Ethnic and Cultural Interaction in the Epoch of Colonization of Siberia: from Archaeological Context to Historical Interpretation

The article deals with the problem of ethnic and cultural interaction of the Siberian population in the Colonization Epoch, the urgency of which is determined by the fact, that the process of region’s entering into Russia radically changed the development vector and the historical perspectives of indigenous peoples and settlers, who eventually became Russian Siberians. The aim of the study is to show, that the peoples’ contacts were by no means confined to the political-administrative-legal field, which is primarily reflected in written sources, but were in the space of non-political everyday life and were conducted in the language of material culture as well. Cultural exchange at the economic and household level is transformed into an effective mechanism of adaptation to the changed conditions of existence for both local and foreign peoples. The source base for the study of ethnic and cultural interaction is multicomponent and includes written documents, folklore, archaeological data, in which the historical reality is differently refracted that allows more complete reconstruction of the past realities. Interethnic communication involves different layers of culture, influences and borrowings that occur at different speeds and in different volume, drawn-in cultures of different stages that assume the presence of a donor culture and a recipient culture, the exchange between those is asymmetric. In one space-time continuum representatives of different cultural worlds communicate in verbal language and in the language of material things, objects, symbols, which is reflected in the archaeological context. The massive presence in indigenous sites of “Russian” importation items requires a deeper historical interpretation, which goes beyond the statement of just a fact of the interaction and simplistic interpretations of the archaeological context. The study of the Russian sites’ materials shows, that ideas about the Russian culture itself need improvement or revision in some aspects, especially taking into account the impact of the native environment. Was the introduction into everyday life and even into the sacred space of culture of "alien" elements up to the complete replacement of local products with imported ones in the funerary inventory, traditional costume with purchased clothes etc. an indisputable indicator of "Russification" or "Christianization"? Transformation and even deformation of identities as a form of adaptation to changing living conditions did not lead the participants of interethnic communication to the loss of their "selves". The analysis of the criteria, forms, mechanisms of self-preservation in the "melting pot" of ethnic and cultural interaction is far from completion. The study leads to the conclusion, that the solution of the problem is not only in the field of source base strengthening, but also is in a methodological and methodical analysis of the interaction process, dynamics and depth of transformation of the initial state of culture.

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