Yermak S Campaign In Siberia

The Russian conquest of Siberia was an event of which the consequences have only slowly become apparent. Already great, they may come to dominate much of our world; with today’s technology, a resource base of this size and richness confers immense power on the owner. The conquest was a gradual process of absorption. But if one had to assign a time and place for its start, then one would certainly choose the campaign of Yermak in the 1580’s. This enterprise was by no means wholly successful, and probably fewer than a thousand Russians participated in it. But it was the first entry in force into Siberia, and Russian historians have long regarded it as crucial. Among English-speakers, the events are not so well known. The object of this book is to provide the reader of English with translations of the most important documents relating to the campaign. There are several narrative accounts, collectively known as the Siberian chronicles: the Stroganov, Yesipov; Remezov and New chronicles. The Remezov chronicle, written about 1700, is illustrated with 154 pen and ink drawings. These are of great historical and artistic interest, for very few Russian drawings of this period survive. All are reproduced here. The collection of documents is rounded out with seven charters or decrees of Ivan IV relating to the advance across the Urals. Dr Armstrong's introduction provides background on Muscovy's eastern frontier in the 16th century; the Stroganov family; the Cossacks, in particular Yermak Timofeyevich and his band; routes across the Urals; non-Russian peoples encountered; and the authorship and provenance of the chronicles. Mr William Harrison contributes an essay on Yermak as folk-hero. The frontispiece and map 1 are now printed at the end of the volume.

At the outset of the twentieth century, the Nivkhi of Sakhalin Island were a small population of fishermen under Russian dominion and an Asian cultural sway. The turbulence of the decades that followed would transform them dramatically. While Russian missionaries hounded them for their pagan ways, Lenin praised them; while Stalin routed them in purges, Khrushchev gave them respite; and while Brezhnev organized complex resettlement campaigns, Gorbachev pronounced that they were free to resume a traditional life. But what is tradition after seven decades of building a Soviet world? Based on years of research in the former Soviet Union, Bruce Grant's book draws upon Nivkh interviews, newly opened archives, and rarely translated Soviet ethnographic texts to examine the effects of this remarkable state venture in the construction of identity. With a keen sensitivity, Grant explores the often paradoxical participation by Nivkhi in these shifting waves of Sovietization and poses questions about how cultural identity is constituted and reconstituted, restructured and dismantled. Part chronicle of modernization, part saga of memory and forgetting, In the Soviet House of Culture is an interpretive ethnography of one people's attempts to recapture the past as they look toward the future. This is a book that will appeal to anthropologists and historians alike, as well as to anyone who is interested in the people and politics of the former Soviet Union.

This book explores the multicultural world of historical Russia through the life stories of 31 individuals that exemplify the cross-cultural exchanges in the country from the late 1500s to post-Soviet Russia.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.