peasant migrattion in russia

8/13/2019 Peasant Migrattion in Russia

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Peasant Migration and the Settlement of Russia's Frontiers, 1550-1897Author(s): David MoonSource: The Historical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1997), pp. 859-893Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2640127.Accessed: 20/09/2011 11:13

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TheHistoricalournal,0, 4 (I997), pp. 859-893. Printed n theUnitedKingdom(?) I997 CambridgeUniversityress

PEASANT MIGRATION AND THESETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA'SFRONTIERS, 1550-1897*

DAVID MOONUniversity fNewcastle upon Tyne

A B STRACT. This rticleurveyshexpansionfRussianeasantettlementfrom550,when mostof he5 millioneasantsivedn heforest-heartlandfMuscovy,o 897,whenroundfiftyillionRussian easantsivedhroughoutarge arts f hemmenseussianmpire.tseekso xplainowthismassivexpansionas chieved itheferenceodiferentfacetsf hefrontier'.:he oliticalfrontierf he ussiantate; he nvironmentalfrontieretweenforestnd teppe;heifewayfrontierbetweenettledpeasantgriculturendpastoralomadism;nd hehierarcuhicalfrontier'etweenheRussian uthoritiesnd hemass f he easantry.he rticle raws ttentilono he iferentaysinwhicheasant-migrantsdaptedo he arietyfnew nvironmentsheyncountered,nd tressesinteractioncross ach acet f he rontier.evertheless,y 897,the oincidenceetweenhe womain ypes fenvironmentnd the wo rincipalifewaysfthe opulationad been irtuallyeliminatednmuch f theRussian mpireutsideentral sia. Thiswasa consequenceftheexpansionfRussia's oliticalfrontiers,ass easantmigration,he loughingpofvast reas fpastureand,nd heedentarizationfmanyomadiceoples. he xpansionf easantettlementhelps xplainhe urabilityfRussianeasantocietyhroughouthe eriodfromhemid-sixteenthto heate-nineteenthenturies.

In I550 most Russian peasants lived in the forest-heartland f Muscovy1 thatwas situated to the north of the Oka river and to the west of the Uralmountains. The total area ofMuscovy in I550 was approximately i-i millionsquare miles. It was inhabited by a population of around 6-5 million. Inmarked contrast, n I897 Russian peasants lived throughout arge partsof animmenseempire that stretchedfromthe Baltic sea to the Pacific ocean, andfrom he Arctictundra to thearid steppesof central Asia. The territoriesuledfrom he mperial capital of St Petersburg n I897 covered a total of8-5 millionsquare miles (see Map i). The population in I897 numbered I25 million in* An earlierversion f this articlewas presented o a conference ntitledThe frontiernquestion'held tEssexUniversityn 2 I-23 April 995. I amgratefulo HughBrogan ornviting

me to attendtheconference,o myfellowpanellists,Willard Sunderland nd RodolpheDeKoninck, nd allwho participatedntheconferenceor ommentsn mypaperand givingmeabroader erspectiven the ubject. would also ike o thankMelanie lic for erhelp ntrackingdown the relevant ables n the provincial olumes f the 897 census, nd to acknowledgehefinancial upportf heBritish cademy nd theUniversityesearchCommitteend Staff ravelFund ofNewcastleUniversity.1 Muscovy s the name often ivento theRussianstatebefore hereign f Peterthe Great(I682-I725). 859


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86o DAVID MOON

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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 86iwhat had become a multi-nationalempire n which Russians made up slightlyunder half the total population. Nevertheless, Russian peasants formed themajorityor substantial minorities f the population in regions far beyond theoriginalforest-heartland. his was a consequence of shift othe south and eastin thecentre of gravityof Russian peasant settlement ollowing hree and halfcenturies of peasant migration and the settlement of Russia's expandingfrontiers.In spite of the dramatic changes in the area of the Russian state, thegeographical extentof Russian peasant settlement, nd the ethniccompositionof the population, there was one major continuity. n both I550 and I897peasantsmade up theoverwhelmingmajorityof the population ofthe Russianstate.Although the proportionofpeasants had declined fromaround go percent in the mid-sixteenth enturyto 77 per cent at the end of the nineteenthcentury,n I897 the egally-defined ocial estate (soslovie)fpeasants excludedsections of the rural population who were classified as Cossacks or 'aliens'(inorodtsy).he proportionofpeasants in I897 was lowest, moreover, n someof the empire's non-Russian borderlands, in particular Poland and centralAsia. In thefifty rovinces of European Russia', peasants stillcomprised84-2per centofthepopulation.'The aims of this article are, first,to try to explain how this massiveexpansion in Russian peasant settlement was achieved and, secondly, tosuggestone of the reasons forthedurabilityof Russian peasant society.The article is organized around the theme of frontiers.3he frontier fthe

2 On thegrowthnthe rea of heRussian tate, ee R. Taagepera, An overviewf hegrowthof heRussian mpire',nM. Rywkin, d.,Russian olonialxpansiono 9I7 (London nd New York,I988), tablefacing . i. On thepopulation n I550, see R. 0. Crummey, heformationfMuscovy,I304-I6I3 (London, 987), p. 2; Ya. E. Vodarskii,Naselenieossii a 400 et XVI-nachalo X vv.)(Moscow, I973), pp. 27-9; and in i897: K. B. Litvak, Perepis' naseleniya 897 goda okrest'yanstve ossii: (istochnikovedcheskiispekt)', IstoriyaSSR (I990), no. I, II 4. On theregionaldistributionf Russians nd theethnic omposition f thepopulation s a whole, eeS. I. Bruk ndV. M. Kabuzan, 'Dinamikachislennostirasselenie usskogo tnosa i678-i9I7gg.)', Sovetskayatnografiyai982), no. 4, 9-25; idem, Etnicheskii ostav naseleniyaRossii(I7I9-I9I7 gg.) , Sovetskayatnografiyai980), no. 6, i8-34; idem,Dinamika i etnicheskiiostavnaseleniya ossii v epokhu mperializmakonetsXIX v.-I9I7 g.)', IstoriyaSSR ig80), no. 3,74-93; A. Kappeler, Russland ls Vielevdlkerreich:nstehung,eschichte,erfallMunich, 992),pp. ioo-i. On theproportionfpeasants n I897, ee: N. A. Troinitskii,d., Obshchiivodpomperiirezul'tatovazrabotkiannykhervoiseobshcheierepisi aseleniya,roizvedennoi8 rYanvarya897 goda 2vols.,St Petersburg,905)I, xiii-xiv. See also: D. Moon, Estimating hepeasantpopulation flate-imperial ussia from he 897 census',Europe-Asiatudies,LVIII (i996), I4I-53. 'EuropeanRussia' includedRussia west f heUrals,Bessarabia,Ukraine, elarus, ithuania, nd theBalticprovinces,ut excludedPoland, Finland, nd the north aucasus.

3 The importance f' colonization' aslongbeen acknowledged s central o Russianhistory,most amously y Vasilii Klyuchevskiit theend ofthenineteenthentury. . 0. Klyuchevskii,Russkayastoriya:olnii ursektsii trekhnigakh3 vols.,Moscow, 993)1, I9 -20. Morerecently,'frontiers' ave attracted greatdeal ofattentionrom istoriansnd historical eographersfRussia. For a few xamples, ee: B. H. Sumner, urveyfRussian istoryLondon, 944), pp. 9-56;D. W. Treadgold,The reat iberian igration:overnmentnd easantnresettlemnentfrommancipationothefirstorld ar Princeton, J, 957), esp.pp. 3-9,239-46;J.L. Wieczynski,heRussianfrontier:thempactf he orderlandspon he oursef arly ussian istoryCharlottesville,A, I976); D. J.B.Shaw, Southern rontiersfMuscovy, 550-I700', inJ. H. Bater nd R. A. French, ds.,Studies


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862 DAVID MOONRussian state in the period covered by thisarticle was multi-faceted.Amongthe most importantfacetswere: the political frontier f the Russian state; theenvironmentalfrontier etween forest nd steppe; the ifeway rontier etweensettled peasant agriculture and pastoral nomadism; and the hierarchicalfrontier etween therulinggroups of Russian society,principallythe state andnobility, nd themass of the peasantry.The first hreefacetsof thefrontier aneasily be representedon a map. In I550 all three roughly coincided, and layjust to the south ofthe Oka river an eastward-flowing ributary fthe riverVolga). The fourth acet of the frontier efers rimarily o the social structureofpre-industrialRussia, butcan be represented eographicallyas theterritorialextent of the coercive power of the Russian state and elites.4 For most of theperiod between I 550 and I897 this multi-faceted rontierannot be shownona map by a single line. Rather it was a band of territory hat defied cleardemarcation. To use a term pplied byRichard White to a similar space in theGreat Lakes regionof northAmerica between i65o and i8 5,Russia's frontierwas 'the middle ground . It was an intermediatezone of interaction andmutual accommodation between the Russian state and neighbouring statestructures,Russian peasant-migrants nd the environment, nd agriculturalpeasants and pastoral nomads and other native peoples. In the wake of theexpansion of Russia's political frontier,Russian peasant-settlerseventuallyovercame the environmentaland lifewayfacetsof the frontiers,n part as aresult of nteractionwith the state and elitesacross thehierarchical frontier.

IBefore turning o the fourfacetsof the frontiern moredetail,we need to lookat trends n peasant migration.The first ate forwhich reasonably accuratefigures or heRussian peasant population are available is I678, theyearofthe

inRussian istoricaleography2 vols.,London, 983), I, ii 8-42; A. Donnelly,The mobile teppefrontier:he Russianconquest nd colonization f Bashkiria nd Kazakhstan o i850', in ibid.pp. I89-207; I. Stebelsky,The frontiern centralAsia', in ibid. pp. I53-70; J. Pallot andD. J. B. Shaw, Landscapend ettlementnRomanov ussia, 6i3-I9I7 (Oxford, 990), pp. I3-32;D. J. B. Shaw, Settlementnd landholdingn Russia's outhernrontiern the arly eventeenthcentury', lavonicnd astEuropeaneview,XIX (I99I), 232-56; R. Hellie, d., ThefrontiernRussianhistoryspecial ssue fRussian istory,IX (I 992)]; M. Bassin, Turner, olov'iev, nd the frontierhypothesis": henationalist ignificancefopen spaces',JournalfModern istory,XV (I993),473-5 I I; T. M. Barrett,Linesofuncertainty:hefrontiersfthenorth aucasus',SlavicReview,LIV I995), 578-60I; P. Gatrell,Ethnicity nd empire n Russia's borderland istory', istoricalJournal,XXVIII (1995),7 I 5-27. See also W. H. McNeill,Europe'steppefrontier,5oo-i8oo Chicagoand London, 964).

4 Marc Raeff dentifiedTwo major dimensions f the processof imperial expansion':'territorial nd political' and 'socioeconomic nd cultural'.M. Raeff, PatternsofRussianimperialpolicytoward he nationalities',n idem,Politicaldeas nd nstitutionsn mperialussia(Boulder,CO, I994), p. I28.R. White,The middleround:ndians,mpires,ndrepublicsntheGreat akesregion,650-i8i5(Cambridge ndNew York, 99 I).


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA IS FRONTIERS 863

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864 DAVID MOONTable 2. Peasantettlementy egion,678-I897 (percentages)

Zones/regions I 678 I7I9 I 762 i8i i I857 I897ForestheartlandCent NBE 49 77 4I'00 34.82 29.35 24.0I I9-7IN-W 7.28 7-32 7-50 6-75 5-55 7-34Northern *I2-85 5 69 497 4'04 3.9I 3.52N Urals _* 465 739 8.43 I0-74 io-66Total 69-90 58.65 54.68 48.58 442I 4I.22Steppes

CentBE 22-84 25.29 25.46 27-60 26-0I 22-34Mid-Volga 5-94 I2 7I io-8i I0-98 I I.27 IOI5Lower-V& D -t 003 2-78 5-03 7-40 I0-64S Urals 0t -28 I179 2.79 41 4 8-I2Total 28.78 38.3I 40.85 46.4I 4882 5124Siberia I-32 3-04 4-47 5-02 6-97 7-54Total I00o00 I 00-00 I 00-00 I 00-00 I 00-00 I 00-00* I678, N Urals included in Northern.t LowerV-D and S Uralsvirtually nsettlednlate CI 7.Sources:ee Table i.

household tax census. Figures derived from this census can be comparedwithdata from he tenpoll tax censuses held between 17I9 and I857, and thefirst eneral census of thepopulation of i897.6The figuresn Tables I and 2 on changes in theregional distribution fthemale peasant population overtimeclearly show the massiveshiftn the balanceof thepeasant population from he forest-heartland o thesteppesand Siberiathat startedover a centurybefore I678 and continued until,and after, 897.For purposesofcomparison, thedata in Tables i and 2 are forthe bordersofthe Russian state in the middle of the seventeenthcentury.This was theterritory uled by the Russian tsars before eft-bankUkraine transferredtsallegiance to Moscow in I654 and priorto the era of mperial expansion thatbegan in the reign of Peter the Great (i682-I725). There are a number ofreasons for choosing this territory.Left-bank Ukraine and most of theacquisitions of theeighteenth nd nineteenth enturies omprised partsofeast-central Europe,7 the Pontic steppe, Transcaucasia, and central Asia. Sincetheselands were, and remained, inhabited mainly by non-Russians, theycan6 See Ya. E. Vodarskii,Naselenie ossiiv kontseVII-nachale VIII veka: chislennost',oslovno-klassovyiostav,azmeshchenie)Moscow, 977); V. M. Kabuzan, Narodonaselenieossii XVIII-pervoipolovineIX v. (pomaterialamevizii)Moscow, 963); Litvak, Perepis", pp. I I4-26; Troinitskii,Obshchiivod.7 Right-bankUkraine, Belarus, Lithuania, the Baltic provinces,Poland, Finland andBessarabia.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 865be considered to be the empire's non-Russian borderlands. For the entireperiod between I550 and I897 the vast majority of Russian peasants livedinside the borders of the pre-Petrine Russian state of the mid-seventeenthcentury.This territorylso has considerable practical significance or ompilinga seriesofcomparable figures n peasant settlement ecause it s approximatelythatcovered by the first oll tax censusof I 7 I 9-2 I (to which I have added theDon Cossack territory).8The territory f the pre-PetrineRussian state is also,with the exceptionof a few mportant ater additions, thatofthe present-dayRussian Federation that emerged nDecember i 99 I as the rump state from heformer oviet Union which, itself,was the heir to Russia's imperial past.9In order to trace patterns n peasant migration, have divided the territoryof pre-Petrine Russia into three main zones that reflect the expansion ofRussia's political frontier, nd the environmental and lifeway frontiers. hezones can, in turn,be sub-divided into a numberof smallerregions.The firstzone is the forest-heartland,which can be divided into four regions: the' central non-black earth region' (Moscow, Vladimir, Nizhnii Novgorod,Kostroma, Yaroslavl', Tver', Kaluga and Smolensk provinces); the 'north-westernregion' (St Petersburg,Pskovand Novgorod provinces); the northernregion' (Archangel, Vologda and Olonets provinces); and the northernUralsregion' (Perm' and Vyatka provinces). South of theOka river ie the steppes.The steppe zone ofEuropean Russia can be divided into two belts and fourregions. The first f the belts s the transitionalforested teppe. It contains tworegions: the ' central black-earth region' (Ryazan', Tula, Orel, Kursk,Voronezh and Tambov provinces) and the 'mid-Volga region' (Kazan',Penza and Simbirskprovinces). The second belt is the open steppe, whichcomprises: the ' lower-Volga and Don region' (Saratov and Astrakhan'

8 On the territoryovered by the first oll tax census see V. M. Kabuzan, Izmeneniyarazmeshcheniiaseleniyaossii XVIII-pervoipolovineIX v. pomaterialamevizii)Moscow, 97 ), pp.3, 59-63; idem,Narodyossii XVIII veke: hislennost'etnicheskiiostavMoscow, 990), pp. I I, 57.SlobodskayaUkraina (the future har'kov province)was separatefrom hat part of Ukrainewhich ame underRussian ruleafter654, but was also excludedfrom hefirst oll taxcensus.Smolensk nd partof hefuture molensk rovincewas recovered'from oland once and for llin I667, and was ncluded n first oll tax census. he territoryovered y thefirst oll tax censuswas approximatelyhatof thefollowing rovinces nd regionsn I897: Archangel, strakhan',Vladimir,Vologda, Voronezh,Vyatka, Kazan', Kaluga, Kostroma,Kursk, Moscow,NizhniiNovgorod,Novgorod,Olonets, Orel, Orenburg,Penza, Perm', Pskov,Ryazan', Samara, StPetersburg, aratov, Simbirsk, molensk, ambov, Tver', Tula, Ufa, Yaroslavl', Stavropol',Terek,Enisei,Zabaikal, rkutsk, obol'sk,Tomsk nd Yakutsk. he totalmale population f llsocial estatesof these provinces n I897 was 29,I86,I52. Kabuzan estimated he totalmalepopulation f he erritoryf he irstolltaxcensusn 897 at28,670,353, butdid not xplainhowhe arrived t this otal.Kabuzan, Izmeneniya,. I4. The differenceetween he two estimatess5I5,799, or i-8per cent. have added thepopulation f heDon region o my stimate. abuzanrecalculated iguresor hepopulationntheyears 7 9-I 858 for heprovincial oundaries f 8o6(Kabuzan, Narodonaselenie,p. I07-I6, I8o-227). I have recalculated hefigures rom he 897census or he i8o6 provinces n the basis of nformationn provincial order hanges nV. E.Den,NaselenieossiioVrevizii2 vols.,Moscow, 902), I, I63-83.9 Sumner, urvey,p. io-i6. The later dditions nclude tPetersburg,heKuban'/Krasnodarregion, hechnya nd Daghestan n thenorth aucasus,Tuva on theMongolianborder, nd thePacific ar ast.


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866 DAVID MOON

X S X {/ ~~~~~~Northeml

prov s n t Donoss n u Asu er Northe' tUralsregarge p Oren Ac U ralszone: Siberia (seeMa . Central

| i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ogouthlern

[; ;lackEarth;BlckTrhPEPPE

| \: j)~~~~~~~ Don, , l

Map 2. Regions of European Russia.

provinces and the Don Cossack and Caucasus territories) nd the 'southernUrals region (the large provinceofOrenburg) AcrosstheUrals lies the thirdzone: Siberia"0 (seeMap 2).0 The scheme or ividing ussia ntonatural egionss basedon: V. P. Semenov, d.,Rossiya:polnoeeograficheskoepisanie ashegotechestvai vols., St Petersburg,899-I 9 I4), I, Moskovskayaprornyshleiinayablast' verkhneeovol'zheSt Petersburg,899), pp. vi-vii; II, Ozernayablast' St


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 867In I678 mostRussian peasants till ived n the forest-heartland.easantsettlement atterns hanged considerably ver the following wo centuries,

mainlyas a result f mass migration. he main trend n the direction fmigration as to the outh nd east, irsto theforestedteppe nd, only n theeighteenthentury,urtherouth ndeast totheopen steppe.The proportionoftheRussianpeasantry hich ived n theforest-heartlandeclined teadilyfrom lmost 0 per cent n I678 to4I per centby I897. Over the ame periodthe percentage f theRussian peasantry hat lived in the steppe regionsincreased rom 9 to 5I per cent. The peasant population f stepperegionssurpassed hat f heforest-heartlandnthefirstalf f henineteenthentury.Over thewholeperiod,moreover, steady tream fpeasant-migrantsrossedtheUrals. The proportionf heRussianpeasantryivingnSiberia ncreasedfrom-3 to7-5per centbetween678 and I897 (see Tables I and 2). Relyingon ncomplete igures,heSovietdemographic istorians. I. Bruk ndV. M.Kabuzan estimated hatfrom he I670s to I896, in the whole oftheempire,almost en million eople migrated o thefrontieregions.Well overa thirdmigratedetween87I and 896.11Startingnthe 550s,Russianpeasant ettlementf he outh-easterntepperegions ook almost hree enturies.t took severalgenerationsorRussianpeasants,whowereusedtolivingn theforest,oadapt to thevery ifferentenvironmentalonditionsf he teppes, speciallyhe pensteppe. he lengthof imewas also a consequence f hepersistentostilityfmany fthenativeinhabitantsfthe steppes.Furthermore,nto the nineteenth entury,manypeasant-migrantsoved nly elativelyhort istances.12ythe econdhalf fthenineteenthentury,fter hreehundredyears fcolonization,hestepperegions ad been transformedrom he sparsely opulatedwild field' dikoepole) into a fullypopulated territory ith ittlevacant land. In the late-nineteenthentury,moreover,ll four tepperegionswere osingpopulationthroughet migration.easant-migrantsnthenineteenthentury,speciallyafter he 88os, movedfurtherhanmost ftheir redecessors.etween 867Petersburg,900), pp. iii-iv; H. Bauer,A. Kappeler,B. Roth,eds.,DieNationalitdtenes ussischenReichesn derVolkszdhluntgon897 (2 vols., Stuttgart,991), II, 35-65 (I am gratefuloDavidSaunders or rawingmy ttention o these olumes);A. V. Dulov,Geograficheskayareda istoriyaRossii:konets V-seredinaIX v. (Moscow, 983), p. 56; Kabuzan, Izrneneniya,. 4; Vodarskii,Niaselenieossii v kontse VII,pp. I47-8. I have followedKabuzan in using the provincialboundaries f 8o6. I have ncluded heDon territoryn a combined ower-Volga ndDon region.The borders f the nine regions o not alwayscoincide xactlywith hose f the environmentalbelts. ee Semenov,Rossiya,, Moskovskaya,. vii,n. I.11 S. I. Bruk nd V. M. Kabuzan, Migratsiya aseleniya Rossiiv XVIII-nachale XX veka:(chislennost',truktura,eografiya)',storiyaSSR (I984), no. 4, 52.

12 N. A. Gorskaya, d., Krest(yanstvoperiodyannego razvitogoeodaliznlaMoscow, I990),pp. 407, 4II; R. Hellie, Enserfmentnd mnilitaryhanlgenAIuscovyChicago and London, I97I),p. I29; Pallot and Shaw, Landscape,p. 7-8, I7; W. Sunderland, Peasants on the move: statepeasant resettlementn imperial Russia, I8o5-I830s', RussianReview, II (I993), 478; Yu.M. Tarasov,RusskayarestyanskayaolonizatsiyayuzZhnogorala:vtor-ayapoloviniaVIII-pervayapoloviniaXIX v. Moscow, 984), pp. 54-5, 88; Vodarskii, N'aselenieossii konltseVII, p. I 57.


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868 DAVID MOONand I897 over million eoplemigrated o Siberiafrom heEuropeanpartofthe Russianempire includingargenumbers fUkrainians).13

From hemiddle f henineteenthentury, oreover,herewere dditionaldestinations or mass peasant migration. ncreasingnumbersof Russianpeasantsmigrated eyond hebordersfpre-Petrineussia to thenon-Russianborderlands.14he totalnumber fRussianpeasants, othmen and women,who ived nthe outhernnd eastern on-Russian orderlandsf he mpire15in I897 can be estimatedt around3 million, lmost -5 million fwhom ivedin left-banknd southernUkraine and the Kuban' region n the northCaucasus.16 his was around6 per centofthenumber fpeasants hat ivedinside heborders fpre-Petrineussia.FewRussian peasantsmovedto theempire's on-Russian orderlandsnthewest ince hese egions lreadyhadtheir wn ndigenous easantpopulations nd therewas little and availablefor ettlement. ost of theRussian-speakersecorded n the I897 census sliving n the western orderlandswere probably oldiers, fficials, igrantsworkingn thecities, nd members f the ocal nationalities ho had beenassimilated o the Russian-speaking opulation.17Migrationby Russianpeasantsbeyondthe bordersof the mid-seventeenthentury o the non-Russian borderlandswas partly cancelled out by the large numbersofUkrainianpeasantswho moved to the centralblack-earth nd lowerVolgaandDon regionsnd to Siberia seebelow).Immigrationccountedforonly part of the increase n thenumbers fRussianpeasantswho ived nthe teppe egions, iberia, nd thenon-Russianborderlands. he ratesofnatural opulationncrease, he differenceetweenthenumbers fbirths nddeaths,werehighern thevarious egionshatwerebeingsettled han n theforest-heartland.a. E. Vodarskii stimated hat

13 B. N. Mironov,Traditsionnoe emograficheskoeovedeniekrest'yan XIX-nachale XXv.', inA. G. Vishnevskii,d., Brachnost',ozhdaemost',mertnost'Rossii vSSSR Moscow, 977),p. I02; Tarasov,Russkayarest'yanskaya,p. 72; Ya. E. Vodarskii, N/aselenieossii a 400 let XVI-nachalo X v.) (Moscow, 973), I30-2, I39-4I, I46-7; N. A. Yakimenko, Sovetskaya storio-grafiya ereseleniya rest'yan Sibir' i na Dal'nyi Vostok I86I-I9I7)', IstoriyaSSR (I980),no. 5, 95, 03; L. Goryushkin,Migration, ettlementnd the rural conomy f Siberia, 86i-I9I4', in A. Wood, ed., Thehistoryf iberia: rom ussian onquesto evolutionlLondonand NewYork, 99I), pp.I40-I. 14 Vodarskii,Naselenieossii a 400 let, p. 54-5.

15 Left-bank nd southern kraine,Transcaucasia nd the Kuban' region, entralAsia,andthePacific ar ast.16 Figures stimated rom ata in Bauer,Die N'ationalitdten,p. 36I-7; Brukand Kabuzan,'Dinamika chislennosti',p. I7, 23, 24; V. M. Kabuzan and G. P. Makhnova, Chislennost'udel'nyives ukrainskogo aseleniya a territoriiSSR v I795-I959 gg.', IstorSyaSSR (I965),no. I, 32; S. I. Bruk and V. M. Kabuzan, 'Dinamika i etnicheskiiostav', p. 92; Kabuzan,

Dal'nevostochnyikraivXVII-nachaleXXvv.I64o-I9I7) (Moscow, 985), pp. I57-8. (V. M. Kabuzan,N'aselenieevernogoavkazav XIX-XXvekakh St Petersburg,996] appeared too late forconsiderationn this rticle.) n marked ontrast,n the Sovietperiodconsiderable umbers fRussiansmigrated eyondtheborders fthe Russian Federation,eavingaround 25 millionRussiansnthe near abroad' afterhebreak-up ftheSovietUnion n 99I. Gatrell,Ethnicityand empire', . 7I6.17 See: Bauer, Die N'ationalitdten,p. 358-60; Bruk and Kabuzan, 'Dinamika chislennosti',pp. II, I7, 22-5; M. F. Hamm, ed., The ityn atemperialussiaBloomington,N, I986), pp.98,

I27-3I,I79-84,214-


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 869aroundone-third f thetotal ncreasen the population f thesouthern ndeastern egionswas due to immigrationnd therestwas a result f naturalgrowth.n the econdhalf f henineteenthentury,irth ates n the outhernand eastern rovinces ere bovetheRussianaverage.Thesecontributedohigher hanaveragerates fnaturalpopulation ncreasenthese egions.It has been argued that thepopulationgrewfastern the southern ndeastern egions ecause hey ad lessoppressiveariants f erfdomravoidedunfreeabour ltogether,njoyed etternvironmentalonditions,nd hadanabundance f ertileand. Theseexplanationsrenot ntirelyatisfactory.heregional ariationsnrates fnatural ncrease ontinuedfterheabolition fserfdomn I86I. The continuationf ower ratesafter 86I in central ndnorthern uropeanRussiamay, however, ave been due to thegrowth fseasonal migrantabour. This involved argenumbers fyoung dultswhootherwise ouldhave remainednthevillages nd raised amilies. he warmerclimate n the south nd eastmayhave been morepleasant,but twas alsomore avourable o the preadof pidemic iseases see below).Moreover,heunreliable ainfallmade theseregionsmore usceptibleobad harvests. hegreater vailability f land may be a better xplanationfor the rates ofpopulation rowth,npart,because t dissuadedpeasants rommigrating.18The explanation or hehigher atesof naturalpopulationgrowthn theregions that were receiving arge numbersof migrantsmay be quitestraightforward.lotof hemigrants erehealthy, oung eoplewhomovedtonewregions,etup homesteads, nd started amilies. hey eft ehind heolder,weakerpeople, who had passedtheir ertile ears nd were ikely odie sooner.The population ftheregions hatwerebeingsettled rewmorequickly artly ecause hebirth ateswerehighernddeathrates owerwhich,in turn,were a consequence f the argernumbers fyoungpeople.For theoppositereasons, he numbers fpeasants n theolderregions f settlementincreasedmore lowly.According o data for 897, moreover,uralwomeninthe teppe egions fRussiahad a marginally igherndex f verall ertility(Ig= o06i i) than in theforestheartland (I4 0-588) .19In all regions,heRussianpeasantpopulation njoyed ighrates fnaturalincrease or t east omeparts f heperiod etween 550 and I897onaccountofthepeasantry's eryhighfertility.his, nturn,wasa result f hepracticeofuniversal, arlymarriage hatwasdesigned o maximize hereproductivecapacityofthe peasant population.Russian peasantswere anxiousto makesuretheyhad large numbers fchildren o thatsufficientouldsurvive o

18 Vodarskii, NVaseleniieossii v kontseXVII, p. I 53-6; Goryushkin, Migration', p. I 43; A. G.Rashin,JNaselenieossii a IOO let I8II-I9I3): statisticheskiecherkiMoscow, I956), pp. I65-6,2I6-I9, 23I; Kabuzan, Izmeneniya,p. I6-37; idem,N'arodyRossii, sp. pp. I28, I30.

19 See A. Coale, B. A. Andersonnd E. Harm, HumanertilitynRussia ince he ineteenthentury(Princeton, J, 979), pp. 20-I; R. S. Clem, Population hange n theUkraine n thenineteenthcentury', n I. S. Koropeckyj, d., Ukrainianconomicistory:nterpretivessaysCambridge,MA,I99I), p. 237. On therelativemportance f mmigrationnd rapidnatural ncreasenthegrowthof the European populationsof the Americas and Australasia, ee A.J. Crosby, Ecologicalimperialism:he iologicalxpansionfEurope,00-I900 (Cambridge,986), pp. 300-5.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 87IRussian political frontier nto the steppe regions and Siberia that AndreasKappeler has called 'the gathering of the lands of the Golden Horde'.22

After he victoriesof the I550s, the Russian state took steps to subjugate thenative inhabitants and to open the steppes to Russian peasant settlement. heRussian state employed a variety of methods. The state joined in andmanipulated the constantly hifting lliances and rivalriesbetween the varioussteppe peoples, periodically allying with one people against another. Forexample, at timestheRussian state allied with the Kalmyks against Bashkirs,Kazakhs and rebellious Cossacks. This was part of the process of interactionbetween states in the 'middle ground' of the frontier hat lasted until theRussian state succeeded in expanding its control. One way in which theRussian state achieved this was by co-opting the elites of peoples in theborderlands into Russian service. The Russian statepreservedand supportedthe elites' privileged status in their societies in return for their swearingallegiance and paying tribute to the tsar. This policywas carried out amongsteppe peoples such as the Tatars and Kalmyks and, later, in other frontierregions n Siberia and the western borderlands.Furthermore, he state constructed series of fortifiedines along its steppefrontier o protectRussian settlers nd the heartland ofMuscovy fromnomadicraids. The linesalso servedas a basis for urtherxpansion into the steppes.Theconstruction ftheBelgorod and Simbirskdefensive ines n the first alf oftheseventeenthcentury ecured the regionsof theforested-steppe elt.23Furtherfortifiedineswere built in thesouthernUrals and across thenorthCaucasus.These lines werepartof hestate'sstrategy f ubjugatingthe native nhabitantsof theseregions, or xample the Bashkirs nd Chechens. These Islamic peoplesdeclared jihads against Russian incursion onto their lands. The Bashkirsrebelled at regular intervals between the late-sixteenth nd late-eighteenthcenturies,and participated in the Pugachev rebellion of I773-4. The nativepeoples of the northCaucasus fought long guerilla war against the Russianarmythat astedfrom he ate-eighteenth entury o the I86os. From the I830s,theywere led bythe mam, Shamil. Nevertheless, he Russian state was able todefeat tsneighbours n thesteppe regionsand incorporate their ands behindits expanding political frontier.24

22 Crummey, ormation,p. 29-30, 73, 96-IOI, I52-5, I7I; H. R. Huttenbach, Muscovy'sconquestof Muslim Kazan and Astrakhan,552-56. The conquestof the Volga: prelude toempire', n M. Rywkin, d., Russianlolonlialxpansion,p. 45-69; Kappeler,Russlanld,p. 25-36;V. P. Zagorodovskii,storiyakhozhdeniyasenltral'nlogohernozemnyaostav ossiiskogoosuidarstvaXVIveke Voronezh, 99i), pp. 5-8, 3I-5. See also D. Christian,Inner Eurasia as a Unit ofWorldHistory',Journalf World istory, (I 994), 206-7.23 Hellie, Enserfment,p. 28-3I; Kappeler,Russland,p. 53-6; M. Khodarkovsky,Wherewoworlds et: he ussiantatend he almykomads,60o-1771Ithaca,NY, 992), pp. 30-I, 50-7,74-2I3; Pallot and Shaw, Landscape, p. I4-20; Raeff, Patterns', pp. I29-30. See also:A. Kappeler, Die rollederNichtrussener MittlerenWolga in den russischenolksaufstandendes I 7. Jahrhunderts',orschungenzur steunropeischeneschichte,xvii (i 980) , 249-68.

24 Donnelly,Mobile', pp. I89-202; A. Bodger,Nationalitiesnhistory:oviethistoriographyand the Pugacevscina', ahrbiichertr Geschichtesteur1opas,XXIX (I99I), 56i-8i; Semenov,Rossiya,, Ural Priural'eSt Petersburg,9 I 4), pp. I 38-4 I; M. Atkin,Russianexpansion n the


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872 DAVID MOONIn additionto the annexation f thestepperegions, he Russian politicalfrontierlsoexpanded astof heUrals.The Russian onquest f iberiabeganin the ate-sixteenthentury,n thewake of the victories ver Kazan' andAstrakhan'.n I58 I-2, thecossackYermakTimofeevichnd his mencrossedtheUrals to defend heStroganov amily'sommercialnterests,ncluding hefur rade.Theydefeated heTatar khanate fSiberia.The khanate overedonlya smallpartof western iberia.Yet, by themiddleof the seventeenthcentury, ussianfur-trappersnd traders ad travelled hree housandmilesto theshores f the Pacificocean. The significant,fthinly pread, nativepopulation f he iberian orestutupconsiderable esistanceo the nvaders,but their ows ndarrowsndspearswereno match or heRussians' irearms.As on the steppes, he Russian nvaders ookadvantageof rivalries etweenlocal peoples. For example,Khantysfoughtwith the Russians against theEvenki and other native Siberians.The Russiansattempted,with mixedsuccess, o use local elites o collectthe fur ributeyasak)n return ortaxexemptionnd privilegedtatus.The Turkicand Mongol nomadicpeoples(including atars,Kazakhs,Buryats nd Dzhungars)who ivedonthe teppesto thesouthpresented muchgreater bstacleto Russianexpansion ntoSiberia han he ndigenous eoples f heforest.he Russian uthoritiesuiltfurtherinesoffortificationsrom hesouthernndof theUrals to theAltaiMountains, longtheboundary f heforestnd the teppes.n thePacific areast,Manchu China posed an even more formidable arrierto Russianexpansion.n the ate-seventeenthentury ussian ettlersad to abandon theAmurriver asin afterMuscovywasforced o acknowledge hinese uleovertheregion, nder he ermsf heTreaty fNerchinsk,n 689.The Pacific areastdidnotbecomepartoftheRussian tateuntil 858-6o25 (see Map i).In spiteof the resistance f the ocal states nd indigenous eoplesof thesteppesndSiberia, nthe ongrun hey roved o benomatch or heregulararmy, irearms,ndorganizationalmight f he xpanding ussian tate.Theexpansion f hepolitical rontierf heRussian tateby militaryndpoliticalmeanswasonlypartof he tory.n order ounderstand heprocess fpeasantmigrationnd the ettlementfRussia'sfrontiers,e need to ook at how thepeasant-migrants anagedto overcome heenvironmentalrontieretweenforestnd steppeand the ifeway rontieretweenpeasant agriculturendpastoralnomadism.

Caucasus to I8I3', in Rywkin, Russian colonial xpansion,p. I54-67; E. W. Brooks, Nicholas I asreformer: ussian ttempts o conquer heCaucasus, 825-I855', in I. Banac, et al., eds.,Nationand deologyNew York, 98I), pp. 227-63; M. Gammer,Muslim esistanceo he sar: hamil nd heconquestfChechniandDaghestanLondon, 994) ; Kappeler,Russland,p. 42-50, I49-55.25 J. Forsyth, historyf he eoples f iberia:Russia's orth sian olony58i-I990 (Cambridge,

I992), pp. I-I5I, 20I-4; Y. Slezkine,Arctic irrors:ussia nd hemallpeoplesf he orthIthaca,NY, and London, I994), pp. I7-I8, 23, 67-9; Kappeler, Russland, p. 36-42; Stebelsky,'Frontier', p. I44-53.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 873III

In I550 the south-eastern political frontier f the Russian state coincidedroughlywithenvironmentalfrontier etween forest nd steppe that lay ust tothe south of the Oka river. Apart from a band of tundra to the north of theArctic circle, most of northern and central European Russia and much ofSiberia was originallycloaked by an immenseforest: oniferous orest r taigain the north, nd mixed coniferous nd deciduous woodland in the south. Thebelt of coniferous orest s dominated by evergreenpine, spruce, larch and firtrees. n the southernpart of the coniferousforest, he variety s increased byhardier typesofdeciduous trees, especially birch,asp and alder. The soils inmost of the coniferousbelt are very poor with large areas ofmarsh. Furthersouth, n themixed-forestelt,the treesofthetaiga re supplemented bybroad-leaved trees uch as oak, maple, elmand lime. In much ofthemixed-forest eltthe soil is moderately fertile, oamy, podzol. Both the coniferous nd mixed-forest elts played host to a rich and varied wildlifebeforehuman activity, nparticular the decimation of their foresthabitats, hunting and trapping,greatlyreduced theirnumbers. There werebig populations of argermammalssuch as elk, deer,bears,wolves and wild boar. It was theconsiderable numbersofsmaller,fur-bearing nimals, for example, foxes,hares, beavers, minkandsable, however, that were the chief attraction to the Russian trappers andtraderswho moved deep into the forests f northernRussia and, from he late-sixteenth entury, nto Siberia.To the south ofthe mixed forest, cross the Oka river, ies the transitionalforested-steppe elt. It runs fromUkraine to the Urals. The southernfringepasses to the southofVoronezh, crossing heVolga at Samara. At its widest thebelt barely exceeds 200 miles fromnorthto south. It continuesin a narrowerstrip across the most southerly part of western Siberia as far as the Altaimountains.Throughout the belt deciduous forest lternates with areas ofopensteppe grassland.The floraand fauna of the woodland were similar to those ofthe forestedregionsto the north. Before thegrasslandswere ploughed up bypeasant-settlers,heyhad been coveredwithhighgrasses,flowering erbs,andthicketsof bushes. The original animal population of the grassland includedantelopesand wild horses.The soils of theforested-steppeelt are considerablymore fertile han those oftheforest-heartland.n thenorthern artof thebelt,greyforest arthpredominates.In the central and southernparts, however, sthefamous black earth (chernozem),ichin humus and very fertile, hat luredRussian peasants across theOka river, ut oftheforests,nd south and east tothe steppes.Beyond Voronezh and Samara the forestedsteppe shades into the opensteppe: a huge expanse ofseeminglyendlessgrassland dominated by big skiesthatformspart oftheimmenseEurasian steppeswhich extend fromHungarytoManchuria. The Russian open steppe encompassesthe ower Don and Volgariverbasins, reaching as far south as the northern shores of the Black andCaspian seas and the foothills f the Caucasus mountains. The open steppe is


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874 DAVID MOONalmost ntirelyevoidofwoodland xceptntheriver alleys nd ravines. heoriginal lora nd faunawere imilar o those fthegrasslandsntheforestedsteppe. n most f heopen steppe eltthe oil sfertile lack earth.Alongthelowerreaches ftheVolga,however, heblack earthgivesway to thepoorer,lighter, hestnut oils fthearidCaspian steppe26see Map 3).Acrossthe ands that came to form he Russian empire he climate lsovaries. arge parts fRussia ufferromhortagesf ither eatormoisture,rboth. n EuropeanRussia,the vailable heat ncreases rom henorth-westothesouth-east, hereasmoisture oes theopposite. n thedampnorth-west,moreover, he soil s fairly oor, whereas he fertile lack-earth f the opensteppe n thesouth-easts cursedwith ow and unreliable ainfall. dequateand reliableheat and moisture oincidewithfertileoilsonly ntheforested-steppe belt, where they combinedto produce very good conditions oragriculture.27he regional ariationsnenvironmentalonditions reatedbythecombination f oil,natural egetation,nd climate layed largerole ninfluencingheregionswhereRussianpeasants ettled.Russian peasants nteractedwiththenaturalenvironmentsf theregionsthey ettled n. Over thecenturies, henmost ived n theforest-heartland,they upported hemselvesygrowing ereals ndkeepingivestock. ecauseoftherelativelynfertileoil, manypeasants upplementedheir ncomeswithnon-agriculturalctivities. easants hoppeddownmillions f cresof rees omakearable land, meadowsand pastures. easantshad to wield their xesbeforehey ouldplough pthe and.They lsochoppeddown rees oprovidethe raw materials orconstructionnd craft roduction.28his pattern fadapting to the environment,nd altering t to suit the needs of peasantfarmingnd other ctivities, asrepeated cross argeparts ftheexpandingRussianstate.Since mostpeasant-migrantsimed to continue arming,heysettlednareaswhere he onditions ere uitable or griculture.easants idnot,therefore,ettle n largenumbers n northernnd eastern iberia,wherethepermafrost ade crop cultivation xtremely ifficult,r in the deserts fcentral Asia. Peasant-migrants requentlyettled n areas with similarenvironmentso their omes.Manyof he arlyRussianpeasant-settlersntheconiferousorest fwestern iberiacamefrom similar orest nvironmentnthenorthernnd northern rals regions.Migrants rom he forested-steppebeltofEuropeanRussiawho moved o Siberiaoftenmadetheir ewhomesnthe ontinuationf hebelt astof heUrals. twasalso no accident hatmany

26 See Dulov,Geograficheskayareda,p. 5-I 2; V. V. Tochenov, t al., eds.,Atlas SSR (Moscow,I985), pp. I04-5, I08-9; Pallot and Shaw, Landscape,p. 5-6, 58-63; R. E. F. Smith, easantfarmingn MuscovyCambridge, 977), pp. 66-74, II I-I5, I58, I99-200; Sumner,Survey,pp. I 9-47; J. parks,Realms f he uissianear: naturalistoryfRussia nd he entralsian epublics(London, 992).

27 D.J. M. Hooson, 'The geographical etting', n R. Auty and D. Obolensky, ds., AnintroductionoRuissianistory:ompanionoRussiantuidies,(Cambridge,976), p. 9; Smith, easantfarming,p. 220-2; I. Stebelsky,Agriculture nd soil erosion n theEuropean forest-steppe',nBater nd French, tudies,, 45.28 R. A. French,Russians and theforest',n Bater and French, tudies,, 27-30; PallotandShaw, Landscape,p. 6-7; Smith, easantfarming,p. I0-79.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 875

brJX,J'~~~~~~~~~~~~C,, /)

,-C.& b g - 0,-C

CPA~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CV.3, C

/ i,,

CCCC


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876 DAVID MOONof hepeasantswho ettledn the ridopen steppes fnorthern azakhstan nthe ate-nineteenthenturywere from heopen stepperegions f the owerVolga andDon andUkraine.29Some ettlers,evertheless,ad tochange heir ustomaryractices o adjustto differentoils, limates nd naturalvegetations. he traditional ussianhorse-drawn oodenplough sokha),whichwas satisfactoryor urning verthe ight oils f heforestedegions, asuseless ntheopen steppes, here heheavyblackearthwas mattedwith heroots f he teppe rasses.n itsplace,the ettlersearned o usea heavier lough plug) ulledbyoxen.Becauseof heinitialproblems fploughing he and, settlersn open stepperegionsweremorereliant n rearing ivestock. n thetreeless teppepeasant-settlersuilttheirhouses out of clay or bricksrather han wood. Donald MacKenzieWallace,whotravelledxtensivelyn Russia nthe 87os, noted he ransitionas he movedfrom heforestedteppe otheopen steppe outh-east fSamara:As I proceeded astwards noticed change n theappearanceof the villages.Theordinarywoodenhouses,withtheirhigh sloping oofs, radually ave place to flat-roofed uts, uiltofa peculiarkindofunburnt ricks, omposed fmud and straw.Villagestended o be larger n the outh-easternteppes han n theforestedregions artly ecause therewerefewer ources fwater o settle y. Peasantswho ettlednSiberia uickly iscovered hatwhilemany f he rops hey adgrown n European Russia also flourishedn theirnew land, some of thevarieties f eed-corn hey ad broughtwith hem ould notgrowproperlyntheharsher limate. n thenorth fwesterniberia,where he oilwas notveryfertile, easant-settlersegan to fertilize he land with animal dung, aninnovation hatwas copied by the older Russian inhabitants starozhily).Because of the environment,nimal husbandry layeda largerrole in theeconomies fmanypeasantswhosettledn Siberia than thad donein theirnativeprovinces.30Throughout hevarious egions, ussianpeasant-settlerseveloped ustomsand ways of ifethat,at least in part,wereresponsesto the local environment.This was the middle ground' of the environmental acet of the frontier. ut, inspiteofthisprocessof nteractionwith natural conditions, n thelong run,thebasic lifeway of the Russian peasantry survived. Peasants changed theenvironmentrather more than it altered them.In the northern nd central regionsofEuropean Russia the biggest mpactpeasants had on theenvironmentwas theclearance of vast areas offorest.Theextentof deforestationncreased with thegrowth n thepeasant population. In

29 Forsyth, istory,p. I00-I; Goryushkin,Migration',pp. I4I-2; Treadgold,Great, . 24I;Stebelsky,Frontier', . I58; Vodarskii,Naselenie ossii a 400 let, p. 50, 87.30 D. V. Naidich, Pakhotnye razrykhlyayushchierudiya', n P. I. Kushnera, d., Russkie:istoriko-etnograficheskiitlas: Zemledelie.rest'yanskoe.hilishche.restyanskayadezhda.seredinaIX-nachalo X veka) Moscow, 967), pp. 33-45; Z. J. Deal, Serf nd tate easant griczulture:harkovprovince, 842-i86I (New York, I98I), pp. 33I-3, 395; Gorskaya,Krestyanstvo,p. 409-I3;M. Matossian,The peasantwayof ife',nW. S. Vucinch, d., The easantnnineteenth-centuryussia(Stanford, A, I968), pp. i-8; D. MacKenzieWallace,Russia,stedn 2 vols., ondon,Paris ndNewYork, 877), II, 30-I ; Pallot ndShaw,Landscape,. 8; Goryushkin,Migration', p. I 44-50.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 877mostprovinces of the centralnon-black-earth, entral black-earth, and mid-Volga regions, hearea of and coveredby forestwas reduced bybetween a halfand two-thirds ver theeighteenth nd nineteenth enturies.The open stepperegions,moreover, ostmuch ofwhat littlewoodland they had. Between I696and I9I4 European Russia lost about 28 per cent of tsforests. easants werenot solely to blame forthe devastation ofRussia's forests.Noble landowners,industrialists, hip builders, and exporters also contributed. Deforestationdestroyed hehabitatsofforestwildlife, ome of whomcame close to extinctionin large areas west ofthe Urals.31The introduction ofpeasant agriculture also had a serious impact on thesteppe grasslands.Peasant-settlersburnt the natural grassesand scrub of theopen steppes topreparethe and forploughing. The area of teppe and clearedand ploughed up increased withthe tide ofpeasant migration and populationincrease. The loss of thenatural grasscoveringand woodland werepotentiallyvery harmful.By the nineteenthcentury, n large parts of the steppe regions,overcropping,overgrazing,and the use ofmarginal lands, especiallyon slopesin rivervalleysand ravines, ed towidespread soilerosion.The resulting ulleysgrew rapidly, and took away more and more of the valuable, fertile,blackearth.32Peasant-settlersin Siberia also had a harmful impact on the naturalenvironment. fthedamage was less than in European Russia, however, t wasonly because thenumberofmigrants elative to theenormousarea of and wasmuch lower. Although the fur-tradehad been the principal motive for theoriginal Russian settlersn Siberia, most ofthefur-trappersnd traders werenotpeasants. Peasantsmigrated toSiberia rather ater,and did so withthe aimoffarming heland. The fruits f their abour went n part tofeedthegrowingnumbersofRussian trappers, raders, oldiers nd officialswho livedeast oftheUrals. The spread ofpeasant agriculture cross southernSiberia was achievedat the costof arge areas offorest,much oftheanimal life tsupported,and thelivelihood of many of the native peoples who lived offthe resources of theforest.33By the end ofthenineteenth entury ome educated Russians believed thatdeforestation and ploughing up the land had had a harmful effecton theclimate ofthe steppe regions.They wererightto be concerned. Deforestationtends to make climates drier and more extreme,with hotter summers andcolderwinters.More importantly he weather becomesmoreerratic,ncreasingthe risk ofsummerdroughtsand harvest failures. Zack Deal has shown thatpeasant agriculture n the Ukrainian provinceof Khar'kov (that adjoined thecentral black-earth region of Russia) had a detrimental impact on theprovince's climate. Throughout the steppe regions, the combination ofdeforestation nd carelessagricultural techniques, thatled to soil erosionand

31 French, 'Russians', pp. 30-4I; Semenov, Rossiya,i, Sredne-Russkayaherniozemnayablast'StPetersburg,902), pp. 64-8, 77-8; xiv,NovorossiyaKrynmSt Petersburg,9IO), p. 72; Smith,Peasantfarming,. 47 32 Stebelsky,Agriculture', p. 45-6i.3 Forsyth, istory,p. 43, 64, 10I, I59, I63, I9I, 2I8; Slezkine, rctiC, p. 24, 02.


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878 DAVID MOONan increased likelihood ofdroughts,had created the potential for disaster onthe scale ofthe dust-bowl' in the American mid-west n the I9330s.3 In spiteof theecological damage and theproblems theywere storingup for hefuture,bythe end ofthenineteenth enturyRussian peasant migrantshad, to a largeextent,overcome the environmentalfrontier etween forest nd steppe.

IVBeforethe expansion of the political frontier f the Russian state out of theforest-heartlandand migration by peasants to the south and east, theenvironmentalfrontier etween forest nd steppe south of the Oka river hadroughlycoincided with the lifewayfrontier etween sedentary farmingandnomadic animal husbandry. The Urals formed a lifewayfrontierbetweenpeasant agriculture nd theherding,hunting,trappingand fishing conomiesofmanyofthe nativeinhabitantsoftheSiberian forest. here had always beensome arable farming n the steppe regions and Siberia, however, especiallyamong the nhabitantsofthe khanate ofKazan'. Overall, though, pastoralismhad been more important than crop cultivationin the steppe regionsbeforeRussian conquest. In most of the regionsRussian peasants migrated to, theactivities of the indigenous populations were more appropriate, and lessharmful, o theenvironment han peasant agriculture. That the conditions oftheopen steppesare better uited topastoralnomadism than arable farming sclearlydemonstratedby thefactthat thishad been thedominantway of ifeofthe native inhabitants forseveral millennia prior to the arrival of peasant-migrants n the eighteenth entury. The steppe nomads and native Siberianshad certainlyhad an impact on thenatural conditions of theregionsthey ivedin,but theyhad achieved a roughbalance with theirenvironments.Crucially,however, theirlifeways were capable of supportingfar smaller populationsthan settledagriculture35 see Map 4).

Russian peasant-settlers ad to adapt aspects of theirtraditional behaviourand lifeways s a resultofcontact with the native populations. The size andlocation ofvillages n the stepperegionswere nfluencednotjust bytherelativeshortage ofwater sources,but also by the needs ofdefenceagainst nomadicraiders.Peasant-settlers ookadvantage ofhighriverbankswithcommandingviews orpatchesofdensewoodland. Relations betweenpeasant-settlersnd thenativepopulations ofthe regionstheymoved towerenotcharacterizedonlybyconflict.Peasant-settlers orrowedor adapted some features f theindigenous3 Semenov, ossiya,I, Sredne-Russkaya,p. 50-I, I I 3; XIV, Novorossiya,p. 72-3; Deal, Serf,p.325-78; Sumner, urvey,. I7.3 A. M. Khazanov, Nomadsnidthe utside orld Cambridge, 984), esp. pp. 44-53, 90-7;Khodarkovsky, herewoworlds et, p. I 7-22; McNeill,Europe'steppefrontier,p. 3-6; Pallot ndShaw, Landscape,. 20; Forsyth, istory,. ig; Slezkine, rctic,p. I-7; I. Kh. Kalmykov, . Kh.Kereitov, A.-I. M. Sikaliev, Nogaitsy Cherkessk, I988), p. 6i; Gorskaya, Krest'yanstvo,p. 462-8;Smith, easantfarminig,p. 20I-2. People who rely n pastoralism nd hunting lso change heirenvironments,ee Crosby, cologicalmperialism,p. 2 70-80; I. G. Simmons,nvirolnmentalistory:a concise ntrodzuctionOxford, I993), pp. 7-8. I3-I4, 9I-4, 98-I00.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 879

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88o DAVID MOONpopulations' working practices and customs, in particular the reliance onraising ivestock.There was some tradebetween peasants and nomads. Indeed,the dominant economies of the two groups, crop cultivation and livestockhusbandry, were complementary.36In most regions Russian peasant-settlersintermarried with the localpopulation. The preponderance ofmen among the settlersmade this nevitable.Ethnicmixingbetween Russian settlers nd the indigenous Finnic and Tatarpeoples leftmarkedtraces nthephysicalappearance oftheRussian populationof the mid-Volga region. Intermarriagewas also common in Siberia. The late-nineteenth century proponent of Siberian regionalism, Nikolai Yadrintsev,argued that mixed marriages between Russians and native Siberians hadcreated a Siberian 'ethnic type'. The dialect of Russian spoken by peasantswho settled n Siberia showed the nfluence f native Siberian languages. A fewpeasant migrants went native'. A recentAmerican historian of interethnicinteraction' on Russia's frontiers,Willard Sunderland, has found evidence ofwhole communitiesofRussian peasants assimilatingto thelocal Chuvash andMari populations in the mid-Volga region. In more remote partsofSiberia,somechildrenofmixed marriages became partly Buryatized' or Yakutized'.In northern Siberia many Russian settlers, ncluding peasants, who livedamong the Khantys, Nentsy,Yukagirs and Yakuts, adopted local customsandways of life, including eating raw meat, speaking the local language, andpractising the Shamanist religion.37The various formsof interaction and accommodation between the twolifeways, easant agriculture nd pastoral nomadism, were part of the middleground' thatemergedonRussia's frontiers.38his middleground provedto bea relatively short-lived phenomenon. The examples of ' nativization' ofpeasant-settlerswere exceptional. Only a small minority fmigrantsbecameassimilated to the local populations. In spiteofthe process of nteraction andintermarriagewith local peoples, most Russian peasant-settlers etained theessentials oftheir dentity, ulture, and way oflife. n the long run,Russianpeasant-migrantshad a greater impact on the pastoral nomads and otherindigenous peoples than the other way round.

36 Pallot and Shaw, Landscape,p. I8-I9; Goryushkin,Migration', pp. I42, I45-7, I55-6;Khazanov,Nomads,p. 35-7. See alsoD. I. Ismail-Zade,Russkoerest(yanstvoZakavkaz'e:0-egodyXIX-nachalo X v. (Moscow, 982), p. 88.37 Semenov,Rossiya, ii, SredneeNizhnee ovol'zhe Zavol'zheSt Petersburg,9I0), p. I57;W. Sunderland, Empire-building,nterethnicnteraction,nd ethnic ypecastingn the ruralworld f heRussian mpire, 800-I 850', unpublished aperpresentedoSSRC ImperialRuLssianhistory orkshop, ortland, R, September994, pp. I5-I6 (citedwithpermissionfauthor);Forsyth,History,p. 67-9, 78, I43, I55, I63, I98-9; Slezkine,Arctic,p. 43-5, 97-8, II9;Treadgold,Great, p. 24 I-3. See alsoW. Sunderland,Russians ntoYakuts? going native" andproblems fRussiannational dentityn theSiberiannorth,870s-I9I4', Slavic eview,V (I996).

38 For a fascinatingase study f the middle ground' whichwas createdby the nldigeniousNogai nomads,and incomingRussian,Ukrainian,and German agricultural ettlersn theMelitopol'districtfTauride provincen southern kraine n theearly-ninieteenithenituLry,eeW. Sunderland,Imperial policies nd frontierractices: heTavrida Nogai uinder uLssianile,I8o5-i 86os', unpublishedpaper presented o conferenceThe frontiern quLestionl',ssexUniversity,I-23 April 995, pp. I4-23 (citedwithpermissionfauthor).


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 88IIn some regions the indigenous populations were swamped by incomingpeasants. In spite of theirrebellions,the Bashkirswere unable to hold back the

tideofpeasant immigration.By the middle ofthe eighteenth entury heywereoutnumbered by Russian peasants, and at theend of the century heymade uponly 2I per cent of the population of theirnative southern Urals region. InSiberia, the indigenous population was outnumbered by Russians by the endof the seventeenth entury.Two centuries ater,at the time of the I897 census,native peoples comprised under I5 per cent of the population.39How were the Russian peasant-migrants able to overcome the lifewayfrontier nd displace the nomads of the steppes and native peoples of theSiberian forest? n his book Ecological mperialism,lfredCrosby examined theway in which European migrantswere able to colonize the temperate regionsof the Americas and Australasia and turn them into 'Neo-Europes' withextremelyproductive European-style agriculture.He argued that the Euro-pean settlers achieved this because the plants, livestock, and, above all,diseases, theybroughtwith them were able to thrive n theirnew environmentsat the expense of the native biota, including the indigenous populations. 'Itwas', Crosby wrote, their germs,not these mperialists hemselves, or ll theirbrutality nd callousness,that were chiefly esponsible for weepingaside theindigenes and opening the Neo-Europes to demographic takeover'. Thebiggest killer was smallpox, which, in Crosby's argument, was at least asimportant as gunpowder in the European takeoverofnon-European parts oftheglobe. The native Americans' and Australasians' susceptibility o diseasessuch as smallpoxwas a resultof their solation from he Old World that hadprevented themfrom oming nto contactwith, nd building up immunities o,the pathogens common in Europe.40Crosby argued that his interpretationwas also valid, to some extent, inexplaining the Russian colonization of Siberia. Although many of the cropsand livestock the Russian migrants took with them across the Urals werefamiliar n Siberia, some of the diseases that also accompanied thesettlerswerenew to the native Siberians. Diseases such as smallpox, measles, VD, andtyphustook their toll on the indigenous population. The numbers of someethnicgroupsfellbyover half n thespace of a fewyears n a macabre parallelto the great dying' among so many native peoples further field.41Crosby's interpretation oes not, it seems to me, help explain the Russianconquest and peasant settlement f thestepperegions.The nomadic peoples ofthe Eurasian steppes already had many of the same crops and livestock,especially horses, cattle and sheep, as the Russian peasant-settlers.Unlikemany native Siberians and the indigenous populations of the Americas andAustralasia, moreover,the steppe nomads were not isolated fromEurope and

39 Kabuzan, Narody,p. 84-5, 227; Donnelly, Mobile', p. 202; Forsyth, istory,. I I5;Troinitskii, bshchiivod,, xiii.40 Crosby, cologicalmperialismquotationfrom . I96). See also W. H. McNeill,Plagues ndpeoplesLondon, 994) [Ist edn, 976], esp. pp. 70-I, 77.41 Crosby, cologicalmperialism,P. 36-40. See also Forsyth, istory,P. 58, 78, I50, i6i;Slezkine,Arctic,p. 26-7, I02.


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882 DAVID MOONtherefore usceptible to Old World' diseases. On the contrary, heyhad beenin constant contact with European and Asian societies formany centuries. nmarked contrast to the white settlers n Europe's temperate overseas coloniesand the Russian migrants n Siberia, theRussian peasants who moved on to thesteppes did not have the decisive 'weapon' ofdisease. In fact, diseases mayhave worked to impede peasant settlement fthe steppes. Many of the plagueepidemics thatregularlyafflictedRussia frommedieval times came from thePontic steppesortravelledup the riverVolga, through he south-eastern tepperegions,from he Caucasus and central Asia.42It was not only Russians who were affected y the plague, however. WilliamMcNeill, inPlaguesandpeoples, ut forward hypothesis hat the decline oftheMongol empire and nomadic dominion of the Eurasian steppes was aconsequence of plague epidemicsthatdevastated thepopulation of thesteppesbetween the thirteenthnd fifteenthenturies.The Mongols may have beenthe cause of theirown downfall. McNeill also argued that the introductionofthe bubonic plague bacillus to the marmots of the steppes was a result ofMongol expansion. Like the black rats in medieval Europe, theseburrowingrodents played a large role in spreading the plague. The consequent'disembowelment of steppe society' allowed agricultural settlers, ncludingRussian peasants, to begin colonizing the open grasslandsof central Eurasia.McNeill's hypothesishas a twist n itstail.As thepeasant-settlers loughed upthesteppes, theydestroyedthemarmots'habitat, making peasant farmers esslikelyto succumb to plague than the pastoral nomads theydisplaced.43 To thepresent day, bubonic plague is endemic in Mongolia, where it can devastatenomadic communities. The herdsmen call it 'marmot sickness' after therodents that are chiefly responsible for carrying the disease. There isarchaeological evidence, moreover, hat theplague was present n central Asiain the fourteenth entury. Nevertheless, n spite of its brilliance, McNeill'shypothesis emains to be proved.44Nor can itfully xplain the turn n thetidein the relationshipof' plough versus flock' and the eventual success ofRussianpeasant settlement f the steppes.The key to this uccess probably lies in thepeasants' abilitytogain access tothe land. At the heart of most conflictsbetween the peasant-settlers,nativepeoples, and the Russian statewas the crucial issue of and. Disputes over landreflected he contrast between the settled agricultural ifewayof theincomingpeasants and the nomadic pastoralismofmany of the native inhabitants.Thetwo ifeways, nd the associatedeconomic,social and political systems, ntailedradically different ays of using the land and conceptsof andownership. TheRussian state assumed thatmost and innewly-conqueredfrontier egionswasstate property, nd disposed ofthe land as it saw fit.From the late-sixteenthcentury,the state expropriatednomads' pasture land and handed it out to

42 J. T. Alexander, uboniclaguen arlymodernuissia:ublic ealthndurbanisasterBaltimore,MD, and London,198o), pp. I I-29. 43 McNeill,Plagues, p. I4I-84, 225-6.44 T. Severin,nsearchfGenghishaniLondon, 99I), pp. 2 8-3 I. See alsoD. Morgan,TheMongolsOxford,986), pp. I33-4.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 883Russian nobles and other ettlers, rsimplypermittedRussian migrants o takeland for themselves. n many regions ncoming Russians bargained with thenative people to buy or rent and. Most, but not all, deals were one-sided asmany native inhabitants had no concept of buying or renting land, scantunderstandingof the value of the land to the Russians or what they ntendedto do withit, and little notion of what theywere being offeredn returnwasworth. In the southernUrals, forexample, Russian landowners seized landfromthe native Bashkirs or persuaded them to sell it at knock-down prices.45Peasant-settlers took over and cultivated land with little regard to whoowned it or its customaryuse. In many cases this meant that settlerswereploughing up pastures while the nomads were away grazing their herds onother lands. Some native people appealed to the Russian authorities n theirstruggle o retain their raditional ands. In the ate-seventeenthenturynativeSiberians inYakutsksuccessfully etitionedtheMuscovite government gainsttheloss of their ands on thegroundsthattheywere unable to catch sufficientfur-bearing nimals to pay their tribute yasak).46In the southern Urals there were many cases of land disputes between thenative Bashkirs nd Russian peasant-settlers. o take one example, in the firsthalf of the nineteenth century, a dispute between the Bashkir village ofSabanovaya and the neighbouring Russian state peasant settlement ofYaroslavka inOrenburg provincedragged on in thecourtsfor everal decades.In I842 the Bashkirscomplained that,after llowing thepeasants to cultivatepart of their and in I804, the incomers were gradually takingover the rest ofit, ploughing up theland, seizingthemeadows, and chopping down thetrees.The Bashkirs also complained that the peasants had the support of localRussian officials. he Bashkirsappealed to the Russian authorities o stop thepeasants appropriatingtheir and, otherwise heywould be leftwith nsufficientto supportthemselves nd their cattle.47In spiteoftheir omplaints, ndigenouspeoples lost arge amountsof and toRussian landowners and peasant-settlers. or example, theBashkirs tillowned32-4 million acres of and in the southern Urals regionin the earlynineteenthcentury.By I905, however,their andholdingshad been reduced tounder 2 I 6million acres.48

4 Donnelly, 'Mobile', pp. I97, 20I; Forsyth, Histoiy,pp. 64, I57-9, I72, i8i-6; Khazainov,Nomnads,. I 24; Slezkine,Arctic,. I 03. See also T. J. Barfield, he erilousfronitier:iosnadicmnpiresanidChinla,2I BC toAD I757 (Oxford, I989), p. 22.46 Forsyth, istory,. 64. See also Slezkine,ArctiC,p. 24-5.47 Rossiiskii osudarstveninyistoricheskliirihkiv,ond 380 (Revizyasenatora .N. PeshchlmrovaOrenburgskoiubernii),pis' , I842, delo68 (Po zhalobe overeiinykhtobshchestvaosuidarstven?iykhkrest>an erent'ya?] KonovalovarakobaUlyanova Bas/hkirtsamierevniabaniovoisporntoiemle), sp.Iisty-5 ob. The outcome f he ase was notrecordedn thefile reservednthecentral rchivesin St Petersburg. or more xamples f and disputes etweeni ussiani easants nd Bashkirs,ee:Sunderland,Empire-building',p. I2-I3. See also: Wallace, Russia,I, P. 48.48 Semenov,Rossiya, , Ural, p. I85-6, I52, 236. The data for 905 is for hecontemporaryborders fOrenburg nd Ufaprovinces. couldfind o nmenitionfBashkirandownershipnthewestern istrictsfOrenburg rovince hatbecamepartof amara provincen I850, where ormeBashkirs ad lived, n Semenov,Ross'ya, i, SrednieeNizhnee ovol'zhe.


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884 DAVID MOONThe Russian state permittednative populations to keep some land, but on itsterms. From the eighteenth century the Russian authorities pursued a

deliberate policy of edentarization or denomadization) of nomadic peoples.4Since pastoral nomadism made farmore extensive use of land than settledfarming, he state needed to restrict omadismin order to make land availablefor peasant-settlers.Grants of land and other inducements were offeredtonomadswho settled, ookup farming, nd convertedto Orthodox Christianity.In I 739 a special colony was founded at Stavropol' on the Volga forKalmykswho gave up pastoral nomadism and theirBuddhist religion. The colonywasnot a success.At the end of the eighteenthcentury, n a similarprogramme,Nogai nomads of the lower-Volga and northCaucasus were allotted land interritory nnexed from he recentlydefeatedkhanate of Crimea to encouragethem to settle nd take up agriculture. Most, however, persistedwith pastoralnomadism within the confinesof their new lands. The Kazakhs proved to beequally resistant o sedentarization. In the i87os, a Russian observer noted:'Only hopeless povertycan rouse the [Kazakh] nomad to tillthe soil. But assoon as he has provided himselfwith stock,he immediately throws away theclumsy spade he used to till the soil instead of a plough -he becomesnomadic'.50In several areas in the late-nineteenth entury,the Russian state redistri-buted the land between the native population and incoming peasant-settlers.Often,the best land was allocated to thepeasants. In partsof the Transbaikaland Altai regionsof Siberia, each adult male received the same amountof andregardlessofwhether he recipientwas a memberofthe ndigenous BuryatandAltaian populations, who engaged in nomadic cattle-rearing, or a newly-arrivedpeasant farmer.A similarpolicywas pursued in northernKazakhstanto provide land forRussian and Ukrainian peasant-migrants.The size oftheallotments, nd thepracticeofallocating land to individual households,werecompletely lien toand incompatiblewithpastoral nomadism,whichrequiredlarge areas of unfenced and for ivestock ograze on.51Without sufficientand,some nomads had little choice but to abandon theircenturies-oldway of ife.Some tried theirhands at growing crops,but most lacked thenecessary skills,experience, and implements. In the late-nineteenthcentury many nomadicpeoples, forexample large numbersof Siberian Tatars, Nogai and Bashkirs,were reduced to workingas day-labourers or became destitute.52Hand-in-hand with Russian conquest, peasant settlement,oss of and, andsedentarization came attemptsto undermine the local culture as the Russianstatebegan tomove away from ts earlierpolicyof accommodation with ocalelites. The change in policy began in the latterpart of theeighteenth entury.4 Khazanov,Nomads,p. 45, I98-202.

50 Khodarkovsky,Wherewoworlds et, p. 208-9; Kalmykov,Nogaitsy,p. 75-6. Quotationfrom hazanov,Nomads, . 84.51 Forsyth,History,p. I57, I73-4, i8i-6; Khazanov, Nomads, p. I24, 220; Stebelsky,'Frontier', p. I57-8.52 Forsyth, istory,p. I57, I63, i66, i86; Kalmykov,Nogaitsy,p. 75-6, 78-80; Semnenov,Ross'ya, , Ural, p. I85-6; Wallace, Russia,I, 45-9.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 885By the late-nineteenth centurya policy of Russification was in operationthroughout arge partsofthe Russian empire. In manyregions,moreover,theRussian authorities ncouraged,or sometimes orced,native peoples to convertto Orthodox Christianity.For the rulersof the Russian empire, the variousaspects of theirpolicies towards native peoples in the frontier egions were'progressive' as theyentailed 'raising' the native populations to what theybelieved was a 'higher level of civilization'.53 For many native peoples,however, civilization' meant not only being deprived oftheir and, but alsotheirway of ife nd culture.Some became assimilated,to varying degrees,tothe dominant Russian population. Assimilation was most common and mostmarked nregionswhere arge numbersofRussians settled, nd among peopleswhose traditional lifeway differed east from the incoming Russians, forexample, thesettledFinno-Ugrian peoples ofthemid-Volga, southernUrals,and westernSiberia. Nevertheless,manynativepeoples survivedand retainedtheirethnic identity, fnot their and. Assimilation seems to have been lesscommon among Islamic peoples, for xample Tatars and Bashkirs. n Russianlaw the settled, agricultural peoples of the European part of the empire wereclassified s statepeasants; thesurviving teppe nomads and most ndigenouspeoples of the Asian part ofthe empire,as 'aliens'.54Some nativepeoples refused o submit. When rebellions and appeals to theRussian authoritieshad failed, omerespondedtotheexpansion and settlementof Russia's frontiers y migrating. n themid-Volga regionin the eighteenthcentury, s more Russian peasants moved intotheregion,significant umbersof native Finno-Ugrian and Turkic peasants moved to thesouthernUrals andlower-Volga regions and, further field, across the Urals. In Siberia theinfluxof Russian settlersforcedmany native Siberians, including some Yakuts incentral Siberia, to leave their traditional lands. Most moved to the lesshospitablelands to thenorth nd east,wheretheycame intoconflictwith,anddisplaced, other native peoples55

The most spectacular, and tragic, migration was by the Kalmyk nomadsfrom heCaspian steppe on thelower-Volga. Loss ofgrazing land to peasant-settlers and the increasing demands of the Russian army for horsemencompelled themto leave. In I 77 themajorityoftheKalmyksleft heVolga toreturn to theiroriginal homeland in Dzhungaria in central Asia. During thejourney across the steppes and desert countlessKalmyks and their ivestockwere killedby disease, hunger, cold, and Kazakh raidersexacting revengeon53 For overviews f Russian state policy towards non-Russians, ee Kappeler, Russland,pp. I77-229; Raeff,Patterns',pp. I26-40. For particular xamples, ee Semenov,Rossiya, I,SredneeNizhneeovol'zhe,p. I33-4; Forsyth, istory,p. I49-5I, I69-72, I8I-5; Slezkine, rctic,

pp. 47-7I, II9-2 2.54 Semenov,Ross'ya, , Ural,pp. I38, i68; Forsyth, istory,p. I56, I6I-3; Slezkine,Arctic,pp. 83-92; Wallace,Russia,, 238-46.On the egal status f aliens' ('inorodtsy'),ee Svod akoliovRossiiskoimperii,stedn (St Petersburg,832), book v,Zakony Sostoyaniyakh,p. 226-5I, arts.

7 I 3-832.55 Kabuzan, Narody, p. 84-5, I04-8, I I9-2 I, I 25-9, I35-6, 227; Tarasov, Russkayakrestyanskaya,p. 55, I27; Forsyth, istory,p. 92, I54-5, I74-7, i8o-i, I96.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 887Melton, ervileRussia dependedfor ts existenceon its peasant population,whichprovide[d]most f the revenue, abor, and rents hat upport[ed] heruler nd his civil/militarylite'.61On both idesofthehierarchical rontier,however, heRussian tate nd elites, nd peasants, ad a common nterestnexpanding nd settling ussia'sfrontiers.Many historians ave tried o dividepeasantmigrantsnto wotypes: hosewho moved, r weremoved, s a result f tate olicy, nd thosewho migratedvoluntarily. he Russian state pursued a deliberatepolicyof organizingresettlementnd encouragingtssubjects o colonizethe outlying erritories.Writingboutstate-sponsoredettlementn South-EastAsia,thegeographerRodolpheDe Koninckhas called peasant-settlersthe territorialpearhead fthe tate'.On a morepractical evel,thestatewantedpeasant ettlersn thesteppes o cultivate herichblack earth nd, nSiberia,peasantswereneededto growfoodto feedthe increasing umbers fRussian military ervitors,officials,ur-tradersnd trappers.62he settlementolicy ftheRussian tatefollowed fairlytandard attern ver he enturiesndinthevarious orderregions. irst,militarizedettlers ere ent odefend he rontieregions. hen,once the area behind he new frontier as secure,and was granted onoblelandowners nd settlers romthe lower orders of the population. Noblelandowners ultivated heir and with the abour of enserfed easants, ndsettlers ho were not serfs wed obligationso the state. Noble landownersand serfdom,utnot tate bligations, ere bsent nSiberia.) n thismanner,thehierarchical acet f hefrontierxpanded ogether ith hepolitical acetas the tate nd elites xtended heir oercive owers o thenew borderlands.TheMuscovite tate entmentoservengarrisonedowns nd fortifiedinesalong the frontier. hese military ervitors ame from wide variety fbackgrounds,ncluding entry,ownsmen,oldiers, ossacksand peasants.Many were ettled long the frontiernd grantedand in payment or heirservice.Once the frontierad beensecured, ome of the militarized ettlersmoved outh nd east to thenewfrontier. thers, he ingle-homesteadersrodnodvortsy,tayedwhere theywere and sufferedhe oss of their elativelyprivilegedtatuswhenPeter heGreatdemoted hem o theranks fthe tatepeasantry in I 7 9.6

xci (I986), I I-36; Hellie,Enserfmenit,p. 240-2; E. KimerlingWirtschafter,romnerf oRulssiansoldier Princeton, NJ, I990), pp. 9, I I; F. W. Wcislo, Refonnsinguraal ussia: state, ocal society,lidnationialpolitics,855-I9I4 (Princeton, J, 990), pp. 28-35, 67-80, I75-6, I86-7, 227, 238-40;D. Field, The yearofthe ubilee', in B. Eklof, . Bushnell nd L. Zakharova, ds.,Ruissia'sgreatreformiis,855-i88i (Bloomingtonnd Indianapolis, N, I994), pp. 40-57.61 E. Melton, Household economies and communal conflicts n a Russian serfestate,i8oo- i8I 7', _Journalf Social History, XVI 993), 560-2.62 R. De Koninck,The peasantrys the erritorialpearhead f he tate: he ase ofVietnam',Sojourn: social isszuesn Southeast sia, XI (I996). On Siberia, see Slezkine, Arctic, . 24.63 Gorskaya, rest>anstvo, p. 398-42I; Hellie,Enserfmenit,p. 53, I28-9, I74-80, i86, 208,

2I2-I5; Kabuzan, Narody,p. 94; Pallot and Shaw,Landscape,pp. I4-26, 33-46, 58-62; Shaw,'Southern rontiers',p. I I 7-39; Stebelsky,Agriculture',p. 46-5 I On thedistinctionetween


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888 DAVID MOONMeanwhile, the state granted tractsof land to nobles or permittedthemto purchase land in what had become the old borderlands. These noble

landowners werethen encouraged to populate theirnew estates by moving serfpeasants from heirexistingdomains in thecentralregions. Noble landowner-ship and, later, serfdomspread to the central black-earth and mid-Volgaregions n thismannerfrom heend ofthe sixteenth entury.Monastery-ownedestates and peasants also played a role in the settlementof border regions,especially n themid-Volga region.64 he processof tate-sponsored ettlementbehindfortifiedines that tookplace in theregionsoftheforested-steppeelt nthesixteenth nd seventeenth enturieswas repeated furtherouthand east inthe open-steppe regions n the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies.65As thefortifiedines moved furtherouthand east across thesteppes, they eft n theirwake settlements nhabited by Russian peasants, many ofwhom were serfs,who ploughed up and cultivated thefertile lack earth,thereby nlargingtheagricultural and tax base of theRussian state.In addition to thepolicyofencouraging noble and monasticlandowners tomove their erfpeasants to new estates n the borderregions,the state tried topersuade other sectionsof the population to migrate.The state offeredand,grants and loans, and temporary exemptionsfromtaxes and conscription tostate peasants, Cossacks, religious dissenters, etiredsoldiers, foreigners,ndeven fugitivesfrom serfdom. This policy was pursued in some of the moreoutlyingregions ncluding: westernSiberia in theseventeenth nd eighteenthcenturies; the southern Urals and lower Volga regions n the late-eighteenthand early-nineteenthenturies;and the northCaucasus intheearly-nineteenthcentury.66On occasions, when the state was unable to attract sufficient ettlers, tresorted to compulsion. There was some compulsory resettlement to theBelgorod line in the I64os and to the southernpart of the central black-earthregion in the reignof Peter the Great.67The most well known and extensiveuse of compulsion was the policy of exiling criminals, vagrants and otherundesirables to Siberia. Although historianshave paid most attention to

peasants nd Cossacks, ee:A. L. Stanislavskii, razhdanskayaoina RossiiXVII v.: Kazachestvoaperelomestorii Moscow, 990), pp. 44, I24, 247.64 Gorskaya,Krest(yanstvo,. 406; Pallot and Shaw, Lanidscape,pp. 25-6, 35-45; Shaw,'Southern rontiers',p. I 22-3, I 33, I 35, I 38.65 Atkin, Russian', pp. I53-67; Donnelly,Mobile', pp. I89-97, 20 I-2; J.G. Hart, Fromfrontierutpost o provincialapital: Saratov, 590-I 86o', inS.J. eregnynd R. A.Wade, eds.,Politics nd societynprovincial ussia: Saratov,590-I917 (Columbus, H, I989), pp. I0-27;Semenov,oss'ya, , Ural,p. I38; Tarasov, uisskayarestyanskaya,p. 34-55, I-2, I27.66 Stebelsky,Thefrontierncentral sia',p. I48; Tarasov, ulsskayarest'anskaya,p. 35-6,89; Sunderland,Peasantsonthemove',pp.472-85; D. Moon,Ruissianeasantsnidsaristegislationonthe ve freform:nteractionetweeneasantsnid fficialdom,825-I855 (Basingstokend London,

I992) pp. 23-6I; R. P. Bartlett,zumanapital:the ettlemenitf oreignersnRuissia,762-I804(Cambridge,979), pp. I I 8-24.67 Pallot ndShaw, andscape,p. 28, 43; Gorskaya,restyanstvo,. 07; Donnelly,Mobile',

pp. I97, 202.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 889political exiles, the overwhelmingmajoritywere peasants. The exile system idnot play a very significant art in the settlement f Siberia, however, since themajorityofexileswere men, a lot were old, and had a high death rate.68A muchgreater contribution o the settlement f Siberia was made by the state policyof promoting peasant migration in the late-nineteenthcentury. The aim ofcolonizing Siberia was one of the reasons for the constructionof the trans-Siberian railwaythatbegan in I89 . What StevenMarks, a recenthistorianofthe railway, has called finance ministerWitte's policy of' taming the wild east'invites directcomparison with the conquest and settlement f the wild field'in the sixteenth nd seventeenth enturies.69By no means all settlementof Russia's frontier egions was organized orpromoted by the state.A considerable numberofpeasants moved oftheirownaccord, for theirown reasons, often llegally. The 'outer wave' of Slavonicsettlement of the steppes, oftenin advance of the political frontierof theRussian state and well ahead of the fortifiedines, was the communities ofCossacks that grew up along the riversthatflowedsouth throughthe stepperegion. The largest Cossack community was the Don Cossacks. The statesometimesaugmented Cossack hosts by resettling nd reclassifyingRussianand Ukrainian state peasants. Later, in Siberia, thestateformednew Cossackhosts frommembers of the indigenous populations, forexample Buryats.Themain source ofadditional Cossacks, however, was peasants who fled llegally tothe Cossack hosts.70Another mportantgroup ofsettlersn the frontier egionsof Russia who moved there of theirown accord was Ukrainian peasants andCossacks who moved east fromthe traditionalareas ofUkrainian settlement.Like the Don Cossacks, Ukrainians migrants ften ettledon land in front ftheRussian political frontier nd fortifiedines. Some settled n the southernpartof the central black-earthregion and othersas far east as theVolga.7"In addition to the Cossacks and Ukrainians, throughoutthe period fromI550 to I897, untold numbers of Russian peasants migrated voluntarily o thefrontier egions. In the second halfofthe sixteenth nd the earlyseventeenthcenturies there was mass peasant migrationfrom the forest-heartland o themore fertile ands across the Oka river. n part the migrantswere seekingto

68 E. N. Anuchin,Issledovaniya protsenteoslannykhSibir'vperiod 827-I 846 g. , Zapiskiimperatorskogousskogo eograficheskogobshchestvao otdeleniyutatistiki,II (I873), 8, 65-73;Goryushkin,Migration',p. I 43; Vodarskii, aselenieossii a 400 et, . I02; A. Wood, Russia's"wild east": exile, vagrancy and crime n nineteenth-centuryiberia', in Wood, History,pp. II7-I8.

69 S. G. Marks,Road o ower: he rans-Siberianailroadnd he olonizationfAsian ussia,85o-i9I7(Ithaca,NY, 99I), pp. I4I-5, I53-69, 220-2; idem,Conqueringhegreat ast:Kulomzin,peasantresettlement,nd the creation f modernSiberia', in S. Kotkin and D. Wolff, ds.,Rediscoveringussia n Asia: Siberia nd theRussian ar east Armonk,NY, and London, I995),pp. 23-39; L. M. Goryushkin,d., Krest>yanstvoibiriv epokhu apitalizmaNovosibirsk,983),pp. 3I-7; Treadgold,Great,p. 32-5,67-8I, I07-49.

70 Pallot and Shaw, Landscape,. 20; Shaw, 'Southernfrontiers',p. I2I, I29-3I; A. P.Pronshtein,d.,Don stepnoeredkavkaz'eRostovna Donu, I977), pp. 3 -64; Semenov,Rossiya,xiv, Novorossiya,p. I90-7.71 Kabuzan, Narody,p. 84-5, 95-6, I34-5, I38-9, 204, 209; Pallot and Shaw, Landscape,pp. 63-6; Semenov,Rossiya,i, Sredneenizhneeovol'zhe,. I58; xiv,Novoross'ya,. i85.


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890 DAVID MOONescape the politicaland social upheavals, famines, pidemics, wars, and foreigninvasions of the second part of the reign of Ivan the Terrible and the Time ofTroubles (I598-I6I3). From the I56os, moreover, peasants in the heartlandenduredhightaxes and demands from hestate and increasedexploitation bytheir andowners. Richard Hellie noted the paradox that one of the reasonspeasantswerefleeing rom heheartland to the ncreasingly ecure frontier asto escape the taxes that were being levied in the central regions to pay formaking the borderlands ecure from he threatofnomadic raids. The final egalconsolidationof erfdomn I649 and the ntroduction fthepoll tax after 7 9imposed severe egal restrictions n peasant movement,but did not succeed inarresting he steady stream of illegal peasant migration. The steppe frontiertherefore acted as a 'safety valve', offeringfugitive serfs the chance offreedom. 2The prospect of freedom on the frontier ecame more remote as Russia'sfrontiers,ncluding the coercive power ofthe state and elites that constitutedthe geographical aspect of the hierarchical frontier',moved ever further romthe forest-heartland.The institution of serfdom spread outwards from theheartland to the steppe regions with the expansion of noble landownership.Seigniorial power in the frontier reas was intensifiedwith the extension ofrestrictions n the movement of peasants to settlers n the borderlands, forexample in the north Caucasus in I 796. Serfdom, but not the poll tax, wasvirtually bsent, however, n Siberia.73The local authorities in regions being settled frequently connived withfugitive erfpeasants. Motivated by the need for more settlers, hey turnedablindeye to fugitives' llegal status and permitted hem to settle.Sometimesthepolicy of allowing fugitivesto remain in frontierregions was temporarilysanctionedby thecentral authorities.This 'blind-eye' policywas in operationon the Belgorod line in mid-seventeenth entury. n I636 Tambov gained areputationas a town whence no one was returned'. The policy was repeatedinmany outlyingregionsthroughout heperiod, includingthe northCaucasusas late as the I 830s. Although the authorities ometimes urned a 'blind-eye' tofugitivesbecause it coincided with their interest n establishinga Russianpopulation in the frontier egions, fugitive peasants took advantage of thepolicy, and manipulated the authorities, n order to settle under favourableconditions nfrontieregions.74 his interaction cross the hierarchical frontierin borderregions uggests he existenceof a 'middle ground' between peasant-settlers nd the eliteson Russia's frontiers.

72 Blum, ord, pp. I55-63, 235-4I, 552-4; N. M. Druzhinin, oszudarstvengyerest(yanereformaP. D. Kiseleva2 vols.,Moscow and Leningrad,1946 and 1958), , 921-3; Hellie, Enserfinent,pp. 93-4, I06-7, I24-34, I43, I79; Pallot and Shaw,Landscape,pp. I7, 27, 3I; Bassin, Turner',p. 507. Lack of data makes t virtuallympossible o estimate henumbers ffugitiveerfs hosettlednfrontieregionswith ny degree f ccuracy.

73 See Hellie, nserfment,. 7; V. I. Koretskii,ormirovanierepostnogopravapervaya restyanskayavoina vRossii (Moscow, 975), pp. 83-I i6; Vodarskii, aseleniie ossii v konitse VII, p. 93; E. I.Druzhinina, izhznayaUkrainav 80o825 gg. Moscow, 970), pp. 84-5.74 Hellie, nserfment,p. I 29-3 I; Pallot nd Shaw,Landscape, p. 42-3; Treadgold,Great, . 25;Donnelly,Mobile', p. 200; Moon, Russian easants,p. 23-6 i.


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THE SETTLEMENT OF RUSSIA S FRONTIERS 89IMany historianshave consideredwhich of the two typesofsettlement, tateand voluntary, legal and illegal, made the greater contribution to thesettlement fRussia's frontiers.Many pre-revolutionaryRussian and western

historians have stressed the importance of state-sponsoredsettlement. MostSoviet historians nd some westernhistorians, n the otherhand, have been atleast as keen to emphasize the leading role of voluntarymigration.75 n thei88os the Ukrainian historianD. I. Bagalei contrastedRussian and Ukrainiancolonization of the Muscovite steppe frontier.He argued that settlementbyRussians was largely controlled by the state,while mostUkrainian migrationwas voluntary.He added that the Russian settlers ad less personal initiativeand enterprise'than the Ukrainians. Bagalei's argumenthas come informuchcriticism,ncluding,notsurprisingly,uggestions f national bias.76The Sovietdemographic historians, Bruk and Kabuzan, suggested that before thenineteenth century the state did not have the means to control the massvoluntaryresettlement.Over the course of the nineteenthcentury,however,they argued that the government apparatus became sufficiently trong toregulatecolonization.77This argument s undermined by thefactthat a largeproportionofthemigrants o Siberia in the ate-nineteenth enturywereeitheroutside the control ofthe authorities, r migratedto Siberia beforethe i88os,when the state began to implement its policy of supporting rather thanhindering peasant resettlement.78Most recent historians of peasant migration in Russia are rejecting thisapproach that emphasizes types of migration and are seeking a 'middleground'. They are tendingtowards the view that t s notreally appropriate todistinguish between state and voluntary settlement. Rather, it was thecombination of ctionsbythe Russian state and thepeasant-settlers,ovaryingdegrees in different laces and times,and the constant interaction betweenthem that best explainshow the frontier egionswereopened up and settledbyRussian peasants between the mid-sixteenth nd late-nineteenthcenturies.The conclusions of Willard Sunderland concerningstatepeasant resettlementin the early nineteenthcenturyare perhaps valid forwhole period. He hasargued that by looking bey

peasant migrattion in russia

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