Siberiaki

ETHNONYMS: Belarussian Siberians; Russian Siberians; Siberiachi; Siberian Cossacks; Sibiriaki; Slavic Siberians; Ukrainian Siberians. Local names include Kamenshchiki (of the Altai) and Semeiski (of Baikal).

Orientation

Identification. Siberiaki live in pockets throughout Siberia and the Russian Far East. They are primarily families of Slavic, especially Russian, background who settled in Siberia before the Russian Revolution of 1917 or before World War II and who adopted Siberia as their homeland. A more inclusive perspective, popular among Siberian regionalists, is that Siberiaki are those who were born in Siberia or who accept Siberia as a homeland. They differentiate themselves from newer settlers (novoseltsy ) whose loyalty to Siberia is less well established. Siberiaki are considered, by outsiders and by themselves, to have adapted to Siberian conditions and acquired a special syncretic esprit de corps that includes aspects of traditional Siberian native culture. Many Siberiak families have intermarried with natives of different Siberian regions, thus creating local variations of Siberiak culture. The term "Siberiaki" is sometimes used derogatorily by more recently urbanized Slavic newcomers to Siberia, but it is also used by Siberiaki themselves to mark and acknowledge their differences from Russians of the Russian heartland.

Location. Siberia and the Far East extend from the Ural Mountains east to the Pacific Ocean and as far north as the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea. The territory is within the former Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). It borders on European Russia to the west, Kazakhstan to the south and China and Mongolia to the east, stretching approximately from 50° to 80° N and 60° to 175° E. It includes the low rolling Ural Mountains and the high, snowcapped Altai peaks. East of the Altai range is Baikal, one of the world's deepest and largest (33,800 square kilometers) inland lakes. Most of southern and central Siberia is steppe, forest, and taiga, where agriculture is eked out in a short summer season. Along such grand rivers as the Ob, Yenisei, Lena, and Indigirka, forests reach to the Arctic Circle. But much of the north is tundra, where reindeer moss and lichen grow, along with a few stunted firs on permafrosted land. It comes alive with flowers only in the hot summers when temperatures soar to +30° C. Harsh winters punctuated by violent snow storms last from September through May with temperatures dipping as low as —79° C. Most of the northern winter, although cold (with temperatures hovering between —10° and —30° C), is more tolerable since it is drier and less windy.

Demography. The 1989 Soviet census indicated a Russian Republic population of 147,386,000, of which 119,807,165 were Russians. Siberia and the Far East have an overall population of 5,800,000, with the Slavic population approximately 4,000,000. Given that "Siberiak" is not a census category, it is difficult to estimate how many consider themselves Siberiaki. If "Siberiaki" is defined as having pre-Revolutionary ancestry, the population has declined substantially in the Soviet period, through emigration, urbanization, and assimilation with other groups. These old-style Siberiaki tend to live in rural areas. Urban Slavic populations of Siberia have more than doubled in the last twenty years. Once urbanized, traditional Siberiaki down-played their roots, until the 1980s, when some rediscovered pride in their backgrounds. Others consider themselves Siberiaki even without the patrimony. This illustrates the dynamic, changing nature of ethnic identity.

Linguistic Affiliation. Although most Siberiaki speak Russian, some speak Ukrainian or Belarussian. These are East Slavic (Slavonic) languages in the Slavic Branch of Indo-European. Even for most Siberiaki of Ukrainian or Belarussian background Russian is the lingua franca, except in regions such as the Amur area, where Ukrainian settlers historically predominated. Local dialects evolved through mixtures with Siberian languages of both the Uralic and Altaic Language Families. A few groups of Siberiaki are known to have adopted local languages extensively, especially in the Far North. There are numerous discrepancies between spoken local dialects and the written Russian language.

History and Cultural Relations

Trade between Slavic populations of Novgorod and Siberian natives (Ugrians) began as early as the eleventh century, but it was not until around 1580, when the famous Cossack brigand Ermak conquered the Tatar Kuchum's khanate of Sibir, that Muscovite power made significant inroads into western Siberia. By 1700 Cossacks had reached Kamchatka. The push across Siberia by small bands of determined Cossacks using native guides, taking native hostages, and playing native groups off against each other was remarkable for its speed. Bloodshed and brutality were mixed with political negotiation. After fort settlements were established, colonists with various goals and backgrounds built lucrative waterside villages. They were enticed by northern ivory, tales of fish so plentiful that they leaped into boats, and, most important, regions so rich in furs ("soft gold") that natives put ermine on ski bottoms. Some colonists were administrators authorized to take fur tribute (Russian: iasak ) from local hunters and to search further northeast for groups not yet under tribute. Others were missionaries or members of persecuted religious groups. Some came as government serfs, others as escaped serfs, viewing Siberia as a land of freedom in which to carve out new lives far from rigid Muscovite social hierarchies. To lure Slavic settlers, the government offered tax and transport incentives to build new villages. Siberiaki focused their colonies in relatively southern areas where they found agricultural land. Relations with natives were both exploitive and symbiotic. Some settlers learned to respect the subsistence skills of their native trading partners, whereas others stole the best fishing sites. Official alarm at the demise of native Siberians resulted in the Reforms of 1822, aimed at regulating and limiting settler-native contacts. But the Siberiaki had settled into patterns of relations with natives and officials that were difficult to break.

Industrialization of southern Siberia and development of the Trans-Siberian railroad meant a further influx of Slavic peoples. Released prisoners and exiles added to these numbers, with a few marrying Siberiaki and some establishing new villages. Many went to the towns, where, by the twentieth century, an intelligentsia had established a Siberian regional movement led by political activists and journalists such as N. M. Iadrintsev.

The October Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent 1918-1921 civil war had a great impact on all Siberian peoples, particularly because much of the Russian civil war between Red (Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky) and White (anti-Socialists under Kolchak) forces was fought in Siberia. Siberiak and native villages alike were caught in the crossfire, and sometimes burned to the ground as territory repeatedly changed hands. After the Bolshevik victory, recovery during the New Economic Policy was brief, for a collectivization campaign engulfed Siberia by the late 1920s. Siberiaki accused of being rich were threatened with jail or exile if they did not join the new collectives. Those who had isolated themselves, whether for personal, political, or religious reasons, found they could not escape Soviet collective farms in the same way they had escaped czarist administrators. In addition new, involuntary settlers arrived in the form of exiles and prisoners during the Stalinist era. Released prisoners were often forced to remain in Siberia, but they constituted a separate group, rarely integrating well with Siberiak and native populations. During World War II, requisitions of men, grain, and goods meant further hardship for villagers, whose female and elderly populations struggled to farm, hunt, and fish for survival. Newcomers poured into Siberia to escape the ravages of the war.

Postwar history has been marked by a decline of villages and the buildup of selected collectives into large state-owned enterprises that employ villagers as salaried workers. Siberiaki have lost some of the uniqueness that gave them a Siberian pride and a special relationship with Siberian natives.

Settlements

The wooden villages Siberiaki built when they came to Siberia resembled those they had left behind in northern Russia and other Slavic areas. Houses were strung along a road, riverbank, or lake, with streets forming an expanding grid. Each fenced household had several buildings arranged around a courtyard, with a separate bathhouse, storehouse, and stable defining the wealthier complexes. Poorer households and those farther north had barns attached to the main house, an arrangement that allowed animals to share with their masters the heat of enormous wall-sized stove-hearths. In each house a special area, diagonally opposite the entrance, was designated the "beautiful corner," in which an icon shelf resided above the family table. Houses, built with communal labor drawn from kin and friends, were decorated with curved designs carved around the windows and bird figures soaring off the eaves as a mark of good luck and protection. Under their foundations were bones of an animal or fowl sacrificed for the well-being of the household. The first fire ideally was lit with coals from a previous household, to encourage the family's home spirit (domovoi ) to move to the new dwelling.

Villages were of two types: those with fewer than 100 inhabitants (Russian: derevnia ) and those with several thousand inhabitants (Russian: poselok ). Village size depended on local resources and whether the village was a trading post and transport and postal center. In the Soviet period villages considered "without a future" were allowed to die or had their occupants moved to larger settlements. Consolidated centers have schools, medical facilities, and stores. A few impoverished villages remain in the backwoods, populated by elderly Siberiaki determined not to move but suffering from a lack of resources. A newly introduced village style is the "village of the urban type," with concrete apartment buildings and a few modern amenities such as indoor plumbing. These centerpieces of larger collectives are inhabited both by Siberiaki and more recent migrants.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities and Industrial Arts. Siberiaki historically relied on hunting and fishing to supplement meager agricultural yields of grain, potatoes, carrots, hemp, and beets. Animal husbandry was difficult but possible, with Siberia divided into horse and cattle zones or reindeer regions. Few Siberiak families attempted to herd reindeer, but some owned herds that they leased to natives; others domesticated a few Siberian elks (marais. ) Many relied on trade with natives, transporting industrial goods and grain to remote settlements in return for furs, reindeer products, and fish. Along the trans-Siberian railway, Siberiaki, especially workers in gold mines, had more access to resources. Many made furniture, utensils, carts, boats, fishnets, and sleds. Specialized crafts included smithing and milling. In some northern regions, trade fairs were held only once a year at tax time. In Siberian cities and larger villages markets were common. Modern Siberian towns have state-run stores and weekly open markets. Villagers travel to these or rely on subsistence, informal barter, and minimal supplies from small state stores.

Division of Labor. Women traditionally baked bread, prepared food, tended animals, spun cloth, cleaned clothing in the river, and watched the children. When men were gone for weeks on hunting or trading trips, women assumed "male" activities (e.g., fishing). Women rarely worked in public-service jobs, such as constable or postman, but often were midwives and healers. With collectivization, many of these divisions remain, although women are now also educated bookkeepers, doctors, and teachers. Men are engineers, teachers, and tractor drivers. Both men and women do arduous agricultural work in southern Siberia.

Land Tenure. Historically, some land was leased or given to smallholders, whereas other land was reserved for government use, missions, and native priorities. Long-term leasing of native lands was illegal but common. In collectivized Siberia only small plots of land are owned for household use, but since 1989 arrangements with collective directors are making larger private farms possible. Some collectives give their workers resources to build ample, multiroom houses as an incentive to stay.

Kinship, Marriage, and Family

Kinship. Patrilineal exogamous families (sem'ie ) with male family heads were the norm for Siberiaki, who have maintained this as an ideal. A family patriarch is fondly termed batiushka, and his lineage is rod. (The Russian word for homeland, rodina, stems from consanguineal kin ties.) Some proud Siberiak families maintain knowledge of their patrikin back to roots beyond Siberia, especially if ancestors came with the Cossacks Ermak, Vladimir Atlasov, or Semen Dezhnev.

Marriage and Domestic Unit. Extended families with many, especially male, children were considered signs of divine favor, key to a family's survival and the well-being of its elders. Marriage took place as early as age 13, especially for girls, but wedding pairs in their 20s were more common. In-marrying women included those from nearby Siberiaki or native groups, although most liaisons were not sanctified by marriage. Arranged marriages, although illegal in the Soviet period, persisted. Patrilocality remains ideal, with the hope that multiple generations can grow within one courtyard or in nearby households. But this goal is elusive for families with city-bound children availing themselves of education, abortion, and divorce.

Inheritance. Land inheritance historically varied according to whether land was governmental, leased, or private. In principle both men and women were able to own and pass on property, including land. Brides brought property into marriage as dowries, whereas grooms' families gave goods and animals. Exchanges declined with collectivization, when family members became workers merely using land and forest resources. Small plots nonetheless stay in the same family. Children inherit bilaterally, but unequally. Boys are preferred over girls, with the youngest son expected to take over the family house.

Socialization. Child discipline is based on the rigors of work and survival and includes corporal punishment. Families vary in encouragement of schoolwork over farm work for children. Youths ideally obey not only parents and grandparents but also an extended network of village elders.

Sociopolitical Organization

In the czarist period, hierarchical Russian administration was based on regional governors, but Siberiaki still shaped local economies and politics in remote villages. The heart of community rule was the peasant mir, a committee of household heads who, by consensus, determined land use, taxes, and charity and resolved conflicts. They answered to landlords, nobility, and government officials. Historical shifts in definitions of class prestige from nobles to merchants to workers left peasants at the low end of all socioeconomic and political scales. But within Siberiak villages, differences in wealth and power were rarely sharp. Power accrued and still accrues to strong personalities, some of whom claim ancestry from dispossessed nobles who once fled to Siberia. Beginning with the 1930s, the mir has had no official functions and political control from Moscow ministries become tighter and Communist party officials permeated most community affairs. Party leadership, however, was challenged in 1985. Demands for greater local autonomy were reflected in elections of young nonparty politicians, some of whom came from Siberiak families. Reform of local soviets resulted in the partial rejuvenation of the traditional mir. In industrialized Siberia, rediscovery of the spirit of the Siberian regional movement was typified by strikes by coal miners in Kemerova, Vorkuta, and Sakhalin. In 1989 a new Association of Siberian Cities was formed, and private radio stations began broadcasting. Siberiaki enthusiastically endorsed plans for a Far East Free Enterprise Zone.

Social Control. The Communist party and a rigid court system served to maintain order throughout Siberia, notorious for its penal system of labor camps and prisons. Locals sometimes served as prison guards. Yet an atmosphere of lawlessness pervades many Siberian villages and towns, in which traditional values have broken down, criminal records are common, and poverty and alcoholism are rampant.

Conflict. In the Gorbachev era open conflict erupted between Siberiaki and new groups of laborers (from Russia and the Caucasus) perceived as outsiders. Tensions between Siberiaki and natives have also increased, although they were probably at their greatest during native revolts in the earliest periods of colonization. Tensions are high between entrenched members of the former ruling establishment and reformers protesting extensive corruption and ecologically devastating development.

Religion and Expressive Cultures

Religious Beliefs. Siberiak religion is a mixture of Christianity, Slavic folk beliefs, and Siberian native shamanism. Focus is on spirit helpers and the power of icons and miracle-working saints such as the healer Saint Nicholas. A few Siberiak communities base their religion on sects that split from the official Russian Orthodox church. Historically, those who fled to Siberia to practice their religion included Old Believers, Dukhobors, Molokany, Khysty, and Pentacostals. Some were known for their esteem for celibacy, whereas others were orgiastic.

Religious Practitioners. Monasteries and a Russian Orthodox clerical hierarchy were established in Siberia well before the Russian Revolution. Yet religious authorities often were avoided, since many believers were fugitives. Religion was parish church-or homestead-oriented, led by local priests and family heads. Examples include the Old Believers of Lake Baikal or the Orthodox of Russkoe Ust'e in Yakutia. One Old Believer family was so isolated in the Altai Mountains that when geologists found them in the 1970s, the family had not heard of World War II. Many religious communities lost their group identities during the Soviet era, although a few priests continued to function secretly.

Ceremonies. Saints' days linked to the Slavic agricultural calendar (such as Saint John's Eve at summer solstice), major Christian holidays such as Orthodox Christmas and Easter, and important family holidays all served as ritual expressions of intense belief. The scale of celebration depended on the official legitimacy of a given group's religion, the availability of a church, and the weather. Religious weddings, burials, and calendrical observances revived somewhat in the 1980s, despite decades of antireligious propaganda and hundreds of church closures since the 1920s. Historically, the most covert ceremonies practiced by Siberiaki were those involving shamanic sacrifices and séances.

Arts. Traditional Slavic laments, songs, and epics were preserved better in a few Siberiak villages than in European Russia. A rich store of Siberian conquest legends added to the folk legacy. Decorative textile arts and basketry were augmented by the new genre of fur working. Wood carvings endowed with symbolic meaning flourished on distaffs, homes, and churches. Each generation of folklorists has lamented the demise of these arts, some of which have lived on in adapted forms with new meanings through the twentieth century.

Medicine. Far from hospitals, medical points, or even traveling rural doctors, Siberiaki traditionally sought solace not only from elderly, often female, folk curers (znakhari ) but also from native medical practitioners, shamans. Siberiaki attended séances in native settlements, sent for local shamans in emergencies, and learned shamanic incantations. Limited herbal medicine was supplemented by shamanic cures and animal sacrifices. Belief in the power of shamans and znakhari lingers in Siberian villages, but Western medicine is now relatively accessible and predominant. Childbirth usually takes place in rural clinics, if not hospitals. Helicopter ambulance services are available.

Death and Afterlife. Belief in spirits of the dead guides burial rituals, performed on the third or fourth day after death. Heaven, hell, or a spirit limbo are alternative fates. Even family members who were benign in life are believed to be dangerous after death if not treated to graveyard feasts and supplications, which are held forty days and one year after death and on annual remembrance days. Dead ancestors can also be conjured for consultation, according to some Siberiaki.

Bibliography

Armstrong, Terence (1965). Russian Settlement in the North. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam (1992). Russian Traditional Culture. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe.

Conolly, Violet (1975). Siberia Today and Tomorrow: A Study of Economic Resources, Problems, and Achievements. New York: Taplinger.

Kennan, George (1970). Siberia and the Exile System. New York: Praeger. Reprint. 1981.

Levin, M. G., and L. P. Potapov, eds. (1964). The Peoples of Siberia. Translated by Stephen P. Dunn and Ethel Dunn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Originally published in Russian in 1956.

Russakova, L. M., and N. A. Minenko, eds. (1985). Kul'turno-bytovye protsessy u Russkikh Sibiri (XVIII-nachalo XXv. ) (Processes of customary culture among the Russians of Siberia {18th to early 19th centuries}). Novosibirsk: Nauka.

MARJORIE MANDELSTAM BALZER