Aboriginal policy of Moscow Tsardom in Siberia: problem of synthesis of social and political institutions in 17 century

The 17th century was a controversial period in Russian-aboriginal relations. On the one hand, there were some objective factors that contributed to the integration process of aboriginal population into the structure of Moscow Tsardom and made this process relatively easy; on the other hand, insurmountable obstacles for this process appeared quite frequently. It is crucial to understand that before they met each other, both Russian social and state system, and Siberian aborigines with their social structures, had already passed a fairly complicated way of development. Moscow brought to Siberia the only known form of interstate relations - the tributary system, but a large part of aborigines were already familiar with such kind of relations long before Russians came to their lands. That was a common Eurasian political legacy, which Moscow had borrowed from the Golden Horde and then transformed, and which Siberian natives (or their substrates) met long before that, while being a part of Central Asian states of ancient and medieval times. Moscow could not bring to Siberia a set social class structure, because at that time it had not formed yet. But it showed some principles of social organization. Based on the needs of the state, Moscow authorities determined a special form of tribute for Siberian natives - yasak, and a registration to the tributaries district (ulus, zemlitsa, kin). Thus, they took their place in the social class structure of Moscow Tsardom, based on estates principle of organization. This was a consequence of the weak Russian ethnos consolidation and initial form of building the Russian State as a multiethnic society, where nationality was substituted by the social class. That was the fundamental difference between Moscow and the then existing Western European states that also came to an end of centralization process, but kept the principle of mono-ethnic states. While the interaction between the Moscow socio-political system and local governmental or potestarian structures took place, in the 17th century their synthesis had also begun, and the common Eurasian legacy made this process a lot easier. Therefore Siberia of the 17th century was seen by the authorities as a part of Moscow Tsardom, as a part of the "royal estates, ulus" and its indigenous population was seen as an indispensable element of Russian society. Due to the "Eurasian features" of the medieval Russian state and the "open" character of the Russian ethnos, as indeed most of Siberian ethnicities had such a character, the aborigines were not treated with any kind of isolationist mood, and no policy delimiting them from the rest of the Russian population was held. Nationality was substituted by social class both mentally and legally, and this fact inevitably accelerated their incorporation into the emerging nationwide social body, creating better conditions for their further development within the Russian state.

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