Siberians are an Ethnic Group that Arose Out of a Melting Pot of Peoples, Russian-7 Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 13 – Moscow has worked hard to deny the obvious: the people of Siberia are a distinct ethnos which has a history far longer than do the ethnic Russians themselves and which arose and continues to develop as a result of “a melting pot” of people. But now a prominent Russian Internet side has admitted both of those things and more.

            The Russian-7 portal which often covers lesser known aspects of Russian history and culture features an article entitled “’A Multi-National Melting Pot’: How the Siberians Appeared,” in which it says among other things that “the term ‘Siberia’ is much more ancient than for example Rus (russian7.ru/post/mnogonacionalnyy-kotel-kak-poyavi/).

            The term first appeared in the fifth century common era and “until the 13^th century, the word ‘Siberia’ was used exclusively to refer to a people and only later did it begin to be applied to the region where they lived.  ‘Siberia’ as the name of a land was first mentioned in medieval Iranian chronicles; and in 1375, a Catalonian atlas mentioned ‘Sebur.’” 

            Ethnic Russians and Cossacks did not make an appearance in the region until the end of the 15^th century, the portal continues.  Their expansion was sometimes peaceful but often involved violent clashes with the local population. Beginning in the 17^th century, the Russian state sent prisoners to the region.

            Many other people fled from European Russia to Siberia, settled and intermarried with the local population and did not return.  Such marriages with the Khanty, Mansi, Sakha, Buryats and others led to the formation of “a Russian-Siberian gene pool. But it is important to remember that ethnic Russians were “only part of the ancestry of the Siberian people.”

            The portal cites the conclusions of Novosibirsk sociologist Olga Yevchevskaya that the isolation of the Siberians is an important part of their regional self-consciousness; and historian Yury Chernyshov says that Siberians are deeply attached to their distinctive identity which emerged because of the harsh climate and the continuing impact of a melting pot.

            All this may seem of only marginal interest, but it is extraordinarily unusual for anyone in Moscow to acknowledge Siberian identity as an ethnic one distinct from Russian or to point out that Siberia referred to a people for centuries before it was applied to a region and is a far more ancient term than Rus in which Russians place so much value.

            And it is also remarkable although less rare for anyone in Moscow to acknowledge that a melting pot has worked anywhere in Russia, not only because that term comes from the United States but also because it implies not the assimilation of smaller groups by a larger one (e.g., the Russians) but a fusion of various nations into a new and different one.

            With this article, Russia-7 will likely spark a new debate between Russian nationalists, who deny the Siberians standing as an ethnic nation and have refused to count them as such in recent censuses, and the Siberians themselves, who will see this a step forward in their effort to win acknowledgement of what they are -- a separate nation with a separate territory.