The Formation of Ukrainian Population in the Altai Okrug During the Resettlements of 1865-1917

This article aims to explore the resettlement and formation of the Ukrainian population in Altai in 1865-1917 from a complex historical-geographic point of view. For achieving this aim, the following objectives were set: to reveal the main reasons of Ukrainian population's migration mobility in traditional places of their living; to identify factors influencing their choice of settlement and formation of settlements in the new territory; to highlight the stages of settlement; to map zones of settlement of Ukrainians in the territory of Russian Altai. The source base of the research consists of legislative acts, statistical data from the State Archive of Altai Krai. Of special significance are accounts on the directions, general outputs and activities of the Resettlement Department during Stolypin's agrarian reform, and periodicals. A specific and complementing group of sources is the fieldwork data collected by the author and other staff of the Oral History and Ethnography Center at Altai State Pedagogical University in Altai Krai in areas of Ukrainian settlement (Romanovsky, Volchikhinsky, Pankrushikhinsky, Egoryevsky, Krutikhinsky, Krasnogorsky, Rodinsky Districts) and partially in Qarasouk District in Novosobirsk Oblast; more than 120 interviews in total. The analysis of the sources allowed determining and describing the main factors of the Ukrainian population's mass resettlement to Siberia, particularly to Altai, in the given time frame. The objective factors were the shortage of land for cultivation caused by the crisis of existing land usage, the rapid increase of land-poor peasants, the worsening of peasants' material stand in Ukrainian regions. The subjective factors were the construction of railways, the introduction of the system of medical and food assistance for resettlers on their way to new locations, rumors about free land that made peasants leave their homeland and migrate to new non-cultivated territories. The Ukrainian resettlement to Altai may be divided into three main stages: 1865-1888, 1889-1905, 1906-1917, taking into account the specificity of each stage and mapping the main zones of the Ukrainian resettlement. The zones were allocated based on the existence of the reset-tlers' culture with sustained intra-ethnic connections, with the preserved (in some degree) historical self-consciousness (the nuclear zone is Rodinsky, Romanovsky, Blagoveshshensky and Kulundinsky Districts), and the gradual extinction of ethnicity, oblivion and loss of ethnic identity (the periphery is Aleysky, Pospelikhinsky, Novichikhinsky, Egoryevsky, Rubtsovsky, Mamontovsky, Pank-rushikhinsky, Krutikhinsky, Krasnogorsky, Topchikhinsky Districts).

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