Siberia

Siberia (transliterated as Sibirʼ)

Siberia

From Turkic Tatar (su-beri = watery wilderness)

Siberia stretches over 7,000 km from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean and over 3,500 km from the Arctic Ocean to the borders of Kazakhstan, Mongolia and the People’s Republic of China. This vast region, which today forms part of the Russian Federation, covers an area of 10 million km² (60–80° north latitude, 70–180° east longitude).

The north, including the islands off the Arctic coast, consists of tundra, whilst the vast central region is covered by boreal coniferous forest, the taiga. Almost eight-tenths of Western Siberia is made up of lowlands. The broad, slow-flowing rivers Ob and Irtysh make the West Siberian Plain particularly wet due to their restricted drainage. In the northern tundra, permafrost results in poor soil quality, whilst the areas between 56° and 66° north latitude are covered with barren podzol soils. Eastern Siberia is characterised by a continental climate; only in the Amur-Ussuri region in the south is the influence of the monsoon noticeable. The northern coast along the Arctic Ocean remains frozen for up to ten months. Agricultural activity is concentrated mainly in Western and Eastern Siberia along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Siberia is part of the Russian Federation. Administratively, Siberia is not an independent entity; it is an umbrella term for various administrative units: five republics, six regions (kraj), ten oblasts (oblast’) and three autonomous districts (okrug). The administrative division has changed several times throughout history and is somewhat arbitrary, as the vast geographical area makes it difficult to draw precise boundaries. For this reason, geographers prefer to use the term ‘macro-region’ for Siberia. Germans live in the Altai region, the area around Novosibirsk, Omsk and Tomsk.

In the case of Siberia, one should assume not a rigid political concept ofa frontier, but a fluctuating cultural one. A geographical boundary between European Russia and Siberia was first drawn in the 18th century by the Russian geographer Vasily N. Tatishchev (1686–1750) along the Ural Mountains. This demarcation remains valid to this day. It can be assumed that the Cossacks, who had been advancing into Siberia since the 16th century, already had a conception of the Urals as a frontier marking the boundary with the unknown Asian wilderness and its peoples. The Urals also form a cultural boundary. For the exiles of the 19th century and the Gulag prisoners of the 20th century, the Urals marked the transition into the world of the camps.

The conquest of Siberia by the Russian Empire.
[D. Dahlmann: Siberia. From the 16th century to the
present, Paderborn 2009 © Verlag F. Schöningh]

Throughout its history, the Russian Empire was constantly seeking to define its eastern borders, which, unlike those of its western, European regions, were less clearly defined and fixed in terms of the nation-state. To the south-east, Siberia had, in effect, no political borders until the late 19th century; southern Siberia, bordering Central Asia and Mongolia, was a fluctuating border region inhabited by nomadic peoples from Central Asia, primarily of Turkic origin. Until the late 19th century, therefore, Russian and Western European geographical terminology referred not to a political-nation-state border but to a topographical boundary (the so-called ‘forest-steppe boundary’). This was a line across the steppe, fortified with forts, designed to ward off raids by Kazakh and Kyrgyz nomads. In contrast, a completely different type of border existed in Eastern Siberia. Here, a political border between the Tsarist Empire and the Chinese Empire had been established in the international treaties of 1689 and 1727. This border remained in force until the mid-19th century, but was subsequently revised during the era of Russian imperialism through the unequal treaties of 1858–1915 to the detriment of China, which was forced to cede a total of 1.5 million km² (including the Amur region) to the Tsarist Empire. The military border clashes on the Ussuri in 1969 demonstrated, not least, just how problematic this demarcation proved to be.

The settlement pattern of Siberia has been shaped by colonial development. The first fortified settlements (Russian: ostrogi) were founded in the late 16th and early 17th centuries by Cossacks and fur traders and existed as isolated settlements within the tribal territories of the nomadic Siberian peoples. These outposts, from which the later Siberian towns emerged, served as trading centres for furs and other goods and for the collection of tribute from the indigenous population. For this reason, until the mid-17th century, these settlements were located in the taiga zone; at the beginning of the 18th century, towns were founded in the South Siberian steppe zone, such as Omsk (1716) and Semipalatinsk (1718). At the same time, in the 18th century, agricultural settlement began, particularly in the fertile region of Western Siberia; peasants from European Russia received financial assistance from the Russian state and were exempt from taxes. It was not until the 19th century that exile and penal colonisation began to play a decisive role. Among the exiles were political and religious dissidents (e.g. Old Believers) as well as criminals. Nevertheless, by the mid-19th century, exiles accounted for just nine per cent of Siberia’s population. Ninety per cent of Siberia’s population consisted of peasants.

A property in the settlement of Ivanovka in Western Siberia, formerly inhabited predominantly by Germans
.
[www.iwanowka.de]

To this day, the settlement pattern remains largely agrarian. It was not until the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the 1890s that industrialisation began; however, given the vastness of the country, this has remained rudimentary to this day and is based on the exploitation of raw material deposits (coal, crude oil, natural gas, timber, gold, diamonds). Although administratively part of Russia, Siberia acquired the status of an internal colony. Germans played a key role in the exploration, development and colonisation of the region from the 18th century onwards.

Systematic exploration of the unknown region of Siberia only began at the turn of the 17th to the 18th century, on the initiative of Tsar Peter I (1672–1725). In 1692, the North German merchants Adam Brand (1692–1746) and Eberhard Isbrand Ides (c. 1657 – c. 1708) travelled to Beijing at the head of a Russian diplomatic mission to discuss the political and economic issues surrounding the 1689 border demarcation. The mission’s report, which contained detailed information on the topography and ethnography of Siberia, was to lay the foundations for later scientific expeditions. This was followed in 1719 by the expedition of Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt (1685–1735), a doctor from Danzig/Gdańsk, who was particularly interested in the flora and fauna of Siberia. His areas of expertise included the geography, natural history, medicine, ethnography and linguistics of the Siberian peoples.

Itinerary of J. G. Gmelin and G. F. Müller during
the second Kamchatka expedition, 1733–1743.
[D. Dahlmann: Siberia. From the 16th century to the
present day, Paderborn 2009 © Verlag F. Schöningh]

Messerschmidt’s findings were taken up by later German researchers such as Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1705–1783), Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709–1746), Johann Georg Gmelin (1709–1755) and Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811). The decisive step towards the exploration of Siberia was taken at the instigation of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) with the founding of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1724. The exploration of Siberia in the 18th century, in particular, represents a joint German-Russian cultural achievement of particular significance. In this context, the Herford historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1705–1783) deserves special mention. The German naturalists Johann Georg Gmelin (1709–1755) and Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709–1746) took part in the Great Northern Expedition (1733–1743) and introduced Siberia to German intellectual circles. This was followed in the 19th century by Alexander von Humboldt’s (1769–1859) journey to Russia.

Although German scientists had explored Siberia and the region had become known in the German-speaking world in the 18th century, the settlement of German colonists did not begin until the second half of the 19th century. As part of the agricultural colonisation programme initiated by Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin (1862–1911), around 100,000 Germans from the Volga and Black Sea regions moved primarily to the agriculturally productive region of Western Siberia. The settlers were well versed in farming, for, as on the Volga and the Black Sea, they encountered fertile black earth soils in Western Siberia. Russian agronomists emphasised the agricultural expertise of the German settlers. In the Siberian garrison towns on the border with the steppe, Germans rose through the ranks in the civil service and the army; many of them came from the Baltic states. In doing so, they secured the southern Siberian fortification lines against the steppe nomads, for example along the Orenburg Line. Other Germans, in turn, were tasked with inspecting the eastern border with China. Thus, the explorer Alexander von Middendorff (1815–1894) noted in the 1840s that the Chinese were failing to adequately protect the border along the Amur, which in turn led to the Russian annexation of the Amur region by the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, Nikolai Murav’ëv (1809–1881) a decade later. Some Germans enjoyed remarkable careers in the Siberian Cossack divisions. Under the command of the German-Baltic adjutant-general to Tsar Nicholas II (1868–1918), Paul von Rennenkampff (1854–1918), the Boxer Rebellion in Russian-occupied Manchuria was suppressed in 1900.

The late Tsarist Stolypin colonisation programme was modelled on Bismarck’s settlement policy in the Prussian eastern provinces.

This stands in stark contrast to the repressive resettlement measures of the Stalin era. Half of the two million kulaks deported between 1927 and 1952 from the western grain-producing regions of the Soviet Union (Ukraine, the Volga and Black Sea regions) – the so-called ‘special settlers’ – were Germans. During the Second World War (1941–1945), approximately one million German prisoners of war were deported to Siberia, where they were subjected to forced labour in the Gulag and contributed to industrialisation (mining). Forty per cent of the prisoners died of malnutrition, disease and as a result of severe physical abuse. The survivors returned to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955 (the so-called ‘returnees’). The camp conditions for German prisoners of war and Siberian Germans were no different; however, the latter were denied permission to leave for the Federal Republic of Germany upon their release.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the Altai region had become the largest producer of silver for the European market. At the same time, the search for gold had begun, and by 1840 Russia had become a leader in gold production thanks to its Siberian deposits.

In the 19th century, Germans were also part of the business community in Siberia, which had established itself in the wake of industrialisation (railway construction, mining) and the increasing integration of the Euro-Asian economic area. Those involved included not only Siberian-German merchants but also entrepreneurs from the German Empire. Companies from Hamburg and Bremen played a pioneering role in this regard. German entrepreneurs hoped to gain access to raw material sources and sales markets in Siberia, which also served as a transit region to the East Asian-Pacific region. Furthermore, through their investments, they made a significant contribution to the modernisation of Siberia. Around 1900, Siemens sent technicians to provide consultancy on the construction of power stations on the Lena. The electricity generated in this way was intended to make gold mining in the Lena fields more efficient. In the Altai region, which was rich in natural resources (timber, ores), German companies such as Faber-Castell and Thurn und Taxis established themselves. In the mid-19th century, new graphite mines were discovered and Faber-Castell was granted a licence by the Russian state to mine this raw material, which was essential for pencil production. The Thurn und Taxis postal service organised the letter and parcel service in Siberia, extending as far as the polar region. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 subjected German entrepreneurs in Siberia to severe repression. Many firms were forced to relocate their operations abroad.

A map of the village of Ivanovka in Western Siberia
, which was predominantly inhabited by Germans until the 1990s
.
[www.iwanowka.de]

In 1991, the population consisted of 80 per cent Russians, four per cent Tatars, 2.2 per cent Ukrainians, 1.9 per cent Armenians and 0.8 per cent Germans, as well as members of Siberian ethnic groups. The Germans thus constitute the smallest non-Siberian ethnic group; following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, their proportion has halved to 0.4 per cent due to emigration. Officially, 51 per cent of Siberia’s population identify as Russian Orthodox, seven per cent as Muslim, nine per cent are atheists, and the remainder belong to non-Orthodox religious communities – primarily Lutherans and Mennonites – as well as to Buddhism and Shamanism.

Even today, the majority of Germans in Siberia still adhere to the Lutheran or Mennonite faith. The strong sense of religious devotion within the communities not only reinforced the sense of ethnic and cultural solidarity; indeed, many Lutherans and Mennonites were actively involved in evangelising non-Christians, particularly Muslims and animists. The main communities in Tomsk, Barnaul, Irkutsk and Vladivostok only began to grow as a result of the large influx of settlers in the second half of the 19th century. Pastoral care proved difficult, particularly in rural areas, due to inadequate infrastructure. The ministry of the ‘Siberian pastor’ was rightly regarded as the most difficult within the entire German diaspora in the Russian Empire. In 1886, for example, there were approximately 6,650 Lutherans living in eight congregations between the Urals and the Pacific Ocean. During the anti-atheism campaign of the Stalinist era in the 1930s, half of the believers were deported to camps. It was not until after Stalin’s death in 1953 that the Lutheran congregations began to revive. In contrast to the Lutherans, the Mennonites, in anticipation of the imminent return of Christ, preferred a life of seclusion. During Stalin’s collectivisation, some German Mennonites managed to emigrate to Canada.

Whilst the economic contribution of the German settlers to the modernisation of Siberia in the second half of the 19th century was still welcomed, they were subjected to discrimination and repression in later periods, such as during the First World War, the Russian Civil War and the Stalinist era. German culture and language could only be practised in secret. Whilst the cultural achievements of the Germans in Siberia were well known and recognised in the public sphere of the Tsarist Empire, the majority of the Soviet population knew next to nothing about the everyday lives of the Siberian Germans. In official Soviet propaganda, the German minority was regarded as having equal status to other minorities within the Union. Despite their different cultural backgrounds, their ways of life became increasingly similar in everyday life. In a vast region characterised by ethnic diversity (Germans, Russians, Tatars, Siberian ethnic groups), this represented a significant feat of adaptation. Wars and domestic political crises (the Revolution, Stalinism), however, reinforced mutual stereotyping and a reluctance to engage with one another.

Traditionally, everyday peasant life and the Siberian landscape were among the most popular subjects for Siberian-German painters and writers. During his journey through Siberia in the 1830s, the German naturalist Georg Adolf Erman (1806–1877) noted that German music was regularly performed in Siberian concert halls. Until the October Revolution of 1917, there was a thriving network of German societies in Siberia that promoted music, art, theatre and literature. Following the change in the political system, a financial decline set in initially, before the cultural devastation of Stalinism followed. With the onset of the political and cultural thaw after Stalin’s death, Siberian-German artists such as the painters Alfred Friesen (1929–2019) and Bruno Dil, began to address the themes of deportations and repression, as well as the fate of German prisoners of war in Siberia, in their works.

The German perception of Siberia is ambivalent. On the one hand, German culture has had a lasting influence on the history of Siberia right up to the present day, through scientific research into the region and the economic achievements of the Siberian Germans. On the other hand, discrimination and repression – particularly during the Stalinist era – as well as the fate of the peasants exiled to Siberia and the German soldiers who were taken as Soviet prisoners of war have left painful scars on the collective memory.

• Nikolaj N. Baranov et al. (eds.): Germans in the Urals and Siberia, 16th–20th Centuries. Research papers from the academic conference ‘Germany – Russia: Historical Experiences of Interregional Cooperation in the 16th–20th Centuries’. Yekaterinburg 2001.
• Detlef Brandes, Andrej Savin: The Siberian Germans in the Soviet State 1919–1938. Essen 2001 (Publications on Culture and History in Eastern Europe 19).
• Viktor Bruhl: The Germans in Siberia: A Hundred Years’ History from Settlement to Emigration. Nuremberg et al. 2003.
• Dittmar Dahlmann: Siberia. From the 16th Century to the Present Day. Paderborn et al. 2009.
• Nelly Däs: Fateful Years in Siberia. Berlin et al. (c. 1985).
• Petr P. Vibe: Istorija i ėtnografija nemcev v Sibiri [History and Ethnography of the Germans in Siberia]. Omsk 2009.

• Series: German Studies in Siberia [Kemerovo] 2003 onwards (published irregularly)

• hdl.handle.net/20.500.11811/2465 (Eva-Maria Stolberg: Siberia, Russia’s ‘Wild East’. Habilitation thesis)
• de.rbth.com/geschichte/83389-sibirien-deutsche-leben-traditionen (Russia Beyond the Headlines online portal, article on the Siberian Germans)
• sibiriendeutsche.tumblr.com/tatjanasmirnowa (Interview with Tatjana Smirnova on ethnographic fieldwork in Siberia)
• (Russian Germansin Oms k. Report byDeutschlandfunk )

Eva-Maria Stolberg: Siberia and the Germans in Siberia. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2012. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/55224.html (as at 26 July 2021).