Resettlement of peasant households of the Chernozem Center in Western Siberia (second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries): the economic situation and adaptive opportunities

The economic opportunities of peasant resettlement farms of the Chernozem Center in the second half of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries are revealed in the article based on published and unpublished sources. The causes and factors of the inclusion of the peasantry of the Chernozem area in the resettlement movement, the financial opportunities of households that made the decision to resettle in the provinces and regions of Western Siberia are described. It was established during the investigation that the movement of peasants from European Russia to the Urals was carried out with the participation of governmental agencies at the central and regional levels, with varying degrees of success in correcting the resettlement movement. Two stages can be clearly traced in the course of the settlement of migrants in the region. At the first stage, settlers, using agricultural experience and traditions acquired in their homeland, quickly came to a conclusion that these practices in Siberia were not very productive. At the second stage, a significant part of resettled households, having overcome the initial difficulties of the adaptation period and having managed to adjust the farm to the Siberian realities, substantially increased the degree of prosperity. In the end, the economic condition of peasant households of settlers and, as a result, the adaptive opportunities of the settlers themselves in the new region were determined by a wide range of circumstances. It is obvious that peasants of the chernozem provinces of Russia, which constituted the "core" of the resettlement, had a decisive influence on the formation of a certain general scheme for the economic development of the region manifested in the absolute dominance of agriculture over the rest of the economy, which under different circumstances and other contingent of settlers could be more progressive in the specific conditions of the Siberian region. The steadily growing participation in the resettlement of land-poor and landless households contributed to the preservation of the "crisis" of the economic outlook of peasant settlers, which was manifested in the region of the settlement in the almost universal transition to the Siberian farming techniques using adaptive agricultural implements. Peasant settlers settled in Siberia easily perceived the principles of land use of old inhabitants that experts defined as "predatory". In places where independent settlement settlements were created, a similar variant of land exploitation to the migrants was prompted by their "peasant instinct". As a result of these factors, the transformation of the resettlement economy in Siberia into a fully operating production body was stretched in time, which in turn increased the terms of adaptation, required enormous energy, industrial and financial costs.

Keywords

Authors

References