Expansion and colonialism on the eastern frontier: views of Siberia and the Far East in pre-Petrine Russia

Journal of Historical Geography, 14, 1 (1988) 3-21

Expansion and colonialism on the eastern frontier: views of Siberia and the Far East in pre-Petrine Russia Mark Bassin

This essay is an examination of the nature of Russian colonial expansion into Siberia and the Far East in the seventeenth century. The argument is made that this expansion was essentially mercantile in nature, and occurred as a result of the quest for furs, which for the Muscovite state represented a reliable and highly lucrative source of revenue. Russian occupation of the Amur basin was additionally stimulated by the hope of establishing a food base for the fur trappers in the desolate regions to the north. The significance of all these regions for the government in Moscow, therefore, rested solely on their ability to supply a colonial commodity. Beyond this, they had no value, and the Russians were even willing in the case of the Far East to surrender territorial claims, if with this Chinese markets could be made more accessible for Russian furs. This interpretation counters both Western views of Russian expansion overall as an undifferentiated, indeed organic process, and some recent Soviet interpretations, which maintain that the Russians in this period had overriding territorial interests on the Amur lands. 'As when two Polar Winds, blowing adverse Upon the Cronian Sea, together drive Mountains of Ice, that stop th' imagin'd way Beyond Petsora Eastward, to the rich Cathaian Coast.'

Paradise Lost, Book X

Since the emergence of Muscovy from under Mongol sway as a paltry but dynamic political formation in the fifteenth century to the apogee of its imperial grandeur on the eve of the First World War, Russian territorial expansion has been characterized by one striking feature: it has everywhere and at all times been expansion into immediately contiguous territories. With the single exception of Russia's ultimately abortive occupation of Alaska, the product of this process was an empire based on a single unbroken landmass of continental proportions, a circumstance that served to differentiate it in an unmistakable fashion from the maritime empires of Western Europe. This peculiarity of territorial growth always through the incorporation of adjacent borderlands has in some interpretations produced the impression of a steady, constant process of physical aggrandizement. With some imaginative effort, details of geographical region and historical circumstance are smoothed over and replaced by a picture of six centuries of undifferentiated, organic expansion. Like an organism, the Russian state grew in size because in its very nature lay the tendency or need to 0305-7488/88/010003 + 19 $03.00/0

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grow. This "territorial imperative" was accompanied by an urge to dominate over ever-broader areas, and both of these traits are cited as evidence of the essential dissimilitude between the Russian empire and those of Western and Central Europe. Although outlined here rather sketchily, the explanation of Russian expansion in terms of an ever-active territorial imperative--the compulsion to reach constantly beyond its borders for new regions to incorporate and control--has traditionally proven quite popular, and as a number of recent works demonstrate, tq has lost none of its appeal. Yet, however appealing, I would argue that such a view is mistaken and misleading. The expansion of Russia, or any state, can be understood neither in terms of postulated a priori qualities or tendencies, nor as the working out of some teleological process of development. At the very least, proper account has to be taken of the particular geographical and historical context. Little reflection is needed, for example, to see that, in the case of Russia, the difficult movement to the south and southeast against the steppe nomads over the centuries differed fundamentally from the virtually unobstructed penetration into Siberia, across vast stretches of uninhabited and barren taiga. Neither, in turn, can really be compared with the protracted and often savage struggle of generations of Russian rulers with various states to the west to secure a territorial foothold on the Baltic. It is no less important to avoid generalization across historical periods, even in regard to the same geographi~zal region. In the case of Russia, such generalization most commonly takes the form of projecting the characteristics of late tsarist imperialism back onto earlier centuries. There is no question, for example, that Russia's triumphal expansion in northeast Asia in the nineteenth century--the annexation of the Amur and Ussuri valleys in 1 8 6 0 was seen at the time as a valuable territorial acquisition, and moreover as an important first step in the projection of Russian political dominion beyond its borders, across the Asiatic continent. I2j It is entirely inappropriate, however, to assume that ideological underpinnings of the same sort necessarily lay behind Russia's initial penetration beyond the Urals centuries earlier. Following on this final point, the present essay is a study of the Russian occupation of Siberia and the Far East in the seventeenth century, a process which in terms of raw territorial expanse formed the most dramatic example overall of Russian expansion and colonialism. I31 I am not concerned primarily with the actual experiences of the Russians beyond the Urals, which have already been treated in considerable detail, r41 but rather on the interests and perceptions specifically of the government in Moscow. It will be seen that early Russian views of its eastern territories were quite different from those two centuries later, and can be understood only in the context of the loose mercantilist orientation that was gaining in popularity in the mid-1600s. Mercantilism taught the need for, and the Russians sought a native source of wealth on which to base a lucrative foreign trade. They were specifically concerned to establish a commercial relationship with China. Because of its furbearing population, which offered an ideal material for international barte r , Siberia was enormously attractive to the Muscovite government. For the brief period during which it was occupied, the Amur valley offered the additional attraction of a potential source of provisionment for the fur trade of Eastern Siberia. That these regions were not in the seventeenth century valued primarily as territorial extensions of Russian imperial glory is indicated most clearly by the fate of the Amur valley, for when it failed to provide either furs or provisions as hoped, the goyernment in Moscow lost most of its interest. While certainly not

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anxious, they were in any event willing to relinquish their territorial claims here to the Chinese, if in return a much-coveted agreement granting access for Russian furs to Chinese markets could be obtained.

Russia's discovery of the Far East In the 1500s, the attention of the Russians was first directed to the Far East by impulses coming from the West. Since the early decades of the century, European merchants had come to Muscovy seeking permission to search for a passage of some sort to the Far East, a passage which would enable them to circumvent the Portuguese monopoly on the conventional sea route. The possibility of a overland route across Great Tartary (as the lands beyond the Urals were then known) was raised in the 1520s by the Italian spice merchant Paoletto Centurione, who traveled to Moscow in this regard on two different occasionsffI Interest in such a possibility was further stimulated with the appearance in 1549 of the work Rerum moscovitarum commentarii by the Austrian diplomat Sigismund von Herberstein. According to Herberstein, China and ultimately India itself could be reached by sailing " F r o m the mouths of the Irtische . . . to the lake of Kitai by the river oby," a geographical fantasy that spread widely with the rapid translation of Herberstein's work and was to endure for over a century. [61 The alternative quest for a sea r o u t e - - a northeast passage across the Arctic to the Pacific--brought the Englishman Richard Chancellor in 1553 as far as the White Sea, and led to the establishment of the Muscovy Company. In addition to fostering trade with the Russians, the Company's agents were instructed to "use all wayes and meanes to learne howe men may passe from Russia, either by land or by sea to Cathaia," and a number of land and sea expeditions were indeed dispatched. I7] Finally, the Dutch, whom the English had preempted in their attempts to establish trade with Russia, began sending out regular voyages in the 1580s to explore the Arctic route. These continued until the Russians closed sea routes in the Kara Sea and further east to foreign traffic in 1619. [8] Yet for over a century, the Russians steadfastly failed to become infected by the enthusiasm which was driving merchants from the west to venture forth upon such dangerous and uncertain endeavors. To the contrary, all evidence points to the fact that the Muscovite government remained quite uninterested in the prospects of independent commercial relations with the Far East. Rather than taking advantage of Russia's geographical position to serve as an intermediary in trade between Europe and the Far East, the Russian tsars in this early period showed no inclination to develop a native merchantry, and indeed, were willing to allow foreign merchants (albeit selectively) to cross their territory. The Russians even conducted their own commerce with the Orient through these foreign traders. Notable in this regard were the English, to whom Ivan IV had in 1567 granted the privilege of duty-free trade with Persia and China across Russia, provided they conduct trade for him as well. I91 The willingness--at least ostensible--of the Russians to extend such special transit privileges to other nations as well was demonstrated by the fact that they were repeatedly used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with foreign powers. [1~ Far from indicating any independent Russian interest, the first official Russian mission to China, tlu that of Ivan Petlin in 1614, was undertaken quite reluctantly, as a response to pressure from the Muscovy Company and British diplomats in Moscow to explore the land route across Siberia. Judging from his

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instructions, and from the questions he put to the Chinese, Petlin was concerned above all with finding out about unauthorized foreign traffic passing across Russia to the east. Beyond this, his trip resulted in nothing of importance, for as Kurts notes, "It is obvious that [Russia] saw no benefit from trade with China .... but rather only inconvenience.'[121

Mercantilism, foreign trade and colonies Russian indifference to relations with the Far East underwent a rather dramatic change in the first half of the seventeenth century, a change which must be understood in terms of the situation obtaining in the country at the time. The Time of Troubles had ended in 1613 with a general stabilization and the accession of the Romanov dynasty, but the country was nevertheless unable to recover from the economic and social havoc into which it had been thrown. The raising of state revenues remained a major problem throughout the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich (1613-1645), which he tried to solve in part by levying extraordinary taxes. The situation became desperate after the accession of Aleksey Mikhaylovich (1645-1676), so much so that in 1648 the population of Moscow rose in revolt against austerity and money-raising measures. They were followed shortly by Novgorod and Pskov. An important source of revenue--the foreign merchant community in Moscow--was eroded as Russian merchants pressed the government to limit some of the considerable privileges this foreign competition had enjoyed3~31 The greatest immediate pressure for funds came from Russia's seemingly unceasing wars with its western and southern neighbors: with Poland over the Ukrainian lands from 1654 to 1667, with Sweden over the eastern Baltic coasts from 1655 to 1661, and with Turkey again over the Ukraine, until 1681. The population rioted once again in 1662 over the debasing of silver currency with copper, and the famed Stenka Razin revolt of 1670-71 along the Volga threatened for a time to engulf the entire country in civil w a r y 41 As a response to this troubled situation, certain aspects of mercantilist thought began to gain popularity in Russia as a means for stabilizing its shattered economy and ensuring a flow of revenue into the state treasury. Mercantilism gained wide currency throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where it was associated with both the emergence of the modern system of nation-states, as well as the formation and administration of the maritime empires of the timeY 5j In Russia, its major significance dates from the first quarter of the 18th century, when Peter the Great--having learned about mercantile principles firsthand during his sojourn to the West--applied them with a vengeance.LI6j However, certain rudimentary elements of mercantilism had begun to penetrate into Russian political and economic thinking well before this, and are important in understanding the views of the Russian east that are the subject of this essay. Mercantilism taught that national wealth rested most reliably and securely on reserves of precious metals. If these could not be provided by domestic or colonial sources, then their acquisition should form one of the key objects of foreign trade. Foreign trade in general was regarded as one of the most important sources of state revenue, provided that the balance of this trade remained "favorable". Finally, of critical importance were mercantile doctrines about the significance of colonial possessions. The value of colonies was seen exclusively in their capacity as suppliers of precious metals and raw materials for the industries of the mother country, and also as

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markets for the finished products of this industry. Beyond this, they filled no useful function, and could indeed form an unneeded economic and administrative burden. Mercantilism held out the prospect of a healthy, well-functioning national economic and social life if its principles could be followed. While many practices traditionally associated with mercantilism were never adopted by the Muscovite tsars, some of the principles just described gained an unmistakable importance by the mid-seventeenth century. This was apparent especially in regard to questions of colonies and foreign trade. With the accession of Aleksey Mikhaylovich in the 1640s, the traditional indifference to trade with Asia was displaced by a veritable explosion of interest in developing commercial relations on all geographic fronts, including prominently the Far East. There were two special aspects of this interest in regard to Asia. In the first place, it had finally begun to be understood that Russia could take advantage of its geographical position as a natural intermediary between the East and the West. Not only would the country benefit by acquiring foreign items through its own, and not foreign merchants, but it could draw profits if it kept the overland transit trade between Europe and Asia--which the Europeans had been pressuring Moscow for over a century to open up to t h e m - - i n its own hands, t'71 Second, and more importantly, the Russians began to regard trade with Asia, and especially its neighbor China, as a source for the sorely needed valuable metals they lacked. This final point is of key significance for the thesis I am presenting. For while Muscovy, unlike Spain with its possessions in the New World, did not have an abundant source of gold, its newly-acquired colony of Siberia did offer the valuable resource of furs. This proved to be the fundamental factor in determining early Russian attitudes toward it, for, to a considerable extent, furs effectively filled the function of precious metals. (This point is examined in detail in the following section.) Gold, silver, and other items could be acquired through international barter against furs, a practice which had long been an important aspect of Russian exchange with Europe and the Near East. The principal market for Russian furs in the early-seventeenth century had indeed been in Western Europe, to which they were sent by way of Arkhangelsk and the White Sea route. By mid-century, however, due to factors of changing styles, and the appearance of a new and highly competitive source of furs in North America, Russian furs lost their dominance on the European market. 081 The importance of this market began to decline, and the Russians were compelled to seek alternatives. The prime candidate that emerged was Russia's far-eastern neighbor. Fisher notes that, as the century progressed, the center of gravity of the Russian fur trade shifted from the west to the east; the Russians discovered in Asia a new market as great as the one they were leaving in Europe. The expansion eastward, which had created the plethora of furs, ended by supplying its own remedy--by bringing the Russians into contact with the Chinese...~,91 The new importance accorded relations with Asia became apparent immediately upon the accession of Aleksey Mikhaylovich. In the first year of his reign, embassies were dispatched to three Asian countries--Persia, Bukhara, and India--to announce the Tsar's willingness to engage in trade. A few years later, overtures were made directly to the Far East, with the mission of Fedor Baykov to Peking in 1653. Baykov was charged specifically with investigating possibilities for large-scale commerce between the two countries, and he was

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given the immense sum of 50,000 rubles in order to purchase and bring back gold, silver, and other items. L2~Although his mission to reach a trade agreement proved unsuccessful, interest in far-eastern trade remained high. In the course of the following decade, subsequent expeditions were sent out: S. Albin and I. Perfilev in 1658, and Albin again ten years later. Both of these trading missions were highly successful financially, and demonstrated the great potential value of furs on the Chinese market. Nevertheless, they consistently failed to reach any permanent commercial agreement with the Chinese. Izq The final, and most elaborate attempt to obtain such an agreement was the embassy of Nikolay Spafariy, discussed below. The Tsar was not the only individual in Russia to attach a special importance to relations with the Far East. Rather, the existence of an influential group of individuals sharing a more or less similar perspective testifies to the dispersal of these ideas. Among this group three particular individuals may be singled out, who as successive heads of the Posol'skiy Prikaz, or foreign ministry, from the 1660s to 1689 were in a particularly strong position to influence the tsar and far-eastern policy: Afanasiy Ordin-Nashchokin (d. 1680), Artemon Matveyev (1625-1682), and Prince Vasiliy Golitsyn (1634-1714). Ordin-Nashchokin, who had negotiated the Treaty of Andrusovo with Poland in 1667, was a strong supporter of fostering Russian commerce. He headed the Posol'skiy Prikaz from the late 1660s to 1672, and had ambitious plans for the development of trade with India and the Far East. Moreover, he had definite ideas about Russia's own far-eastern territories, and advocated the settlement of cossacks along the Amur valley to facilitate trade with China. "In general he was concerned," writes Ikonnikov, "that the benefits of Russian trade should remain in Russian hands." He introduced new trade regulations in 1667, and assisted Aleksey Mikhaylovich in the establishment of a Russian merchant fleet on the Caspian (which was destroyed in 1670-71 by Stenka Razin). LzzJ He was replaced as head of the Posol'skiy Prikaz by Matveyev, who took more concrete steps toward establishing relations with the Far East. E231 Responding to overtures from the German princedom of Saxony in regard to overland passage to China, he dispatched an extraordinary Russian mission to Saxony in 1674, headed by S. M. Protopopov. This mission was to discuss in detail, among other things, the idea of an overland route to China and the development of Russian trade along it. Protopopov brought back with him two Latin notebooks dealing with the China trade and possible routes. I24j Under the impetus created by this activity, the most elaborate embassy to China in the period before Peter was organized and dispatched the following year, headed by the Moldavian Nikolai Spafariy. The essential mercantile-commercial nature of this trip was clear from his instructions, which included asking the Chinese to send merchants to Russia bearing silver, jewels, and silk for trading, and stipulated that he was to seek an agreement on duty-free transit for merchants of both countries. He was also instructed to investigate and describe the water routes from Siberia to China. t251 Like its predecessors, the Spafariy expedition was a failure. Although the Moldavian broke with the tradition of Russian emissaries up to that point and performed the disputed kow-tow, thereby gaining an audience with the emperor, no agreement about trade was reached. Upon his return to European Russia he compiled a lengthy description of the route he had followed and of his observations in China. A number of copies of this work were made in the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and circulated with great interest in Russia. E26j

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The most concise and eloquent exposition of the mercantilist program, however, was the remarkable manuscript by the Croatian priest Yuriy Krizhanich (1618-1683), who spent some 15 years in Siberian exile in the 1650s and 1660s. During this period of enforced leisure, Krizhanich composed his magnum opus, entitled simply Politics. The work is somewhat akin to Machievelli's The Prince in that it is essentially a set of expositions to the Tsar as to how the country ought to be run. O f particular interest for our purposes are his pronouncements on the development of commerce, and in particular the manner in which he related this directly to Russian activities in the Far East. As one of his very first points, Krizhanich stressed the harm done Russia by letting foreign countries trade within its borders. This was ruinous o f the moral fiber of the country, but had economic consequences which were more immediate and drastic, for such trade drained the country of its resources and made off with its wealth. The solution to this problem formed one o f Krizhanich's most frequently and most fervently repeated recommendations: a native Russian merchantry must be fostered, which could establish the necessary foreign connections and take this trade out of the hands o f the foreigners. I271Krizhanich saw great potential for Russia as a trade intermediary between Europe and Asia: That is, if -via the Arctic, Black, and Caspian Seas, and the rivers... Vologda, Don, Volga, Irtysh, and others--we could trade for many thousands and thousands [of rubles], and through our hands goods would travel from peoples to peoples, [then] from this the state treasury and the people would grow fabulously (neskazanno) wealthy,r281 The Russian F a r East, as well as relations with China, figured importantly within Krizhanich's discussion of foreign commerce. A m o n g the various points where he recommended establishing posts for conducting trade with foreign countries, he included Dauria t291 for trade with China, and maintained in addition the need for a permanent Russian commercial representative in Peking. E3~ Siberia, however, held his special attention. Rather than disillusionment with it as the cold and inhospitable scene o f his exile, he gave it much optimistic attention in his Politics, above all to the various water routes across Siberia which could facilitate trade with China. In addition to this, Siberia formed the subject of an entire separate essay by him. 13q In it, his attention was again focused primarily on the question o f possible routes to China. By the mid-seventeenth century, the relative importance of prospective overland routes was much enhanced through the fact that the practicality of a northeast sea passage was becoming increasingly nebulous. As is clear from the epigraph from Paradise Lost that introduces the present essay, even the poet Milton, writing in the 1660s, underscored the fanciful nature of such a possibility, and Krizhanich discarded it out of hand. t321(He seemed to be aware, however, that the Asian and American continents are not joined by land.) As an alternative, he proposed a combination land-water route overland across Siberia to the Amur, then down this river to the Pacific and on to China: And with time, [we can] even send our ships on the [Pacific] ocean, especially to China, and after that to India along the Siberian route, f331 With this, Krizhanich became the first to see a value in the A m u r as a potential river link which could give Russian commerce access to the Pacific and China. This notion persisted throughout the course of the following two centuries, and was resurrected as a grand geographical vision in the middle of the 19th century.[ 341

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The Russian advance into Siberia and the Far East

Russian occupation of territories east of the Urals began in the 1580s. Their eastward advance across the continent that lay beyond, much facilitated by a splendidly convenient network of waterways as well as the absence of significant resistance from Siberia's native population, was remarkably rapid, I351and within half a century the Sea of Okhotsk and the shores o f the Pacific had been reached. The occupation of Siberia was accomplished variously, officially through governmental edict or unofficially through the independent initiative of individuals or groups ofpromyshlenniki, but in all cases the fundamental cause derived from factors discussed in the previous section: the ever-growing need on the part of the government for sources of revenue with which it could support its activities. As noted, in the seventeenth century Siberia did not yet offer a ready source of valuable metals, but it did offer an almost equally valuable resource, that of furs. It was its fur wealth that made Siberia attractive to the Muscovite tsars, and the overriding concern with exploiting this resource lay at the root of Russian policy there, down to the 19th century. From this standpoint, Siberia was for the Russians a classic mercantile colony; it was indeed "just as much a colony for Russia as Mexico and Peru for Spain, and India for England". I361 In order to understand Siberia's attraction, it is necessary to appreciate the tremendous role of furs in Russia during this period. Furs were not only the main medium of barter with foreign merchants for a range of items, r371but they represented an alternative form of money between Russians as well, frequently used by the government to repay services or give grants. Beyond the country's borders, they were in constant demand for use by the Russian diplomatic corps, f381Through trade with furs, Russia could acquire the gold and silver which it lacked. Indeed, so important were furs in seventeenth century Russia that the Sable Treasury of the Sibirskiy Prikaz (the Siberia Office) became a kind of "supplementary mint, the Russian equivalent of the 'gold fund' of the mercantilist countries of the West", and "furs were the most important single economic pursuit in Russia until the end of the seventeenth century",I39J Until the late 1500s, furs had been gathered primarily in the north and northeast regions of Russia west of the Urals, and sold to the British and other foreigners at the markets in Arkhangelsk. As the century wore on, however, the fur population in these territories began to disappear. The plight of the government can well be imagined when Yermak's men returned in the 1580s from their raids across the Urals into Western Siberia with a rich booty of furs and the news that Yermak had conquered the Siberian khanate of Kuchum. E4~ The Russian occupation of Siberia had begun. The quest for furs not only lay behind Russia's initial move into Siberia, I4q but occasioned its rapid advance across it as well, for the fur trappers were drawn further and further east in direct proportion to the rate of extermination of fur-bearing animals. The tremendous demand for, and the consequent fabulous value of furs dictated that they would be hunted intensively. The fur-bearing population of Western Siberia was exhausted by the mid-seventeenth century, and that of eastern Siberia by 1700. By the latter date, it is estimated that as much as 75% of Siberia's total fur resources had already been depleted342J After this, the fur trade was compelled to become maritime, and most valuable furs were those of sea otters sought in the waters of the North Pacific around Kamchatka, the Aleutian Islands, and finally Alaska. It was these otter pelts that would ultimately form the basis of Russia's fur trade with China in the eighteenth century. E431

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Siberia, therefore, was a conveniently located, highly accessible mercantile colony, which could be profitably exploited for a valuable resource. In occupying it, the Russians had their eye fixed intently on that resource, and on little else. An "urge to the sea", to use R o b e r t Kerner's wonderfully evocative but essentially meaningless formulation, played no role in their rapid penetration across the north Asian continent; I44l more to the point, their initial eastward advance was not fundamentally an expression o f the urge for conquest, territorial aggrandizement, and political expansion spoken of in the introduction to this essay. It is true that the Russians carried out "conquests" of the territories into which they moved and the native peoples they encountered, but this was rather out of expediency in the gathering o f furs. F o r when the natives were subjugated, they were compelled to p a y a tribute in furs called yasak to their new lord, the "White Tsar". This yasak, collected yearly, proved overall to be the " m o s t direct and profitable means of obtaining furs. ''1451 The underlying concerns o f the Muscovite government are shown very well in the following excerpt from a tsarist order to the cossack Peter Golovin in 1638. Golovin was instructed to establish an ostrog, or fort, on the Lena river, and proceed to " c o n q u e r " the territory and population o f the Lena basin: The great river Lena is convenient and broad, and there are many nomadic and settled peoples on it, and many sables and all sorts of other animals..., and therefore.., the tsar orders that Siberians [Russians] be sent to build a city or fort [there], at the best location, and it is ordered that independent native settlements along the Lena and other rivers should be taken under the tsar's mighty hand, and that the yasakshould be collected from them for the tsar, and there will be great profit for the treasury .... i461 It was not territory and new subjects that the Russians primarily were after. The rulers of M u s c o v y coveted Siberian lands as long as they provided material for exploitation, and they lost their value when exhausted.

The occupation and abandonment of the Amur valley The relatively brief Russian occupation of the A m u r valley in the seventeenth century presents a special interest for our study, for with it the two themes developed up to this p o i n t - - R u s s i a n interest in fostering trade with the F a r East, and views o f Siberia as a mercantile c o l o n y - - c o m e together and so to speak confirm each other. The fur trade in Siberia was from the beginning plagued by chronic problems with provisionment, and these problems intensified in direct proportion to the Russians' eastward advance. In Eastern Siberia, where local physical-geographical conditions and the general sparseness of population made agriculture especially difficult, the lack of a reliable, adequate food base w a s a c u t e . 1471 N e w sources o f food were constantly being sought, and thus the stories related by the indigenous population to cossacks on the Aldan river in the 1630s a b o u t the grain-growing peoples along the river Amur, and a b o u t the overall mineral and fur wealth o f this area, attracted considerable attention. I481In 1643 the Tsar ordered Vasiliy P o y a r k o v in Yakutsk to explore these u n k n o w n territories. Characteristically, he was told to locate new peoples on w h o m to place the yasak, and seek out deposits of silver, copper, and iron, and sources o f grain. Interestingly, he was also instructed to find out if there was a river route to China along the Shilka. H e returned to Yakutsk enthusiastic that the A m u r could be easily subjugated by the Russians. [491 Yerofey K h a b a r o v was then sent to the A m u r in 1649, and his report o f the following year seemed to promise the Russians exactly what they were seeking:

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in the great river Amur there is more fish than in the Volga. 9 and the forests along the great river Amur are dark and grand, [and] sables and all sorts of furs are there in abundance .... 9

The A m u r would support a flourishing agriculture and become a base for provisionment, making it unnecessary to send food to Yakutsk from Western Siberia: and imagine (chayat'), lord, that this land of Dauria will be more profitable than the Lena. . . . and in contrast to all of Siberia will be a region beautiful and abundantJ 5~ 9

Over the next several years, Khabarov and his men spread rumours throughout Siberia to the effect that the A m u r valley was a " N e w Canaan and a Siberian paradise", where gold, silver, the best furs, cattle, grain, and even orchard products were to be found in abundance, fStl Hopes for obtaining precious metals from the A m u r region proved quickly to be ephemeral, and the Russians came to value this area primarily for its imagined agricultural potential, and secondarily as a source of furs. t521These hopes, too, quickly came to naught, for under the conditions of the time there were enormous obstacles to the development of a large-scale agriculture for export. Contrary to initial reports, indigenous agriculture was on a low level, t531 and the Russians were unable to foster their own. Indeed, under the conditions o f the seventeenth century, the remoteness of the region rendered the government incapable o f exercising any real authority there at all. Rather than the hoped-for food source for the East Siberian fur trade, the A m u r valley became instead the goal o f the discontented or profit-hungry Russian population o f Siberia. The cossacks flocked here hoping to take advantage o f Khabarov's promised easy riches, or simply following an urge that might have contributed to their presence in Siberia in the first place: to escape from hated official authority o f any kind, "to go to the sea to seek out islands (ostrova iskat'), to live alone and to not be under the authority o f the voyevodas . . . . ,,1541 U n d e r these circumstances, the A m u r quickly came to resemble more than anything else a freebooters' camp, where the organization and maintenance o f large-scale agriculture was quite out o f the question. Instead of becoming the "bread-basket" o f Eastern Siberia, the A m u r region itself experienced serious food shortages. By the 1680s the region had m a d e virtually no contributions o f grain toward the support of regions to the north, and thereby disappointed the high hopes initially placed in it. 1551 The occupation of the A m u r region was a landmark in Russo-Chinese relations, for it brought the two countries for the first time into direct conflict. The M a n c h u dynasty, which had been established in the 1640s, regarded the river and the lands along it as an important part of their M a n c h u r i a n homeland. The Russian presence there could not but be a disturbing development. Moreover, they considered the indigenous population, from w h o m the Russians were collecting the y a s a k tribute, to be their own subjects. The Siberian cossacks did not at first realize that in moving into the A m u r region they were encroaching on territories the Chinese considered to be their own domain, and the new dynastic order in China, because of military engagements in other parts of the country, did not confront the Russians immediately. 156]Beginning in the 1650s, however, the Chinese began to send military forces to the Amur. Eventually, there were clashes along the river, and a n u m b e r o f Russian settlements were razed. Chinese military power in the area was distinctly superior to that of the Russians, if only because o f their greater numbers and the region's closer proximity to the political center o f their state.

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It is of considerable significance for our theme that Moscow was entirely unaware of what was happening in its own far-eastern territories: unaware, that is, of the armed altercations with the Chinese. Quite to the contrary, it was precisely at this time that the Baykov mission to Peking was dispatched, with hopeful prospects of facilitating cooperation and commercial interaction between the two countries. The Chinese, however, were much aggravated by the Russian presence along the Amur, and made this quite clear, both to Baykov himself, as well as in a missive to the Tsar in 1657.E57j The government in Moscow, quite rightly fearful that this border conflict could have a negative influence on the Chinese reaction to the Russian trade proposals, hastened to compose a reply to the latter document. In it, the Tsar seemed to accept Chinese suzerainty of the region, for he pleaded ignorance on the part of the Siberian cossacks who ventured into Dauria not realizing that this territory was part of the Chinese realm. I581He assured the Emperor that, if the latter would order his troops on the Amur to cease hostilities, he himself would order that no more soldiers be sent to the region. Merchants, he was careful to add warmly, should be sent out from both countries into the other with all sorts of goods, "so that both countries would be richer (popolneye)". This document suggests strongly that the government in Moscow was anxious at all costs to avoid a territorial conflict that would threaten Chinese willingness to engage in trade, even to the point of sacrificing claims to the Amur lands. Negotiations were finally agreed upon in 1689 to establish a firm boundary between the two countries and solve various other issues. These negotiations at the town of Nerchinsk, and the resulting treaty bearing that name, form the concluding episode to the first phase of the Russian occupation of the Far East. A brief examination of them reveals in what way the " A m u r question" in the seventeenth century was tied to the main themes developed in this essay, and provides a good summary of Russian views of the Far East during this period. The Russian diplomatic embassy was carefully chosen by Prince Vasiliy Golitsyn, who assumed control of the Posol'skiy Prikaz in 1682. Golitsyn shared the mercantile ideals of his contemporaries. He was interested in the fur trade, especially in developing trading links with China, and had been an early patron of Spafariy. He also had grand schemes for building a road across Siberia to China with way-stations along it for commercial purposes. I591His, and indeed the dominant governmental attitude toward Russian interests in the Far East may best be gleaned from the first set of instructions prepared in 1689 by the Posol'skiy Prikaz for Fedor Golovin, who headed the Russian delegation to Nerchinsk. According to his instructions, Golovin was initially to insist on the Amur river as the proper boundary between the countries, allowing the Russians to maintain their settlements along the left bank. Should, however, the Chinese demand a total Russian withdrawal from the area, the Russians may give up their territorial claims in return for a trade agreement. In this case, the instructions read, let the Chinese merchants bring into Russia, if they should have it, clean and pure silver, either with an embassy or separately, one thousand ofpuds or three thousands o f p u d s . Lt~ A trade agreement obviously had great importance for Golitsyn: retaining the Amur did not. A second set of instructions, written by the royal court and not the Posol'skiy Prikaz, followed shortly after the first. In these, the tsarist government demonstrated its willingness to make yet broader territorial concessions to the

VIEWS OF SIBERIA

15

Chinese, and was concerned only to retain the right to trade along the Amur. A third and final set of instructions was dispatched, in which the Russian negotiators were told to make a firm stand for the Amur region, but only if the Chinese would not agree to the provisions of either of the earlier two sets of instructions. L6~lAs it turned out, the Chinese had mustered an enormous show of military strength for the negotiations, and Russia was compelled to give up its Amur territories. The new border was marked by the rivers Argun and Gorbitsa (a northern tributary of the Shilka), and east along the crest of the Stanovoy range to the ocean. There was a clause, included at Russian insistence, allowing for mutual Russian-Chinese trade and unrestricted travel for commercial purposes, [62] but was so general as to remain essentially a dead letter. The beginnings of an effective trade relationship between the two countries had to wait for several more decades. The background to the negotiations at Nerchinsk, and the treaty itself, bring together the different threads which have been discussed in this essay. Up to the reign of Aleksey Mikhaylovich, Russia had no real interest in the Far East, either in trade or developing its own territories. It has indeed been seen with what reluctance the Russians made their first overtures to China. By mid-century this had changed fundamentally, and the issue for the Russian government became establishing trade relations with the Chinese Empire. This was the essential interest illuminating Russian attitudes toward the Far East. The conscious desire to establish Russia firmly in a territorial and political sense on the shores of the Pacific--something which was to be of central importance in later centuries--did not play a role in the seventeenth century. As long as the Amur lands offered potential as an agricultural base or source for furs, Russian occupation was important, but when it became apparent that the agricultural potential was illusory (or at least not to be realized) and the fur population depleted, the territory lost its importance and attraction. This is not to suggest that the Russians wanted to give away the Amur: all other things being equal, they of course would have retained it. But the loss was very definitely considered minor, and the Treaty of Nerchinsk on the whole was considered a success, for the much-coveted trade provisions had been written in. 16~jGolovin and his suite received a grand welcome in Moscow; Golovin himself was awarded a gold medal and elevated to boyar status, and went on to a brilliant career under Peter the Great.I641

Conclusion The legacy of Russia's mercantile colonial expansion beyond the Urals was impressive indeed. It resulted in the incorporation of what is effectively a sub-continent, with which Muscovy increased its physical dimensions many times over and pushed its borders thousands of miles out to Manchuria, the Pacific, and North America. North American territory, indeed, was even occupied and claimed, if only briefly. Yet the dynamic behind this expansion rested on the acquisition of a particular commodity, and when the supply of that commodity gave out, the movement lost its essential impetus. At this point, the colonial territories that had been acquired in its course lost their fundamental attraction for the government in Moscow. By the early-nineteenth century, this was the case with Siberia. Its fur population had been exhausted for some time, and the development of mining and metallurgy which Peter the Great had undertaken did not begin to match the relative economic importance which furs

16

M. BASSIN

had commanded. Although officials could still refer to Siberia on occasion as " o u r Peru" or " o u r Brazil". [651 Siberia's former attraction as a rich source of precious colonial booty was replaced--in the eyes o f the government, at least--by the image of a frozen land of desolation and exile. As Fieldhouse notes, by 1800 "Siberia increasingly gave the impression of being a relic of an earlier period o f Muscovite imperialism which might possibly have withered away as Portuguese power in Angola and M o z a m b i q u e had declined since its heyday in the 16th century". [661Nicholas I's foreign minister Count Nesslerode characterized Siberia simply and rather severely as a "deep net" into which Russia could empty its social sins and rift-raft (podonki) in the form of convicts and exiles, 1671and serious voices were raised questioning whether Russia would not be better off getting rid of this albatross beyond the Urals altogether. [681 It is thus in terms very different from the mercantile considerations discussed in this essay that the dramatic resumption of expansion in Asiatic Russia after mid-century must be understood. This fact should not be obscured by the circumstance that the perpetrators of this expansion, as well as a good deal of the subsequent historiography devoted to it, depicted it as the simple " c o m p l e t i o n " or resolution of a process begun two centuries earlier. Rather, this expansion must be seen in the more general context of late-nineteenth century European imperialism, whereby a spectrum o f factors were operative that were essentially new to Russia but c o m m o n with other E u r o p e a n powers. Whereas the initial occupation of Siberia had to a significant extent been a spontaneous and unplanned process, expansion in the nineteenth century, in Russia as in Europe, was thoroughly premeditated, and had moreover an explicit political dimension: the extension of Russian authority into an Asian world which had lost its ability to resist Western encroachment and whose social order had by that time come to be seen critically as " s t a g n a n t " (nepodvizhniy) o r - - m o r e generously--as simply "undeveloped". As part of this, ideological factors such as nationalism, messianism, and reformism, largely absent in the earlier period, played an important role in the nineteenth century, t691The physical contiguity of the Russian empire should not conceal the historical and geographical breaks in its process o f formation, nor foster an image o f uniqueness that veils the very real affinities with the imperial experience of other E u r o p e a n nations.

Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI53706

Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation for a generous grant enabling me to pursue research on this essay.

Notes [1] "Expansion was the overwhelming fact of Russian history. For over six hundred years, almost every generation saw a substantial growth of the lands under the sway of Moscow.... Hugeness legitimated the political order, and the political elite acquired a material interest, as the people acquired a psychological stake, in the empire and its growth. Russians became accustomed to the idea that border states should bow to them and that the frontiers were movable. Aggrandizement fed on itself." R. G. Wesson, The Russian dilemma: a political and geopolitical view (New Brunswick, New Jersey 1974) 12. In a similar spirit, Professor Pipes observed that the tsars "tended to identify [their] political power with the growth of territory,

VIEWS OF SIBERIA

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7] [8]

[9]

t7

and the growth of territory with absolute, domainial authority." R. Pipes, Russia under the old regime (New York 1974) 84. For a critique of this "Klischeevorstellung vom ungehemmten Ausdehnungs- und Weltherrschaftsstreben der Russen" see D. Geyer, Der russische Imperialismus. S tudien iiber den Zusammenhang yon innerer und auswiirtiger P olitik 1860-1914 Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 27 (G6ttingen 1977) 14 [an English-language translation of this outstanding work, published by Yale University Press, appeared in 1987]; C. Foust, Russian expansion to the east through the 18th century Journal of Economic History 21 (1961) 469-482 Nicholas Murav'yev, governor-general of Eastern Siberia and the architect of this annexation, advocated it to the Tsar in 1853 in the following terms: " . . . it is entirely natural for Russia, if not to control all of East Asia, then [at least] to rule over (gospodstvovat') the entire Asiatic coast of the Pacific Ocean." Quoted in B. V. Struve, Vospominanii o Sibiri 1848-1854 gg. (St. Petersburg 1889) 154-156. For detailed treatment of Russian views of the Far East in the 19th century, see M. Bassin, The Russian Geographical Society, the 'Amur epoch,' and the Great Siberian Expedition 1855-1863 Annals o f the Association o f American Geographers 73 (1983) 240-256; idem., "A Russian Mississippi? A political-geographical inquiry into the vision of Russia on the Pacific 1840-1865," (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, University of CaliforniaBerkeley 1983) Expansion during the same period but in a different direction--across the forest-steppe and steppe--is the subject of a recent and very interesting article by D. J. B. Shaw; Southern frontiers of Muscovy, 1550-1700, in J. H. Bater and R. A. French (Eds) Studies in Russian historical geography 2 vols (London 1983) I 118-142 For some of the more important treatments of seventeenth-century Russia beyond the Urals, see especially R.H. Fisher, The Russian .fur trade, 1550-1700, University of California Publications in History XXXI (Berkeley 1943); R. J. Kerner, The urge to the sea. The role o f rivers, portages, ostrogs, monasteries, and furs (Berkeley 1946); G. V. Lantzeff, Siberia in the 17th century. A study o f the colonial administration, University of California Publications in History XXX (Berkeley 1943); idem and R. A. Pierce, Eastward to empire. Exploration and conquest on the Russian open frontier, to 1750 (Montreal 1973); J. R. Gibson, Russia on the Pacific: the role of the Amur, Canadian Geographer 12 (1968) 15-27; idem., Feeding the Russian fur trade. provisionment o f the Okhotsk seaboard and the Kamchatka Peninsula, 1 6 3 ~ 1856 (Madison 1969); idem., The significance of Siberia to Tsarist Russia, Canadian Slavonic Papers 14 (1972) 442-453; J.A. Harrison, The founding o f the Russian empire in Asia and America (Coral Gables 1971); Istoriya Sibiri, 5 vols. (Leningrad 1968-1969), vol. 2: Sibir' v sostave feodal'noy Rossii; P.N. Pavlov, Promyslovaya kolonizatsiya Sibiri v X V I I veke (Krasnoyarsk 1974); Russkaya Tikhookeanskaya Epopeya (Khabarovsk 1979); A. I. Alekseev, Osvoeniye russkimi liud'mi Dal'nego vostoka i Russkoy Ameriki do kontsa X I X veka (Moscow 1982); V.A. Aleksandrov, Rossiya na dal'nevostochnykh rubezhakh (vtoraya polovina X V I I v.), 2nd ed. (Khabarovsk 1984) P. Pierling, L'Italie et la Russie au X V I siOcle, Biblioth6que Slave Elz6virienne X (Paris 1892), I-II, 17; N. A. Kazakova, Dmitriy Gerasimov i russko-evropeyskie kul'turnye sviazi v pervoy treti XVI v., in N. E. Nosov (Ed.) Problemy istorii mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniy. Sbornik Statey pamyati akademika E. V. Tarle (Leningrad, 1972) 248-266, ref. to p. 255 S. von Herberstein, Notes upon Russia: being a translation o f the earliest account o f that country . . . . , transl. R. H. Major, 2 vols, Haklyut Society Works 10, 12 (London 1851--52) II 40. Also see his map (between pp. 174~175) showing the Ob running into "Lacvs Kithay" at the southern edge of the Urals, well to the north of the Volga and the Caspian. Gerhard Mercator lent his endorsement by incorporating Herberstein's description into his own cartographic work (M. M. Belov, Istoriya otkrytiya i osvoyeniya Severnogo Morskogo Puti, 4 vols (Moscow 1956-1969) I, 218; N. F. Demidova and V. S. Myasnikov, eds., Pervye russkiye diplomaty v Kitaye. "Rospis'" L Petlina i stateynyi spisok F.L Baykova (Moscow 1966) 13 T.S. Willan, The early history o f the Russia Company 1553-1603 (Manchester 1956) 56; P. Richardson, The expansion o f Europe 1400-1600 (London 1966) 126-130; M. S. Anderson, Britain's discovery o f Russia, 155~1815 (London 1958) 4 "O plavanii gollandskikh 2-kh korabley k Severnym stranam 'dlia izyskaniya prokhodu mimo Novye zemli v kitayskoe gosudarstvo i ottuda k vostochnoy Indii'" Chteniya v imperatorskom obshchesvte istorii i drevnostey rossiyskikh 175:4, ch. V (1895), 3-5; Belov, op. cit. I 79--83 Willan, op. cit. 56, 89; E. D. Morgan and C.H. Coote (Eds), Early voyages and travels to Russia and Persia by Anthony Jenkinson . . . . ,2 vols, Haklyut Society Works 72 73 (London 1886) II 232

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[10] N. Kostomarov, Ocherk torgovli Moskovskogo gosudarstva v X V I - X V I I vv. (St. Petersburg 1862) 38; A. N. Pypin, Istoriya russkoy etnografii, 4 vols (St Petersburg 1890-1892) IV, 197; D. F. Lach, The preface to Leibniz' Novissima Sinica. Commentary, translation, text (Honolulu 1957) 16-17 [11] "Official' is used here to distinguish it from missions to the Mongols and China which originated locally in Siberia, on the initiative of the voyevodas there. Several of these had preceded the Petlin expedition. They were an example of the high degree of independence with which the authorities in Siberia acted, and it is important not to interpret them as expressions of the policy or views of the central government. Moscow, when it found out about such initiatives, did not tolerate them, and they were explicitly forbidden in 1620. B. G. Kurts, Russko-kitayskiye snosheniya v XVI, XVII, i XVIII stoletiyakh ([Kiev] 1929) 20; Demidova and Myasnikov, op. cit. 14~15; M. Mancall, Russia and China: their diplomatic relations to 1728 (Cambridge 1971) 38 [12] Kurts, op. cit. 25; "Puteshestviye kazatskikh atamanov Ivana Petrova i Burnasha Yalycheva v Kitay," in A.N. Popov (Ed.), Izbornik slavyanskikh i russkikh sochineniy i statey, vnesennykh v khronografy russkoy redaktsii (Moscow 1869) 43~437; Demidova and Myasnikov, op. cit. 15 25 [13] P.P. Smirnov, Ekonomicheskaya politika Moskovskogo gosudarstva v XVII v., in M.V. Dovnar-Zapol'skiy (Ed.), Russkaya istoriya v ocherkakh i stat'yakh 3 vols (Kiev [1909]-1912) III 369-410, reference to p. 404; M. Mancall, op. tit. 45 [14] N.V. Riasanovsky, A history o f Russia, 2nd ed. (New York 1969) 195-196, 199-200 [15] On mercantilism, see E.T. Heckscher, Mercantilism, 2 vols 2nd ed., transl. M. Shapiro (London 1955) I 19 30ff [16] J.W. Horrocks, A short history o f mercantilism (London 1924) 163-168; P. Liashchenko, History o f the national economy o f Russia Transl. L. M. Herman (New York 1949) 299 [17] A.S. Donnelly, The Russian conquest o f Bashkiria 1552-1740 (New Haven 1968) 3. This idea was popular especially among the Russian merchantry and certain ministers in the government, whose arguments were often lost on the tsar himself and thwarted by his continued favoring of foreign commercial agents. Smirnov, op. cit. 384 [18] Kostomarov, op. cit. 225 [19] R.H. Fisher, op. tit. 208-209; Mancall, op. cit. 11-12, 37 [20] P.T. Yakovleva, Pervyy russko-kitayskiy dogovor 1689 goda (Moscow 1958) 91; Demidova and Myasnikov, op. cir. 87 88; Mancall, op. cit. 45-46. See the text of Baykov's instructions in N.N. Bantysh-Kamenskiy, Diplomaticheskoye sobraniye del mezhdu Russkim i Kitayskim gosudarstvami s 1619 po 1792 (Kazan 1882) 9-10 [21] Kurts, op. cit. 39; Mancall, op. cit. 54-59 [22] V.S. Ikonnikov, Blizhniy boyarin Afanasiy Lavren'tevich Ordin-Nashchokin, odin iz predshestvennikov petrovskoy reformy Russkaya Starina XL (October, November, 1883) 17-66, 273-308, ref. to pp. 45, 60, 63 (quote), 273-274; Smirnov, op. cit. 379, 381 [23] On Matveyev, see S.A. Belokurov, O posol'skom prikaze Chteniya v imperatorskom obschehestve istorii i drevnostey rossiyskikh 218:3, Ch. IV (1906) 1-170, ref. to p. 45; G. Vernadsky, A History o f Russia 2 vols (New Haven 1969) II 783; A. Malinovskiy, Boyarin, dvoretskoy i namestnik serpukhovskiy Artemon Sergeyevich Matveyev... Trudy i letopisi Obshchestva istorii i drevnostey rossiyskikh VII (1837) 57-67, ref. to p. 60 [24] This mission was organized through the efforts of a German doctor, one Laurent Rinhuber, employed at the court in Moscow. A. G. Brikner, Lavrentiy Ringuber Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosvyashcheniya 213:2 (1884) 296--421, ref. to pp. 405-406; P. Pierling, Saxe et Moscou. Un M~decin diplomate. Laurent Rinhuber de Reinufer (Paris 1893) 44; D.M. Lebedev, Geografiya v Rossii XVII veka (do-petrovskoy epokhi) (Moscow 1949) 98 [25] Bantysh-Kamenskiy, op. cit. 25-26; Mancall, op. cit. 74 [26] This work has been recently reissued as Sibir' i Kitay, V. Solov'yev and A. Kidel' (Eds) (Kishinev 1960); J. F. Baddeley, Russia, Mongolia, China 2 vols (London 1919) II 209-212 [27] Yu. Krizhanich, Politika, transl, and ed. by V. V. Zelenin and A. L. Gol'denberg (Moscow 1965) 379-380. On Krizhanich's mercantilism, see V.I. Picheta (Ed), Yurii Krizhanich: ekonomicheskiye i politieheskiye vzglaidy (St Petersburg 1914) 16if; Smirnov, op. cit. 376 [28] Krizhanich, Politika, 387, 482. See above, note 17 [29] Dauria was a term used in the seventeenth century and later to refer to the Amur valley. In a specific geographical sense, it indicated the lands around the upper Amur [30] Ibid. 386, 395 [31] There exist two Russian translations of this work, which was composed in Latin. The first of

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19

these appeared anonymously in 1822 in G. Spasskiy's Sibirskiy Vestnik (Parts 17-18). The second and more complete version--including the original Latin text--is [Yu. Krizhanich], "Historia de S i b i r i a . . . " in A. A. Titov (Ed), Sibir' v XVllveke, (St Petersberg 1890) 115-216. Also see M.P. Alekseyev, Sibir" v izvestiyakh zapadno-evropeyskikh puteshestvennikov i pisateley. Vvedeniye, teksty, i kommentarii. XIII-XVI1 vv. 2nd ed. (Irkutsk 1941) 445 [32] [Krizhanich], "Historia de Sibiria," 215. Also see the document "Opisaniye chego r a d i . . . " for a statement from the reign of Aleksey Mikhaylovich that the Arctic is impassable due to "ice and frost and darkness and murk" (radi l'dov i stuzhi i tmy i mgla). "Opisaniye chego radi nevozmozhno ot Arkhangel' skogo goroda morem prokhodit' v Kitayskoe gosudarstvo i ottole k vostochnoy Indii," Chteniya v imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostey rossiyskikh 167:4, ch. IV (1893) 13-14 [33] Krizhanich, Politika, 395; idem., "Historia de Sibiria," 214. To his essay on Siberia, Krizhanich appended a note specifically devoted to the China trade. This note is not extant; however, it has been suggested that it found its way back to Moscow, where it lent additional momentum to the organization of the Spafariy mission in t675. In any event, it is certain that Spafariy, on arriving in Tobolsk on his way east across Siberia to China, immediately sought out Krizhanich and had extensive consultations with him. Spafariy's subsequent suggestion of a combination land-water route across Siberia, also utilizing the Amur, probably originated with Krizhanich. S. A. Belokurov, Yurii Krizhanich v Rossii (po novym documentam) Chteniya v imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostey rossiyskikh 205:2, ch. III (1903) 1--306, ref. to pp. 33, 142--143; Mancall, op. cit. 76-78, 326-327; Spafariy, op. cit. 173 [34] Bassin, A Russian Mississippi?, 163-195 [35] R.J. Kerner, op. cit.. For a comprehensive account of Russia's advance to the east and southeast, see Lantzeff and Pierce, op. cit. [36] Fisher, op. cit. 17. Russian officials throughout this period freely referred to Siberia as their "little India," and indeed, were continuing to do so even into the nineteenth century. A Russian metropolitain, languishing in his Siberian exile in the 1600s, instructed his friends in Moscow to seek clemency for him, "'pleading and praying to save me from the darkness which reigns in Little India, called Siberia'." N. F. Kapterev, Kharakter otnosheniy Rossii k pravoslavnomu Vostoku v X V I - X V I I stoletiyakh (Sergeyev Posad 1914) 240; emphasis in original [37] Kostomarov, op. cir. 258; G. Kotoshikhin, O Rossii v tsarstvovanii Alekseya Mikhaylovicha (St Petersburg 1906) 144-145 [38] Fisher, op. cit. 129-130 [39] Ibid., 142, 203; Kostomarov, op. cit. 12. Vernadsky estimated that at this time the fur trade accounted for fully one quarter of the total income of the Russian state, and Gibson sets the figure for mid-century yet higher, at one third. G. Vernadskiy, Protiv solntsa. Rasprostraneniye russkogo gosudarstva k vostoku Russkaya Mysl' 35:1 (1914) 56-79, ref. to p. 63; Gibson, The significance of Siberia, 443. Also see G. V. Lantzeff, op. cit. 154; Fisher, op. cir. 119-120 [40] P.P. Mel'gunov, Ocherkipo istorii russkoy torgovli I X - X V I I I vv. (Moscow 1905) 209; Fisher, op. cit. 34, 98-99 [41] To be sure, there were other exotic items which were valued and sought by the Russians, such as mammoth tusks or walrus teeth, but everything else paled by comparison to the central, dominant quest for furs. See Kostomarov, op. cit. 225; Gibson, The significance of Siberia, 443. [42] Fisher, op. cit. 34; J. R. Gibson, Sables to Sea Otters. Russia enters the Pacific Alaska Review III (1968-1969) 203-217, ref. to p. 204 [43] Gibson, Sables to sea otters, 207-209; idem., Feeding the Russian fur trade, 2 6 2 7 [44] For an interesting critique of an "urge to the sea" as the basic dynamic behind Russian expansion (in various directions), see J. A. Morrison, Russia and warm water: a fallacious generalization and its consequences Proceedings o f the United States Naval Institute 78 (1952) 1169-1179 [45] Fisher, op. cit. 34 [46] "Nakaz stol'niku Petru G o l o v i n u . . . , " Russkaya Istoricheskaya Biblioteka II (1875) 96(~972, quote from p. 962 [47] Lantzeff, op. cit. 82. On the general problem of provisionment, which was never to be satisfactorially solved, see Gibson's authoritative work Feeding the Russian.fur trade [48] G. Miller, lstoriya o stranakh, pri reke Amure lezhashchikh, kogda onyye sostoyali pod rossiyskim vladeniyem Ezhemesyachnyye Sochineniya k pol'ze i uveseleniyu VI (June, August, Sept. Oct., 1757), 3-39, 99-130, 195-227, 291-328, ref. to pp. 4-5; Yakovleva, op. cit. 17-18

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M. BASSIN

[49] Dopolneniya k aktam istorieheskim 12 vols (St Petersburg 1846-1872) III Document 12 p. 51; M. Shestakov (Ed.), Instruktsiya pis'menomu golovu Poyarkovu Chteniya v imperatorskom obsehchestve istorii i drevnostey rossiyskikh I:V (1861) 1 14, ref. to p. 1; Miller, op. cit. 7, 13 [50] Dopolneniya k aktam istoricheskim, III, Document 72, pp. 260-261 [51] Miller, op. cit. 102 [52] Yakovleva, op. cit. 23; Gibson, Russia on the Pacific, 19 [53] Yakovleva, op. cit. 28 [54] N . N . Koz'min, M. V. Zagoskin i ego znacheniye v istorii razvitiya Sibirskoy obshchestvennosti, in his Ocherki proshlogo i nastoyashchego Sibiri (St Petersburg 1910) 151-229, quote from pp. 161 162 (emphasis in original); Lantzeff, op. cit. 82. The voyevodas of Krasnoyarsk, Verkhoyansk, Yakutsk, and other ostrogs complained constantly to Moscow about the unwarranted flight of their men to the Amur. Ironically, by draining away scarce labor resources, the Amur was actually destructive of what little agriculture existed in these regions. The government issued many edicts prohibiting such flight. Yakovleva, op. cit. 59 [55] Yakovleva, op. cit. 53; Miller, op. cit. 120. In a striking manner, this pattern of initial high hopes and eventual disappointment was repeated some two centuries later. The image of the Amur valley as an "El Dorado" was resurrected in the mid-nineteenth century, with identically exuberant and identically misleading depictions of the region's mild climate, fertile soils, and fabulous mineral riches. At this time, they were important in creating a climate of opinion in European Russia sympathetic to the annexation of these territories, a climate that dissipated quite completely within a few years after their acquisition in 1860. Bassin, A Russian Mississippi 262-304 and passim [56] Mancall, op. cit. 21, 114 [57] Demidova and Myasnikov, op. cit. 132; Russko-kitayskiye otnosheniya v 17 veke. Materialy i dokumenty, 2 vols (Moscow 1969 1972) I Doc. 85 p. 217; A Kappeler, Die Anf~inge eines russischen Chinabildes im 17. Jahrhundert Saeculum 31 (1980) 27~43 ref. to p.32. Two decades later, this situation was repeated: the Spafariy mission was dispatched from Moscow in complete ignorance of the armed encounters once again taking place along the Amur. Kurts, op. cit. 42 [58] The seventeenth-century Russian version of this key passage reads as follows: " . . . chto u nashikh tsarskogo velichestva ratnykh lyudey uchinilas' ssora s Daurskoyu zemleyu, kotoraya pogranichna [sic] k nashey tsarskogo velichestva otchine k Sibire, i za toye ssoru khodili nashi tsarskogo velichestva ratnye lyudi na toye Daurskuyu zemlyu voynoyu, a togo ne vedali, ehto ta Daurskaya zemlya u vas v poddanstve." Russko-kitayskiye otnoshenii I Doc. 93 p. 229 (emphasis added). The Soviet editors of this collection of documents, apparently in an effort to obscure the obvious willingness of the tsar to acknowledge Chinese authority in the region, supply the improbable explanation in a note that "Dauria" here refers not to the Amur but to the land along the Sungari river, a southern Manchurian tributary. Ibid. I, 554. See below, note 63 [59] On Golitsyn, see E. Shmurlo, Golitsyn, V.V. Entsiklopedicheskiy Slovar' (Brokgauz-Efron) IX (1893) 147-148; A. Malinovskiy, Biograficheskiye svedeniya o . . . Knyaze Vasiliye Vasil'eviche G o l i t s y n e . . . Trudy i letopisi Obshehestva istorii i drevnostey rossiyskikh VII (1837) 68-85; Zapiska de-la Nevillya o Moskovii 1689 g. Russkaya Starina 71:9, 11 (1891) 419~450, 241582 [60] Bantysh-Kamenskiy, op. cit. 50-51 [61] The three sets of instructions are found in ibid., 50-57 [62] For the full text of the Nerchinsk Treaty, see Yakovleva, op. cit. 214~216 [63] The interpretation presented here of Russian interests at the Nerchinsk negotiations, and Muscovite attitudes overall toward the Far East, is supported in its essential points by a number of specialized works on the subject, Soviet as well as Western. See for example C. M. Foust, Muscovite and Mandarin: Russia's trade with China and its setting, 172~1805 (Chapel Hill 1969) 5-7; T. C. Lin, The Amur frontier question between China and Russia, 1850-1860 Pacific Historical Review 3 (1934) 1 27, ref. to p. 2; P.I. Kabanov, Amurskiy vopros (Blagoveshchensk 1959) 19-22; Yakovleva, op. tit. 127-134; Kurts, op. cit. 28-29; for a Russian interpretation from before the revolution see A. Sgibnev, 'Vidy russkikh na Amur i na torgovlyu s Yaponiyeyu v XVIII i pervoy polovine XIX st. Amur Nos. 35ff (1860) ref. to p. 517. It is not supported, however, in some recent Soviet studies of the Amur, and RussoChinese relations, in the seventeenth century. According to these works (all of which are impressive studies by acknowledged scholars, and represent important contributions to our knowledge of the subject), the Russian government considered the Amur region to be an integral and valuable part of the empire. The tsar was resolved to resist illegitimate Chinese

VIEWS OF SIBERIA

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pretentions on this territory, and to retain it at all costs. Only the superior military might that the Chinese were able to muster forced the Russian negotiators, against their own will and that of Moscow, to agree to cede the region. In short, territorial interests dominated over commercial. See especially Alekseyev, Osvoeniye russkimi lyud'mi Dal'nego vostoka, 33, 4146; Aleksandrov, op. cit. 175ff; V. S. Myasnikov, lmperiya Tsin i russkoye gosudarstvo v XVII veke (Moscow 1980) 258-259; Russko-kitayskiye otnosheniya, I 53-54. Without entering into an involved debate oil this question, I would suggest that this "revisionist" perspective--which is at odds with the evidence amassed in these works themselves (see note 58)--has more to do with contemporary Soviet-Chinese disagreements about territorial jurisdiction in the Far East than with the seventeenth century. The Russian experience on the Amur in the earlier period relates to one theater of expansion and colonialism in pre-Petrine Russia. Needless to say, no conclusions about the annexation of this region in the nineteenth century--much less about the relative merit of conflicting territorial claims in the 1970s--can be derived from it, however it may be interpreted. As stated at the outset, history must not be read retrospectively [64] Yakovleva, op. cit. 202-204; Foust, op. cit. 5 [65] N . M . Yadrintsev, Sibir" kak koloniya v geograficheskom, etnograficheskom, i istoricheskom otnoshenii 2nd ed. (St Petersburg 1892) 710 [66] D . K . Fieldhouse, Economics and empire (Ithica 1973) 159. The decision to sell Alaska to the United States, long discussed and finally adopted in the mid-1860s, is the most perspicuous example of the "withering" of Siberia's importance as a fur colony. See J. Gibson, The sale of Russian America to the United States Acta Slaviea laponiea (Sapporo) I (1983) 15-37 [67] Quoted in N.P. Barsukov (Ed.) Graf Nikolay Nikolayevich Murav'yev-Amurskiy po ego pis'mam . . . . 2 vols (Moscow 1891) I 670 [68] See especially N. M. Gersevanov, Zamechaniya o torgovykh otnosheniyakh Sibiri k Rossii Otechestvennyye Zapiski XIV: otdel iv (1841) 23-34. To be sure, these were not the only images of Siberia among European Russians. Beginning in the eighteenth century, in the works of Lomonosov, Radishchev, and others, Siberia was celebrated as Russia's promised land of potential and indeed, as a veritable "land of the future" (zemliya budushchego). By the 1830s and 1840s, these views had become popular especially among opponents of the iron regime of Nicholas I, including such notables as Alexander Herzen and Mikhail ButashevichPetrashevskiy. These young radicals, who had little if any realistic knowledge about Siberia, imagined it nevertheless not simply as a land of the future but a positive alternative to a European Russia despoiled by centuries of tsarist despotism: a fresh and untainted region which could serve as a source of regeneration for a pure and unadulterated Russia. Bassin, A Russian Mississippi? 48-60; also see Bassin, Radical and conservative views of Siberia in the 19th century (in preparation) [69] On the absence of a "philosophy or coherent ethos of expansion" before the 19th century, see Foust, Russian expansion to the East, 470; E. Sarkisyanz, Russian imperialism reconsidered, in T. Hunczak (Ed.) Russian imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution (New Brunswick, New Jersey 1974), 45-81, passim. For an excellent recent study of late tsarist imperialism, see Geyer, op. cit.