The Ural settlement topic in the Ural, Siberian and “capital” texts about settlers (1850s-1890s.): problem of the dialogue

The paper analyzes the topic of the Ural space colonization that is interpreted in the Ural, Siberian and “capital” texts on resettlement in Siberia dating back to the second half of the 19th century as crossing the “civilization frontier” and entering a kind of a “threshold” of Siberia. The text-forming role of the topic is explained. It developed in the process of the cultural dialogue of the local and central press, the authors of the first and second rates who addressed the issue of Russian settlers in Siberia. A significant body of material is devoted to the history of settlement of the Urals that opens the story of migration movement in Siberia. The analyzed interpretations of the Siberia development motive, often understood broadly as the space located behind the Ural Mountains, clearly indicate that the essayists idealized the colonization of the Ural and Siberian land and the colonizers (only the Ural text on resettlement in Siberia about Yermak has a more complex evaluation, opposite points of view were given in his respect). Generally accepted is the idea of the Trans-Urals colonization as a way to give a new and better life both to the territory and to Central Russia. This representation is consistent with the essayists’ idea of the Trans- Urals as the “promised land”. Yet, the Ural, Siberian and capital texts on resettlement in Siberia have an opposing trend - to demythologize the Urals and Siberia. In general, it is concluded that the materials on the topic can and should be understood as an important page in the rich and complex history of identification and self-identification of the Ural- Siberian region as a space special not only geographically, but also culturally. Boundaries of the Ural, Siberian and capital texts about the settlement of the Urals oriented at a very large amplitude of meanings in the interpretation of this text-generating theme - from mythologizing to demythologizing the Ural land and the process of its conquest - are strictly delineated and open at the same time. This is why these texts include a number of works belonging to writers of different Russian toposes - the Urals, Siberia, Moscow-St. Petersburg. The interest of Russian literature, metropolitan and regional, in the topic is not only found in the close attention of the authors to this socio-historical phenomenon, but also in their persistent attempts to introduce this topic in literature, in the active and fruitful genre- style searches initiated by its development and, most importantly, in the dialogue of the described literary streams over resettlement.

Keywords

Authors

References