Siberian Oblastnik Movement Lasted Long After 1917 Both Abroad and Even Inside USSR

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 7 – Siberia’s regionalist movement, the oblastniks, is usually viewed as a nineteenth century phenomenon that lasted at most through the Russian Civil War, but in reality, it continued well into the 20^th century both abroad and inside the USSR, a reminder of the strength of regionalism within what most view as a single unified Russian nation.

            There was a break in this history between World War II when oblastniks in the emigration  in both China and Czechoslovakia died out when their sponsors disappeared and inside the Soviet Union when Stalin killed off the last of the Siberian regionalists who remained inside the USSR after the end of the Russian Civil War.

            But they reemerged in the 1990s and continue to act in the last decade despite repression. On these recent developments, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/07/window-on-eurasia-many-siberians-no.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/08/window-on-eurasia-moscow-now-worried.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/01/new-russian-law-said-making-siberia.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/10/ukraine-and-west-said-now-working-to.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/06/moscow-starting-to-focus-on-regional.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/11/new-russian-thriller-has-us-state.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/01/new-site-in-tomsk-provides-data-on.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/08/communists-east-of-urals-seek-to-revive.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/09/siberian-protesters-against-russian-and.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/04/urals-emigration-takes-shape-alongside.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/08/putin-adds-fuel-to-fire-of-siberian.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/russias-regions-not-just-its-non.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/08/siberian-battalion-commander-in-ukraine.html.

            But most contemporary Siberian regionalists look back to the 19^th century or at most to the Siberian regionalists of the Russian Civil War and ignore the actions and writings of the oblastniks in the 1920s and 1930s because their works were banned by the Soviets and remain difficult to find.

            Fortunately, that is beginning to change. Post-Soviet Russian scholars and publishers have published many of the key texts, and now Radio Liberty’s Sergey Chernyshov has provided a useful survey of some of the most important of these neglected Siberian oblastniks and their publications.

            Both his discussion of the activities of the oblastniks in Europe and China as well as in the USSR and his footnotes to articles by and about them in sources that have generally attracted little attention either among contemporary oblastniks or specialists on regionalist history are particularly important and may help today’s Siberian regionalists recover this bridge to the past.