Environmental Aspects of Reindeer Husbandry of the Izhma Komi of Northern Trans-Urals (The 19th - the First Third of the 20th Centuries)

The primary aim of the article is to identify environmental factors in the development of large-scale reindeer herding among Izhma Komi. The degree of adaptation of the Zyryan reindeer husbandry to the natural conditions of the Lower Ob river, including the body of natural history knowledge of reindeer herders, is also considered. The results of the interaction between the Zyryan large-herd reindeer husbandry and regional environment are studied. The method of environmental history in the study of the formation and development of local economic structures involves considering natural environment as a powerful and constantly changing factor rather than as a background. In this regard, the article draws on the data of paleoclimatology. The author also relies on data from ethnography, ethnic history, and historical demography. For the first time, documents from the local archives (Tobolsk, Salekhard) are introduced into scientific discourse. The materials of land surveying expeditions of the People's Commissariat for Agriculture of the late 1920s-1930s have the greatest heuristic value for studies on the Yamal-Nenets district. The decisive factor in the transition of Izhma Komi to nomadic reindeer husbandry was climate change. In the last third of the 18th century, the Russian North and the Northern Trans-Urals entered the ascendance phase (warming) of the Little Ice Age (LIA). Warming created favorable conditions for farming, which in turn caused demographic growth in the Komi region. These processes resulted in the migration of Komi, including Izhma Komi, to the new territories of the North, including the Lower Ob. However, the possibilities of the appropriating-producing economy of Izhma Komi remained limited. The solution was found in the transition to large-scale reindeer herding, which took place in the Pechora region almost simultaneously with the beginning of the ascending phase of LIA, in the middle and second half of the 18th century. Izhma Komi reindeer herders practiced intensive reindeer husbandry in order to obtain the greatest yield. On the way to achieving this goal, they faced a number of environmental problems. Epizootics harmed the deer greatly. During the period under consideration, there was no effective veterinary service in the Ob-Irtysh North. Gnats (mosquitoes, gadflies, midges) restrained reindeer husbandry in the forest and forest-tundra zones. Adaptation to the natural conditions of the reindeer herding complex took place primarily due to the accumulation of natural history knowledge ("knowledge of the land" and "knowledge of deer"). The Zyryan reindeer husbandry was of a pronounced commercial character. The increase in livestock and in the commercial output of reindeer husbandry was achieved due to the development of complex economic techniques. In historiography, there is an opinion that some of these methods led to the degradation of pasture lands. However, the joint efforts of all nomads of the tundra resulted in land degradation. By the beginning of the 1930s, the best reindeer mosses in the Ural tundra were destroyed. Reindeer herding roads were in particularly poor conditions. Numerous herds of Zyryan, Nenets and Khanty deer passed through these clearings in the forest in spring and autumn, literally sweeping away not only vegetation, but also the thin soil layer.

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