Migration processes and the ethno-cultural landscape of the northern frontier of Russia and Norway in the 18th - early 19th centuries

The article considers little-known pages of the history of the Russian-Norwegian borderland (Northern Frontier), a comprehensive picture of migration processes, and the ethnocultural landscape of the Northern Frontier in the chronological framework of the 18th -early 19th centuries. The main sources are the archives of Russia and Norway: the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire, the State Military Historical Archive, the State Archive of the Arkhangelsk Region, the National Archive of Norway in Oslo and the State Archive of Norway in Tromso. The results of the study reveal a comprehensive reconstruction of the evolutionary development of the Russian-Norwegian borderland from the zone with a frontier configuration to a territory with well-defined political boundaries, and substantially supplement the interpretation model of the delimitation process of the Northern Frontier at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. An analysis of archival sources showed that the territory of the Russian-Norwegian borderland (Nyavdema, Paatsjoki and Pechengsky pogosts) prior to the 18th century was inhabited mainly by the Russian Orthodox Sami-Skolts. Since the 18th century, Danish-Norwegian subjects of the Varanger group - the montane and sea Sami and Norwegian colonists gradually settled this area. Seasonal fishing migrations of the Varanger Sami in the Skolt pogosts were typical for the economic life of the Sami borderland communes, but the nature of commercial migrations in the 18th century qualitatively changed. Montane and sea Sami gradually replaced their seasonal fishing migrations to permanent stay in the Skolt territories, expanding the areas of fishing activities. The transition to settlement colonization was caused by the crisis of extensive reindeer breeding of the Varanger Sami and the policy of Finnish officials who encouraged the settlement of the Russian Sami territories. Thus, the change of the migration nature, the expansion of fishing activities by Danish-Norwegian subjects, and the Skolt’s failure to control their own territory led to a change in the ethnocultural landscape of the Northern Frontier. The Norwegian presence in the disputed territory was intensified; the involvement of the civil administration of Russia and Denmark-Norway in the resolution of trade disputes between subjects of both states in the late 18th and early 19th centuries increased. These facts eventually became the formal foundation for the delimitation process of the Northern Frontier in the 1820s.

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