, brand new, because “sowing bread is not a simple matter, but all prayer to God is about it!” In the morning a priest is invited and a prayer service is served. Then they spread a white tablecloth on the table and put a rug with a salt shaker that they have hidden since Easter; they light candles in front of the image, pray to God; say goodbye to family; and if the father does not go himself, then he blesses the children who bow at his feet.
Upon arrival, horses are laid in the field; and the senior owner pours the grain into a sack (i.e., a sack of birch bark or some kind of twigs) and leaves it at the porch of the winter hut. Then, as usual, everyone squats side by side; get up; pray on all 4 sides; the elder goes to scatter the grain, while the others plow. Having done this, in their words, beginning (beginning), everyone returns home, where dinner has already been prepared and all relatives have gathered. It remains, if close, to send for the priest, who should bless both bread and wine and drink the first glass with the owner. Lunch is over. The younger members of the family or workers are sent to plow properly; and the elder escorts the guests, pours grain into bags and leaves to sow.

Krivoshapkin M.F. Yenisei district and its life.
SPb., 1865. T. 1. S. 38.

THINK AND ANSWER

1. What is common in household family rituals among the peasants of Western and Eastern Siberia?
2. How do these rituals characterize the attitude of peasants to their work? Do the described rites have a rational basis?
3. What conclusions about the relationship in the peasant family can be drawn on the basis of the proposed sources?

John Fraser

It won't be long before the Russian peasant becomes capable ofto a colonial role

John Fraser is a well-known American journalist who visited Siberia in 1901. He described his impressions in a book translated into various European languages.

Nowhere in the United States - after all, Siberia is often called the new America - is there such a vast expanse of beautiful land, as if created for arable farming and waiting only for human hands to cultivate it. However, there is little hope that Siberia, through the labor of its inhabitants alone, will give something of its natural wealth to other countries. This state of affairs will probably continue for several generations.

Siberian peasant is a bad worker

The fact that the Russian peasant is one of the worst colonizers on the entire globe is recognized as undoubted. The simple muzhik strives mainly to eat his fill and put a few kopecks aside for Sunday in order to be able to get drunk.

The Russian government is sincerely trying, as far as possible, to alleviate the fate of the settlers. Thus, it orders American agricultural implements and sells them at a very low price. But wherever you look, everywhere you notice how little endurance the migrant has. First of all, for example, he does not want to live [on a farm] at a distance of 3, 5 or 10 miles from his neighbors, but strives to live in a village or city, even if the allotment allotted to him is 30 miles away from them. Whether he cultivates a plot of land, sows wheat, but does not start harvesting in time and, thus, the crop is half destroyed. He reaps with a sickle, and meanwhile part of the wheat is lost from the rains. He has no idea about fertilizing the soil, he does not think at all about the future. He has no desire to get rich. His only desire is to work as little as possible. The principle by which he is guided in life is best denoted by the well-known word - "nothing". This word means: “I don’t care, I shouldn’t pay attention to it!” In other words, it expresses the concepts contained in the words: phlegm, indifference, negligence.
Of course, all settlers are descendants of serfs; in the face of their ancestors, human dignity was subjected to the greatest humiliation. Therefore, one cannot hope to meet in their descendants enterprising and independent people; even in the expression of their faces lies the stamp of humiliation and indifference.
The government is doing its best to educate the settlers in such a spirit that they understand the full benefit of the latest improvements in agriculture and begin to apply them. But all his efforts do not lead to tangible results ...
In all likelihood, the Russian peasant will not soon become capable of a colonial role.

Poor life and low level of culture

The villages here are very deplorable. The huts are built of roughly hewn logs. The gaps between individual logs or boards are sealed with moss to protect against snow and wind. During the winter the double windows are tightly closed and nailed shut, and in the summer they are not opened very often.
Russian peasants have no idea about hygiene. They do not know a completely separate bedroom. At night, they spread skins and pillows on the floor and sleep on them without undressing. In the morning, they only slightly moisten their faces with water, they do not use soap at all.
It is clear that the entertainment of these people, who live far from cultural centers, is very limited. Drunkenness is the most common occurrence here, and vodka is often of extremely poor quality. There are guys in every village who can play harmonies; folk dances are often arranged to the sounds of it. Women are not very attractive: they have no mind, their eyes are without any expression. Their only dream is to acquire a red scarf with which they tie their heads.
Dwellings are distinguished by terrible hygienic conditions and a stench, but this does not prevent their inhabitants from being extremely hospitable. While the peasant huts are wretched, in almost every village here one can find a large white church with golden or gilded domes. The men are simple-hearted, very religious and superstitious. This is a people uncouth and dark; his passions are the most primitive. The Siberian peasant will never do today what can be put off until tomorrow. But he was moved to a rich country, and there is hope that soon culture will develop more here, and then Siberia will be able to cover the whole world with its riches.

Gleiner A. Siberia, America of the future.
Based on the composition of John Foster Fraser "The Real Siberia".
Kyiv, 1906. S. 15-17, 19-20.

Note

1 Mile- English non-metric measure of length, equal to approximately 1.6 km.

THINK AND ANSWER

1. How does the assessment of peasant culture made by the author differ from the judgments contained in previous documents? Can it be considered absolutely indisputable?
2. What role does the author assign to the state in the “education of migrants”, what are the reasons for the failure of its activities?
3. Compare the description of the settlements and dwellings of Siberians, made by an American journalist, with the descriptions given in this reader and in the textbook on the history of Siberia. What could be the reasons for such a striking discrepancy between estimates?
4. What future did John Fraser promise for Siberia? Was his prediction justified in a hundred years?

S.I. turbines

Siberians are not porridge hunters...

When the coachman and I entered the hut, the hosts were already sitting at the table and slurping cabbage soup; but let the reader not think that Siberian cabbage soup is the same as Russian. There is no resemblance between them. In Siberian cabbage soup, except for water, meat, salt and thick cereals, there are no impurities. Putting cabbage, onions, and in general any kind of greens is considered completely unnecessary.
The shchi was followed by jelly, to which they served mustard, unfamiliar to our common people, diluted with kvass. Then came not exactly boiled and not exactly roasted, but rather a steamed pig, lightly salted and very fatty. The fourth dish was an open pie (stretch) with salted pike. In the pie, only the stuffing was eaten; the edges and the back are not accepted. Finally, something like pancakes with cottage cheese, fried in cow's oil, appeared.
There was no kasha. Siberians are not hunters before it, and they don’t even like buckwheat. The bread is exclusively wheat, but very sour, and baked from batter. It was the daily lunch of a serviceable peasant. Kvass, and even very good one, can be found in every well-built house in Siberia. Where bread is baked from rye flour, it is always sown on a sieve. Eating a sieve is considered reprehensible.
- We, thank God, are not pigs! Siberians say.
- How did the chaff ist, God save! Siberians say.
For sieve bread, a lot goes to new settlers who have a strong passion for it.

Turbin S.I. Old-timer. Country of exile and disappeared people:
Siberian essays. SPb., 1872. S. 77-78.

Notes

1 Thick grits- large, not finely ground, peeled.
2 Chaff- chaff, grain ears, from which the grain is blown away. At the sieve, the cells were smaller than at the sieve, so the sifted flour turned out to be cleaner, without any admixture of bran and chaff.

THINK AND ANSWER

1. What was the difference between lunch in the house of a wealthy Siberian old-timer from an ordinary Russian meal (highlight at least five features)?
2. How did sieve bread differ from sifted bread? Why, according to the author, did the new settlers prefer sieve bread?

A.A. Saveliev

In the spring, when the river breaks up, everyone rushes to wash themselves with fresh water ...

Winter carts at the inn.
Engraving from a book published in Paris in 1768.

Records of signs, customs, beliefs and rituals were made by the ethnographer Anton Antonovich Savelyev (1874-1942) during the period of exile (1910-1917) in the Pinchug volost of the Yenisei district of the Yenisei province. In this publication, they are grouped thematically.

In trade and arable land

The old owner gets along "venter" (ventel) "in the spring to go fish for fish." To get into the hut, you have to step over the fishing tackle laid out on the floor. - “No, boy, this is not necessary; no need. Don't step through. Through this, the fish will not go into it. It is possible to spoil the venter.
At the first spring fishing ... the first more or less large fish caught is beaten with a stick and at the same time they say, hitting the fish, - “hit, but not that one, send mother and father, grandmother and grandfather.”
It is advisable to steal something from someone on the day of sowing, at least, for example, a seryanka [match]. Harvest and sowing will be successful.
During the planting [tubers] of potatoes, one should not eat them, otherwise the mole will carry them away and spoil them.

About natural phenomena

How, how, soaring, that's right - a fire from a thunderstorm, it's like not "God's mercy." So they say - "burn with God's mercy." No, you cannot extinguish such a fire with water. Then you can clear [the ashes].
During hail and during a thunderstorm, they throw out into the street through a window (v. Yarki) or through a gate (v. Boguchany, v. Karabula) onto the street the same shovel, with which they put bread in the oven ... or a stove stick, so that both stop sooner.
In the spring, when the river breaks up, everyone rushes to wash themselves with fresh water - to be healthy.

About pets

Peasant dwelling at night.
Engraving from a book published
in Paris in 1768.

It happens that the dog loses its appetite. In the village of Pinchuga, in order for her to eat, they chop off the tip of her tail, and in the village. The Boguchans put on her neck a bezel made of a bird-cherry twig smeared with tar, or simply “a rope of dekhtyarn”.
Cows are released into the wild shortly after Easter. The eldest member of the family goes out into the yard and there he coats the doors of the stables, flocks and gates with pitch like a cross, while saying a prayer. Along those gates through which the cows are let out, on the ground he spreads a belt that is removed from himself. Putting down the belt and again making a prayer, he makes several half-bows. Then, standing in front of the gates, he "three times" will block (cross) them. Then the hostess [takes] a loaf of bread in her hands, goes out the gate and, breaking off piece by piece, beckons the cow - “go, go, go, go, Ivanovna, go, go,” etc. She gives a piece of bread to a passing cow. So all the cows pass one after another, crossing the belt, which is spread out so that they know their home, their gates. And the owner, following the departing cows, whispers: “Christ is with you, Christ is with you!” - and baptizes one after another. This day is considered a semi-holiday and during it it is not supposed to swear.

When building a new house

When choosing a place of construction, lots are thrown. The hostess bakes 3 small “kolobushki” loaves of rye flour. These latter are baked before the rest of the concoction. The next day, before sunrise, the owner takes these loaves and puts them in his bosom, having previously girded himself. Arriving at the intended place, the owner ... reads a prayer; then unbelts and monitors the number of loaves that have fallen out of the bosom. If all three loaves fall out, the place is considered successful and happy for the settlement; if two fall out - then “so-and-so”, and one is completely bad - you should not settle.
When they raise the "mother" on the newly erected walls of a house under construction, they do so. On the "matitsa", which lies on the wall at one end, they put a loaf of bread, a little salt and an icon; everything is tied to the matitsa with a new rukoternik [towel]. After raising the mother, the rest of the day is considered festive.
In the old days, when building a hut for lining [the lower crown of log walls], they always put money in a small amount, and under the matnya [matitsa] a third of what is put under the lining.
It is impossible to cut through a window or a door in a residential building - the owner will die or there will be a major loss in general.

Bread is the head of everything

E! Boy, you're not good, don't bite off a piece of mine and don't drink from my cup. Get it right, dude. You will take all my strength through your mouth. Debilitate me.
Bread cut off side or broken off should be placed inside the table. In the same way, you can’t put a carpet or kalach up with the “underneath” [lower] crust. In the first case, there will be little bread, and in the second - in the next world [devils] will be kept upside down.
When dividing in a family [family division], the elder cuts a carpet of rye bread into slices according to the number of men divided or existing in the family. The one who separates takes his part and moves away from the table. The women pour out the sourdough and carry away their parts.
In the old days, it was customary not to destroy an unopened loaf of bread in the evening. They said that "the carpet is sleeping."
You can’t poke bread with a fork - in the next world [devils] will lift themselves on the forks.

In family life

You can’t put the child or put it on the table - it will be ugly [to be capricious].
You can’t grab a child by the legs - it can be bad for him - he won’t be able to walk soon.
The bride goes down the aisle - she must put a silver coin under her left heel - which means that she will not need money in marriage.
During an illness, one should not take off the shirt in which one fell ill, otherwise the illness will not go away soon.
A tow is placed in the coffin of the deceased, and sometimes even pure linen fiber, so that it lies softer in the ground.

Religion and church holidays

The Russian people are prayerful.
And we, cheldons, do not know their [prayers]. There are seven people in our family, and Ivan alone knows "Father" and "Virgin Mary".
After Easter, until Trinity, you can’t throw anything out the window - Christ is standing there - “so as not to hurt him.”
On the evening before the holidays, you can’t sweep the hut and throw rubbish out of it. The owners will not have wealth.
You can’t stretch on the bench with your feet towards the goddess - God will take away the strength.
Every holiday necessarily begins the day before with sunset and ends with sunset as well. The eve of the holiday is called "evenings".

Folklore of the Angara region at the beginning of the 20th century // Living Antiquity:
Magazine about Russian folklore and traditional culture.
2000. No. 2. S. 45-46.

Notes

1 According to other sources, it was supposed to sow not one's own, but someone else's (donated or even "stolen") seeds.
2 Semi-holiday- a day when only light work is allowed or work only until noon.
3 Matica- a log beam across the entire hut, on which the ceiling is laid.
4 Tow- a combed bunch of flax, hemp, made for spinning.
5 "Our Father" and "Virgin Mother of God"- the most common prayers among the peasantry.
6 Goddess- a cupboard or shelf in the front corner of a clean room where icons and other objects of religious worship are placed, the Gospel is placed.

THINK AND ANSWER

1. What features of the peasant mentality are evidenced by the described beliefs and customs?
2. What self-assessment of peasant religiosity does the source contain?
3. Why was the first pasture of cows and the raising of the “matitsa”, as well as the beginning of plowing, sowing, considered among the peasants as special days?
4. What beliefs and customs have been preserved in Siberia to this day? What do your parents and grandparents know about them?

Siberian poet V.D. Fedorov

about your ancestors

Vasily Dmitrievich Fedorov (1918-1984) - Russian poet. Born in the Kemerovo region. For a long time he lived in Siberia.

Siberia, my land

Covering all edges

Oh, my golden penal servitude,

Shelter of the harsh forefathers

disenfranchised,

Where there were no lordly-royal whips,
But we don't know my bast shoes
With iron shackles gone

equally.

People don't forget anything
What in generations
It was life.

The Siberian is a living reality
Inspired and severity, and gum anness.
In almost every family of a Siberian
For the fugitives it was considered a matter

honor

In the most visible and accessible place
Put a glass of milk overnight.
And, touched by sinful lips,
Baptized with hardened fingers.

Vasily Fedorov. From the poem "The Marriage of Don Juan".

THINK AND ANSWER

1. How to understand - from a historical point of view - the words: "There were no bar-royal lashes"; "Lyko us unknown bast shoes with iron shackles passed on an equal footing"?
2. Why does the poet call assistance to fugitive convicts a Siberian's "deed of honor"?

F.K. Zobnin

Before Easter, my brother and I do not leave the church ...

Maundy Thursday - on the seventh, last,
week of Lent

village church
in Transbaikalia. Engraving from a book
G. Lansdell, published
in London in 1883.

My brother and I were told the day before to get up earlier tomorrow: whoever gets up on Maundy Thursday before the sun and puts on his shoes will find many duck nests a year.
On Thursday morning, we just get up - we see that on the goddess, near the icons, there is a loaf of bread and a large carved wooden salt shaker: this is quarter bread and quarter salt. This is the custom, established from time immemorial. After mass at the table, quarter bread with salt is eaten, but not all: part of it goes to livestock - horses, cows and sheep. From this bread, God better preserves both livestock and people for a whole year.

Great Saturday - the last day
Lent on the eve of Easter

On the morning of that day, the eggs were dyed and divided. We guys got as much as everyone else. But this is just the beginning. Soon, and look, mother or father will add from his share. After the division, everyone takes his share until tomorrow, and tomorrow he can spend it as he pleases. We, the complete and uncontrolled owners of our shares, of course, did not even think of using them the day before: we fasted for seven weeks and did not finish it for several hours - that's really shameful.
Before Easter, my brother and I do not leave the church. It’s good in the church, and everything reminds us that the holidays are not far away: they clean the candlesticks, pour bowls, insert new candles, carry a fir tree and a puff for the church - they do all this only for Easter. All this delights our young hearts; we rejoice and rejoice in everything.

Spring wood cutting

Woodcutter - the same suffering. If you don’t cut it to plowing, then you’ll drown the winter with cheesecake. Those that are older and stronger go to chop wood away from the settlement, on the basis, i.e. nights for three - for four, or even for a week. The guys will chop firewood somewhere nearby: “still, they’ll come in handy at least for the fall.” Chopping wood is fun. In the forest, even though there is no green grass, no flowers, but you can feast on: birch [birch sap] ran. You take a thuyasak, put it under a birch - on a day, you see, the thuyas is full of caps. Of the small birches, the birch is not sweet, and not enough; birch should be drained from large birches. Mom didn’t give us a lot of birch to drink: she says - “unhealthy”.

At the flax sowing

Sowing flax is the most interesting for us. Feeding a family is a man's business, and dressing men is a woman's business. Therefore, when sowing flax, it has become a custom to appease the peasants by putting boiled eggs in flax seeds. That is why we love to sow flax. The father pours seeds into the basket, and with the seeds, egg after egg fly out: “Robyata, take it.” You can’t take an egg straight and eat it, you must first throw it up and say: “Grow flax above a standing forest.”
They also say that in order for flax to grow well, you need to sow it naked, but we have never tried it: it’s a shame, everyone says to say, but undress, they will make you laugh.

Holy Trinity - Sunday in the seventh week
after Easter

Old Believer Woman
from Altai in a festive
clothes.
Rice. N. Nagorskaya.
1926

On the evening of Trinity Day, young people of both sexes gather for clearing- this is the name of the festive gathering that takes place on the banks of the Nice River. In the clearing, the maidens and fellows, holding hands and making up several rows, walk one row after another, singing songs. It is called walk in a circle.
They play in the meadow sentry. The players are divided into pairs and become one pair after another. One or one of the players stand guard. The game consists in the fact that the pairs alternately run forward, and the one standing on guard while running tries to catch them. If he succeeds, then he, together with the caught player, makes a pair, and the remaining one stands guard.
One of the most necessary accessories of the clearing is wrestling. As a rule, wrestlers from the upper end [of the village] wrestle alternately with wrestlers from the lower end. Only two of them fight, while the rest, as curious, surround the place of struggle with a thick living ring.
The fight is always opened by small wrestlers.
Each wrestler, entering the circle, must be tied over one shoulder and around himself with a belt. The goal of the fight is to drop the opponent to the ground 3 times. Whoever manages to do this before the other is considered the winner. During the fight, it is strictly forbidden to lower your hands from the belt.
From small struggle gradually passes to the big. In the end, the most skillful fighter remains, whom no one could defeat, and he, as they say, blows the circle. To carry away the circle means to win such a victory, which serves as a source of pride not only for the wrestler himself, but for the entire “end” or village to which he belongs.

Zobnin F.K. From year to year: (Description of the cycle
peasant life in Ust-Nitsinsk, Tyumen District) //
Living antiquity. 1894. Issue. 1. S. 40-54.

THINK AND ANSWER

A.A. Makarenko

Evenings and masquerades continue with extraordinary animation until Epiphany…

Alexey Alekseevich Makarenko (1860-1942) - ethnographer. He collected materials about the life of Siberians in the Yenisei province (in particular, in the Pinchug volost of the Yenisei district) during the period of exile 1886-1899. and during scientific expeditions in 1904-1910. The book "Siberian folk calendar in ethnographic terms" was first published in 1913. The fragments published here are dated according to the Julian calendar (old style).

1st [January]."New Goth" (year), aka "Vasil's Day".
On the eve of December 31 in the evening, Siberian village youth of both sexes ... are busy divination on their favorite topics - who will marry and where, who will marry, what kind of wife he will take, etc. In the Pinchug volost ... divination "on the New Goth" is accompanied by the singing of "observant" songs with the participation of girls and "bachelor" (guys), who gather for this in one of the suitable residential huts. In this case, the Pinchu people support the custom of the inhabitants of the Great Russian provinces of European Russia.
More than ten people (girls and boys) do not sit at one table, so that each person would have one song. The table is covered with a white tablecloth; each of the participants, taking a piece of bread, puts it under the tablecloth in front of him; ten rings are put on a served plate (you need to know your rings well or put “notes” on them). The plate is closed “tightly” with a handkerchief; then sing a song; before the end of it, one of those not participating in the game ... shaking the plate, takes out the first ring that comes across through a slit in the handkerchief: whose it turns out to be, he “bequeaths” to himself (guesses). They sing to him (drawn-out motive):

This song tells who will get married or get married. [According to other songs, it turns out that in your own village or in a foreign one you have to find a betrothed; whether he will be rich or poor, whether he will love; the girl will fall into a friendly or “disagreeing” family; will she soon become a widow, etc.]
Having finished the "observant" songs, they begin to divination. Here I will note the most characteristic forms of Siberian divination ...
Putting a ring on the ring finger of the right foot, this bare foot is bathed in the "hole" (hole). For example, the fortune-teller puts one stick across the hole, the other - “closes” the hole; therefore, one stick means "lock", the other - "key"; with this key they turn it into the hole three times “against the sun” and take it home; the castle remains in place. From the ice-hole, “zapetki” return, saying: “Betrothed-mummer, come to me to ask for the key to the ice-hole, to water the horse, to ask for a ring!” Which fellow comes in a dream to the key, he will be the groom. The same way guys tell their brides.
Girls alone go to the threshing floor or to the bathhouse, so that the “threshing floor” or “bath house” strokes the bare part of the body that has been deliberately set up for this: stroke it with a shaggy hand - to a rich marriage, and vice versa.
The girls and boys, having gathered in one circle, steal a “white mare” or a horse for a while, take them out to the “parting” of the roads, blindfold her eyes with a bag; and when a girl or a guy sits on it, they circle it up to three times and let it go free: in which direction the horse goes, the girl will marry there, and the guy will take a wife from there.
On New Year's Eve, at dawn, "servants" (children) run around the huts alone or in groups and "sow" oats, as is done in Russia. The grains are thrown into the “front” or “red corner” (where the image is “God”), and they themselves sing:

Little "sowers", in whom they see the harbingers of the future harvest of "bread" and new happiness for people, are bestowed with whatever they can.
In the evening, persons of both sexes, from young to old, are “mashkaruutsa”, i.e. they disguise themselves in whatever they want, and visit the huts or “run around to the peddlers” in order to amuse the owners. In the "farmed" (hired) huts, "evenings" or "evenings" are started with "games", i.e. singing, dancing and various games.
But on St. Basil's Day (January 1) on the Angara, they try to finish the "party" before midnight (the first roosters) in order to avoid visiting the so-called shilikuns (evil spirits).
It was once, according to the belief of the Pinchu people ... that on an evening that dragged on long after midnight, devils came running in the form of small people on horseback legs, in “naked parks” (Tungus clothes), with sharp heads, and dispersed the party.
In the following days, the usual work is carried out; but the evening parties and masquerades continue with unusual animation right up to Epiphany. This custom is not local, Siberian, but is also inherent in the peasants of European Russia.

Makarenko A.A. Siberian folk calendar.
Novosibirsk, 1993. S. 36-37, 39-41.

THINK AND ANSWER

1. Why in the youth environment in the old days such a serious importance was attached to various fortune-telling?
2. What role did the song play in the life of peasant youth?

N.P. Protasov

After talking about this and that, I moved on to the song ...

Having recognized all the singers of a given village, I usually asked the owner to invite them to me, as a lover of antiquity and songs, to talk. When the invitees arrived, I started a conversation with them about their household, land allotments, family life, etc., then imperceptibly moved on to the rites of antiquity and to the song.
At first our conversation was monosyllabically strained, and then gradually livened up; when I explained that I myself was a Siberian peasant [by origin], we quickly drew closer and after an hour of such a frank conversation we already became our own people. I was helped a lot by my knowledge of places, villages and population, which I acquired over the course of many years, wandering around Siberia on foot and on horseback and having traveled up to forty-five thousand miles.
During the conversation, the hosts treated us to tea and snacks, and if there were girls, then sweets - sweets and gingerbread, which I stocked up in Verkhneudinsk. After talking about this and that, I switched to song, and began to sing the old songs myself and prove all the charm of them, with which everyone present usually agreed, especially the old women.
If there were girls here, then the old men began to reproach them for not memorizing old songs, but singing some kind of “magpie tongue twisters”. Taking advantage of this, I tried to challenge them to a competition, and the song flowed like a river, calmly, not tortured, but pure, bright, performed from an excess of feelings. Having praised any of the songs, I asked them to repeat it in order to memorize it myself. At the same time, my hand, holding a pencil, sketched the song on paper, and with the next repetitions, the song was completely corrected.
On the phonograph I recorded as follows. When the singers have gathered, you will take the phonograph and put it in a conspicuous place. The singers, when they see it, will become interested and start asking what kind of car it is. When you say that this machine listens to people and sings and speaks in human voices, they begin to prove the impossibility of this. Then you invite them to sing a song, they willingly agree, and the phonograph writes.
After each recording, I usually changed the diaphragm, the phonograph sang, the girls recognized each other's voices, and often one of the singers would say to her friend in surprise:
- Listen, Anyukha: Dunyashka somehow brings it out!
After two or three hours, I already enjoyed special trust in this village, and then they sang anything at my request. I gave all the singers and singers silver rubles, and I gave two gold rubles to one old woman who sang six spiritual verses to me.
During this trip, I recorded 145 melodies, of which 9 are spiritual verses, 8 are hymns, 15 are wedding songs, 3 are laudatory, 3 are ritual: Pomochansky - 1, Easter - 3, Trinity - 3, round dance - 9, dancing - 12, comic - 2, vocal - 60, recruiting - 5, prisoners - 5, soldiers - 10.

Protasov N.P.. How I Recorded Folk Songs: A Report on a Trip to Transbaikalia /
News of the East Siberian Department of the Russian Geographical Society.
1903. V. 34. No. 2. S. 134-135.

Notes

1 spiritual verses- works of folk poetry and music of a religious nature, performed at home.
2 Wish- the lamentations of the bride at the wedding about her "girlish will", as well as weeping over the deceased during the funeral. Next: songs pomochanskie- performed by the participants of the help; Trinity- sounding during the celebration of the Holy Trinity; vocal- lingering; recruiting- intended for wires to the army of recruits, recruits, etc.

THINK AND ANSWER

Historical traditions and legends of Siberians

About the "royal envoy" on the Chun River

Recorded by I.A. Chekaninsky in 1914 in the village of Vydrina (Savvina) of the Nizhneudinsky district of the Irkutsk province from the old-timer Nikolai Mikhailovich Smolin. The Smolins considered a certain Savva, a long-time migrant from European Russia, to be their ancestor and the first Russian inhabitant of Prichunia. When recording the legend, I. Chekaninsky sought to convey the features of the Chunar language.

And it was almost two hundred years, or even two hundred can’t be saved ... Along the Chuna, there were fse assans and a little yasashna (Tungus), they were afraid of her, they didn’t go to Chuna. And the rassar [king] will send a messenger from the city of Tumen*. Here is a messenger floating (and he was sailing from Udinsk **), at his tray with windows, and even with him an assistant was swimming. They swim, and they swam to the [river's] threshold.
The royal messenger says: “I,” he says, “I’m afraid to swim, because it’s dangerous, but I’ll go better along the coast!” He went along the shore, and he himself was chained in armor and climbed [iron], and his assistant sits and swims. That's just the tsar's messenger went along the shore, a little (Chud, Tungus) evo and let's treat tamaras from the lukof ***, fsevo and killed. Che-jo, they took the beast through their arrows.
And the assistant of the tsar’s messenger in the window says: “You will remember our sary, you will be the tsar’s messenger!” And one and evo let's treat tamars and evo killed ****.
Apostle tovo and let's crush ourselves: which the labas will cut down, put earth there, cut the pillars, the labas will fall and crush it. So they translated themselves a lot. Now there are few miracles, they used to come out to us [from the taiga], but now something less [less] come out. Once the vice-tu [threshold] was sent, the nickname Tyumenets became, who was a messenger from the city from Tumen.
And Savva was swimming after Etov, but okay, he was swimming, nothing, he didn’t touch him a bit (chud). He also sailed from Udinsk to look for good places. He swam to this place (to Savvina), and settled here, built a hut, but this anbarushka remained from him. (M[ikandra] M[ikhalych] pointed with his hand at the old, but not collapsed "anbarushka".) Tovda ush (in) the circle of the Russian villagers became.

* City of Tyumen, Tobolsk province.
** City of Nizhneudinsk, Irkutsk province.
*** "Tamara" or "tamaruk" is the Tungus name for an arrow.
**** This legend is similar to the numerous Siberian versions of the legend about the death of Yermak.

Chekaninsky I.A. Yenisei antiquities and historical songs:
Ethnographic materials and observations on the river. Chuna. - M., 1915. - S. 86-88.

Notes of the compilers of the anthology

1 Assans yes a little yasashna- related to the Kets, the people of the Assans (now disappeared) and the Evenki, whom Smolin calls the yasak Chud, and Chekaninsky in the explanations - the Tungus.
2 Labas(storage) - an outbuilding on wooden poles-piles.

On the discovery of the Baikal "sea"

The legend was recorded in 1926 by the folklorist I.I. Veselov from N.D. Strekalovsky, a 78-year-old fisherman from the village of Bolshoe Goloustnoye, Olkhonsky District, Irkutsk Region.

When the Russians went to war in Siberia, they had no idea about our sea. They made their way to Mongolia for gold and, in order to get shorter, went straight. They walked and walked and went to the sea. Painfully surprised, the Buryats ask:
- Otkel taco the sea came from? What's your name?
And the Buryats in those days didn’t know how and what to speak Russian, and they didn’t have an “interpreter” for that. They wave at the sea and shout one thing:
- Was-gal. Was-gal.
This means, he wants to say, that there was a fire here, and after the fire everything collapsed and the sea became. And the Russian again understood that this is how they call the sea, and let's write in the book: "Baikal." So he [with this name] remained.

Gurevich A.V., Eliasov L.E. Old folklore of the Baikal region.
Ulan-Ude, 1939. T. 1. S. 451.

Note

1 After the fire everything fell apart... The legends of the Buryats and Russians reflected the emergence of Lake Baikal as a result of a catastrophic fracture of the earth's crust.

THINK AND ANSWER

1. How deep is the historical memory of the Siberian peasants?
2. What methods of formation of geographical names (toponyms) are recorded by the people's memory?
3. How do folk legends explain the reasons for the disappearance of the Chud people?
4. What peoples can hide behind this name?
5. Do you know any other, more scientifically correct explanations for the name of Lake Baikal?

From the folk dictionary of Western Siberia

Folk metrology

harness- the time that a horse can go out in a plow without feeding and harnessing.
Gon, moving- part of a strip of arable land in 10-20 sazhens, which is passed by a plow at a time, without turning it (Tobolsk district).
Del- 1) a measure of a [fishing] net, 1 arshin wide, 1 fathom long; 2-3 deli form pillar(Tyumen district); 2) the part of the network attributable to the share of each shareholder in the sewn seine.
paddock- 1) part of the field between two large furrows; 2) A small longitudinal piece of land approximately 75-125 sq. fathoms (5 x 15-25 fathoms). This is not a well-defined measure; it is used to determine the approximate size of areas sown with flax, hemp, and turnips.
Flooding- the time the oven is heated.
Istoplyo- the amount of firewood sufficient to heat the stove once.
Cad- a measure of loose bodies, equals four pounds [see. below] or half a quarter.
Deck- the totality of salary taxes (per capita quitrent taxes, private volost duty and land surveying tax) paid by peasants. In addition to salary fees, they, as you know, also pay volost, lay or rural, and others. In the province of Tobolsk, the size of the deck fluctuates, depending on the locality, between 4 1/2 and 5 rubles per soul per year.
Kopna- a pile of hay in 5-7 pounds; in the north of the Tobolsk province, it is used as a measure of the meadow: plots are allotted per capita from which you can get an approximately equal number of kopen.
Hand mop in the north of Tobolsk is 3-4 pounds, female when women are cleaning, - 3-3 1/2 pounds.
Peasant tithe- a measure of land in 2700 square meters. sazhens, less often 3200 sq. sazhens or 2500 sq. sazhens, in contrast to the official tithe of 2400 sq. fathoms.
Peasant sazhen- hand fathom, as opposed to printed. The peasant sazhen is of two kinds: 1) it is equal to the distance between the ends of two horizontally outstretched arms; 2) the distance from the upper surface of the foot to the end of the fingers of the outstretched hand.
Najin- the number of sheaves that can be pressed from a certain measure of the earth.
Barn- 1) a dryer for bread, in which a pit plays the role of an oven; in the latter they burn firewood. With a two-row cage, about 200 sheaves of spring and
180-190 sheaves of winter bread, with single-row - about 150 sheaves; 2) a measure of grain bread in sheaves; winter sheep in 150-200 sheaves and spring in 200-300 sheaves.
Pleso- the visible space of the river between its two bends, which close its further course from the eyes. Pleso serves as a measure of length in the Tobolsk district. For example, if they are traveling by the river and do not know the number of versts left to travel, they often say that there are two reaches, three reaches, etc. to go.
Pudovka- a measure for bread (usually wooden, less often iron), containing about 1 pood. Previously, grain bread was measured mainly with this pudovka; now they are switching to a more accurate weight pood. That is why they distinguish bulk pud(pudovka) and hanging pud, or weight.
Sieve- a measure of vegetable seedlings in 50-60 plants.
Sheaf- 1) a bunch of grain bread; a sheaf of hemp consists of four handfuls; 2) measure of arable land in the northern part of the Tobolsk district; for example, they say: "We have land for 300 sheaves."
Stack- a measure of hay in the Tobolsk district is approximately 20 kopecks; for example, they say: “We have mowing haystacks for 20”.
Pillar- in addition to the usual meaning, it also means: a measure of the length of the canvas, equal to 2 arshins. The five pillars make up wall canvas.

Folk theology

Andili-archandili(angels and archangels) - good spirits sent from God. One passage from a spiritual verse says of them:

God- 1) the supreme being, mostly invisible; 2) any icon, no matter whom it depicts.
Sky- a solid stone vault above our heads. God and the Saints dwell in heaven. The sky sometimes opens or opens for a single moment, and in that moment people see a reddish light.
Rainbow- drinks water from the river and lakes with the ends and raises it to the sky for rain. Swimming when a rainbow appears is considered dangerous: it will drag you to the sky.
Terrible Court- will be in Jerusalem, the navel (center) of the earth, all the peoples of the earth will gather there, both living and long dead. “At the Last Judgment, Batyushko the True Christ orders all sinners to be covered with turf so that neither voice nor teeth scraping can be heard.”
Cloud- the origin of thunder is attributed to Elijah the prophet. At every clap of thunder, it is customary to cross oneself and say: “Holy, holy, holy! Send, Lord, quiet dew. It is also believed that at times stone arrows fall from the clouds to the ground, which split the trees. This action of the arrow is explained by the persecution of the devil, who hides from it behind various objects.
Kingdom of heaven- the afterlife eternal life, which is awarded to ... those who, during earthly life, were diligent in visiting the temple of God, read or listened to the word of God, kept fasts, honored their father, mother, old men and old women. In addition to a righteous life, the Kingdom of Heaven is awarded to those who, at the time “as the sky opens”, manages to say: “Remember me, Lord, in Your Kingdom.”

Name and evaluation of human qualities

Windiness- a general term for three qualities: friendliness, courtesy and talkativeness. Vetlyanuy person - lively and talkative, friendly.
burnout- a lost man who squandered everything and became capable of all sorts of dirty tricks. Expletive.
gomoyun- a diligent man in housework and family. “Everything is busy and Uncle Ivan is trying, [s]look how nicely he has set up his household!”
bawler(or gorlan) - a noisy, noisy person who tries to win the upper hand in a dispute by shouting. A derogatory term.
mean-spirited- quick-witted, inventive, resourceful, smart (who can "reach" everything). “We have a deacon who has come down, - a master of all trades, look - he will rise to the rank of bishop!”
Durnichka- stupidity, savagery, ignorance, lack of education, bad manners, habits. “He looks good, [yes] with a fool in his head: all of a sudden he barks [scolds] for nothing, for nothing.”
serviceable- prosperous.
self-interest- 1) benefit, profit, benefit; 2) thirst for profit, greed for money. “Self-interest has eaten up: everything is not enough for him, even sprinkle with gold!”
Mighty(And cannoy) - 1) powerful, hefty, strong, powerful (physically). “[T]here’s a man, a duck man: he’s wide with meat and bones, but God didn’t offend him with strength ... Look for such capable men today”; 2) economically strong, serviceable, independent. “Eat a mighty owner doesn’t give a damn about taxes [i.e. easy to pay].
everyday life- neatness, landscaping household. “She has golden hands: look, what kind of everyday life is in her hut!”
obikhodka- diligent, clean hostess.
Exchange- abusive epithet for children, especially babies. Meaning: changed (by the devil) child. It is based on the following belief, now hardly accepted by anyone: the devil steals children from some mothers who show good inclinations, and in return for them slips his own, damn, children.
Ohrete- dirty, unclean.
hairy- polite, knowledgeable and following the rules of good treatment with people.
obedient- obedient, obedient. “Their guy is nice: so quiet and obedient.”
Prosecutor's Office- a person who witty laughs, cheerful, joker, glib in the tongue. “Well, this Vaska is a procurator,” they laughed all lunch because of Evo, “they just tore the bolons [i.e. stomach ache.]
Uglan- shy person literally - huddled from outsiders into a corner. ironic term.
Luck- luck; lucky girls- smart and lucky. These words were probably brought to Siberia by exiles.
firth- literally: a person standing in the form of a letter firth. In general, it means: importantly, a pompous, pretentious person (both internally and externally: in posture, speech, look). “A new clerk came out to the girls on the street, became a fort. Feet, chickpeas, sleighs are bent ... Know, they say, we are urban!
frya(not inclined) - a person who thinks too much about herself, arrogant, touchy, turning up her nose. A contemptuous epithet applied to men and women. They also say "Frya Ivanovna".
Sharomyzhnik- a slacker with vicious inclinations. A derogatory term.

Patkanov S.K., Zobnin F.K. List of Tobolsk words and expressions,
recorded in the Tobolsk, Tyumen, Kurgan and Surgut districts //
Living antiquity. 1899. Issue. 4.
pp. 487-515;

Molotilov A. The dialect of the Russian old-timers
Northern Baraba (Kainsky district, Tomsk province):
Materials for Siberian dialectology //
Proceedings of the Tomsk Society for the Study of Siberia.
Tomsk, 1912. T. 2. Issue. 1. S. 128-215.

Notes

1 standard fathom was approximately 2.1 m.
2 One arshin corresponded to approximately 0.7 m.
3 Bishop(correctly - bishop) - the highest Orthodox clergyman (bishop, archbishop, metropolitan).

THINK AND ANSWER

1. How does folk metrology differ from scientific? What are the reasons for the appearance of the first and its existence in a traditional society?
2. Determine the features of the picture of the world of the Siberian peasants. What features of Christian and pagan consciousness were present in it?
3. What human qualities did Siberian peasants appreciate? What personality traits were perceived by them as negative? Why?

Let's smile together

That's the "talk"!

Do you know what they called in Russia "Siberian conversation"? The habit of Siberians in complete silence to crack pine nuts for hours when they come to visit or gather in the evening for gatherings.

Siberian joke

In autumn, miners leave the gold mines. Many - with big money. Until they reach the house, they are met everywhere, like dear guests, treated, drunk, robbed in every manner. And even hunt them like wild animals.
And such a prospector, still a young guy, stopped for the night in one village. The hosts - an old man and an old woman - met him as if they were their own: they fed him, gave him drink and put him to bed. In the morning the prospector went out for a smoke and a breath of fresh air. Looks - the old owner sits on the porch and sharpens a large knife.
- Who are you, grandfather, sharpening such a knife? - asked his boyfriend.
- I'm on you, honey. At you. Here I will direct it properly and slaughter it.
Here the guy sees that his affairs are bad. The yard is large, the seal is high, dense, the gates are strong and locked. House on the outskirts. Start screaming - you won't call anyone.
Meanwhile, the old man sharpened a knife - and on the guy. And that, of course, from him. From the porch to the yard. The old man is behind him. Guy from him. The old man is behind him. The old woman from the porch watches the old man chasing the guy around the yard. We made one circle. Second. On the fourth lap, the old man collapsed completely exhausted.
The old woman sees this and begins to scold the guy. And he is like this, and like this:
They took you in like family! They gave you drink, food, and put you to bed. And you, instead of gratitude - what are you doing? Oh you son of a bitch! Look what you brought the old man to ...

Rostovtsev I. At the end of the world: Notes of an eyewitness. M., 1985. S. 426-427.

Publisher:

Publishing House "First of September"