Amur Region Is Not Siberia": Representation of Differences between Siberia and the Far East in the Reports of Governor-Generals in the Second Half of the 19th Century

This article aims to show the dynamics of the representation of differences between Siberia and the Far East in the vsepoddanneyshie reports of the governor-generals of Eastern Siberia and of Amur Oblast in the second half of the 19th century, and to define factors that enabled this dynamics. The article is based on the annual reports of Governor-Generals of Eastern Siberia N.N. Muraviev, M.S. Korsakov, N.P. Sinelnikov, P.A. Frederiks, D.G. Anuchin, and A.P. Ignatiev, and Governor-Generals of Amur Oblast A.N. Korf, S.M. Dukhovsky, and N.I. Grodekov. According to the conducted research, the authors infer that the governor-generals' reports allow reconstructing the place of the Far Eastern territories on the mental maps of the top officials of the regions. Opinions of the governor-generals depended on various circumstances. First, they depended on the symbolic meaning the officials gave to the "Far Eastern acquisitions of the empire" and on their mindsets. In Muraviev's and Korsakov's social imagination the territories were given a distinctive status and viewed as a space for a social experiment in which the old regime based on serfdom and bearing anachronisms of traditional society was to give way to a civil society with a developed local self-governance and a fair judicial system. However, Sinelnikov, Frederiks and Anuchin saw the territories that later were included into Amur Governorate-General as a part of Eastern Siberia, its eastern border, although the area had a specific geographic location, a different climate, a late inclusion into the empire, a different system of territorial governing, and a distinctive social structure. Second, the opinions of the governor-generals depended on the specifics of vsepoddanneyshie reports as a certain type of documents. It is known that vsepoddanneyshie reports were intended for the monarch and for his ministers. As historians have frequently mentioned, reports by governor-generals and governors were an important channel of information, a means of direct communication between the center and the periphery of the empire. Governor-generals were representatives of the imperial center in the regions and, simultaneously, were spokesmen for local interests. Third, the governors' opinions depended on their knowledge and understanding of Amur Oblast and their attitude to the region's inclusion into the empire. Even when the governor-general did not share the idea of an administrative separation of Amur Oblast from Eastern Siberia, as Sinelnikov did, but happened to visit the Far East, he recorded the special conditions of economic development, administrative governance and scope of the population of the most eastern parts of the empire in his reports. Governor-Generals of Eastern Siberia Muraviev-Amursky and Korsakov not only visited Amur Oblast many times but saw the incorporation of the region into the Russian Empire as the goal of their lives. Governor Anuchin, who did not take part in the "Amur saga", saw the region's strategic and geo-political importance.

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