The indigenous population of Western Siberia

Before the arrival of the Russians, Finno-Ugric, Samoyed and Turkic tribes — the ancestors of modern Khanty, Mansi, Nenets, Selkups and Siberian Tatars — already lived in Western Siberia. In the ancient Novgorod chronicles, Khanty and Mansi are mentioned under the single name "Yugra". Then the Hunts began to be called "ostyaks", and the Mansi — "voguls". The Nenets were known as "Samoyeds", and the Selkups were sometimes called "Ostyako-Samoyeds", then "Vogulo-Samoyeds". Until 1931, the peoples of Siberia retained their old names.

The territory of Khanty’s residence included the basins of the Ob and Irtysh rivers with their tributaries. The southern Khanty group lived north of modern Tobolsk. In the west, the Khanty had contact with the Mansi, in the north with the Nenets. The southern Khanty experienced a strong influence, first of the Tatar, then of the Russian population. At the moment, the Khanty’s territory of residence is very extensive — the Sverdlovsk, Tyumen regions, Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs.

In the old days, Mansi had four groups (northern, western, eastern and southern). Now only two have been preserved — the northern and eastern ones. The northern Mansi group lives in the basin of the Severnaya Sosva River with a tributary of the Lyapin River, in the upper reaches of the Lozva and Pelym rivers; the eastern group lives in the Konda River basin. The other two groups disappeared (it is not necessary to understand that they were exterminated or died of hunger and disease). For example, the southern Mansi lived in Tura and Tavda (in the area of modern Tyumen). Very early they came into contact with the Turkic tribes (the ancestors of the Siberian Tatars), as a result they adopted their way of life and way of life.

In ancient times, the ancestors of the Nenets settled in the North, came to Yamal, where the local population already lived (in Nenets legends, this is sikhirtya). Currently, representatives of this people live in a vast territory from the Russian North to the Yenisei River. According to the place of residence, the Nenets are divided into forest and tundra. The people related to the Nenets — the Selkups (the word "Selkup" translates as "forest man") live more isolated in the Yamalo-Nenets Okrug (Krasnoselkupsky district of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District), but a small part of them are in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Tomsk Region.

The ancestors of the Siberian Tatars, the Turkic tribes, came to the territory of Western Siberia more than a thousand years ago. The local Ugric population was displaced to the north, and part of it was assimilated by aliens. Gradually, an ethnic community was formed — the Siberian Tatars. Today, most of them live in the Tyumen, Omsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo regions.

Komi-zyryans

Komi-Zyryans and Komi-Permians were among the most significant in the category of "other" nationalities. The "Izhma" Komi-Zyryans (natives of the village of Izhma, Pechora district, Arkhangelsk province) appeared in the north of Tobolsk province in the second half of the 19th century as a result of migration.

If in 1881 the absolute number of Komi-Zyryans was 121 people (0.01%), then in 1890 the Zyryans already made up a third of the inhabitants of the village of Obdorsky (539 people) and the inhabitants of the village of Muzhi (717). In addition, several Zyryan families settled in the yurts of Kachegatsky, Vezengortsky in the village of He and on the Nadym river. The Zyryans have adopted the lifestyle of Russians. From 1881 to 1897, their number increased from 121 to 2017, that is, in 16 years their number increased 17 times. In the south of the Tobolsk province, during the specified period, there was an influx of Komi (Permyaks). According to the census of 1897, 2504 people were registered in the Yalutorovsky district of Zyryan, and 1752 people in Tyukalinsky district. Many Zyryan settlements (villages with the same name as Zyryanova, Zyryanskie) were noted in the Turin, Tyumen and Tobolsk districts.

Siberian Tatars

Since ancient times, Turkic peoples have lived along the banks of the Ob, Irtysh, Tom, Omi, Chulym, Tobol and Tura rivers. In the Iron Age, the Sargat culture existed in southern Siberia. In 155, the Huns first came to the Barabinsk steppe. Under the onslaught of the Huns, the Sargat culture disappeared at the beginning of the IV century A.D. Some of the Huns mixed with the local Ugric population. In the VI century, Siberia entered the orbit of influence of the Turkic Khaganate, in the VIII century — the Uighur, in the IX century — the Kyrgyz.

In the XIII century, the forest-steppe along the Tobol and Irtysh was included in the Golden Horde. Intensive settlement of the lower reaches of the Tobol and the taiga Irtysh began. Turkic-speaking groups replaced the Ugric population.

The ancestors of the Siberian Tatars lived along the banks of rivers and lakes. They owned the best lands and fish sands. Many Tatar settlements trace their ancestry back to the end of the XIV century.

In the class composition of the Tatar population in the 19th century, there were peasant, serviceable Tatars and "trespassers". The Yasach Tatars made up the bulk of the Tatar population. Their duties consisted in paying the sovereign’s tax. The serving Tatars, along with the Yasaks, were the indigenous population of Siberia. Another group of the population of the Siberian Tatars was called "trespassers." This name was given to Tatars from the Volga region, from Kazan, Simbirsk and Ufa provinces. A special group among the Siberian Tatars were natives of Central Asia — "Bukharians". This name should be understood as Uzbeks, Tajiks, Uighurs and representatives of some other peoples.

In the statistical data of the post-reform period, the facts were cited that "Tatars make up almost half of all Siberian foreigners and live in the middle zone of the province, mainly in villages and a small number in cities." Settlements of the Siberian Tatars are called yurts or villages. The northernmost settlement inhabited by Tatars was considered to be the Yesaulsky yurts, lying 148 versts north of Tobolsk.

The composition of the Tatar population was not homogeneous. In the Tatar settlements, 72% were indigenous Siberian Tatars, 11% were newcomers from the Volga and Ural Tatars, and 17% were Bukharans (natives of Central Asia).

In the second half of the XIX century in the Tobolsk province, the relative number of Tatars was stable and amounted to more than 4% of the population

According to the census of 1897, the number of Tatars in the province was 56 957 people, or 3.97% of the population of the province. Bukharians made up 20% of all Tatars. The largest number of them was noted in Tara (613 people), Tobolsk (411) and Tyumen (299). At that time, their national characteristics underwent a significant transformation. For a long time, living with the Siberian Tatars in the same villages, the Bukharans gradually adopted local habits. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the number of Tatars and Bukharians increased markedly. In 1904, 58,856 people were registered in the Tobolsk province, in 1907 — 66 097, in 1913 — 96 932.

Management of foreigners

The specifics of Western Siberia allow us to pay attention to such a category of the population as "foreigners". This term referred to representatives of the indigenous population — Khanty, Mansi, Nenets and Siberian Tatars.

The basic law for many years, adopted for foreigners, was the "Charter on the Management of the foreigners of Siberia", which divided all "foreign tribes" into sedentary, nomadic and wandering.

The administrative-territorial structure was based on administrative genera, that is, local territorial groups. The management system included two links: generic management and foreign management. The first was established for each camp, ulus or clan, which had at least 15 families in it. The foreign administration, which is an administrative, judicial and police institution, was created for several clans, uluses or camps. According to the "Charter", each settled tribe (clan) was assigned ownership of lands that had long been occupied by them; The lands of the wandering (nomadic) aborigines were not divided by tribes and clans: they defined only common borders that separated their possessions from lands belonging to sedentary and semi-sedentary inhabitants.

At the turn of the XIX — XX centuries, volost rule was extended to some areas where tribal relations had long since lost their force, according to the Russian model.

Khanty, Mansi and Nenets

In addition to the Siberian Tatars, the Ostyaks (Khanty), Voguls (Mansi) and Samoyeds (Nenets) belonged to the foreign population of Western Siberia. Official statistics did not single out the Selkups as a separate ethnic community, classifying them as Ostyako-Samoyeds. The bulk of the Northerners lived in the Berezovsky, Surgut and Tobolsk districts of the Tobolsk province. In addition, a significant number of foreigners lived in the Turin district in the volosts: Koshukskaya, More Kondinskaya, Verkhne-Tabarinskaya and others.

In 1861, foreigners made up 1 / 14th of the population of the Tobolsk province. The absolute number of this category was 74 978 people — 902 people (1.2%) lived in cities, and 74 076 people (98.8%) lived in districts. The largest number of foreigners was noted in Berezovsky (23,116 people, or 30.84% of the population) and Tobolsk districts (20,890 people, 27.86%).

The total number of indigenous people in 1897 was 28,258, including Khanty — 19,018, Mansi — 4,790, Nenets — 4,450. In the Berezovsky district, 6,207 Nenets and 11 095 Khanty (51.8% of the district’s population) lived. In Surgut county, the census counted 5,552 Khanty, in Tobolsk — 2,359 Khanty and 1,218 Mansi. 3504 Mansi were counted in the Turin district. From 1881 to 1897, the relative number of foreigners in the Tobolsk province decreased from 7.1 to 5.8% of the population. Many researchers attributed the decrease in the number of foreigners to low fertility, lack of medical care and epidemics. Russification was another factor. During the census, many of the foreigners identified themselves as Russians. This primarily applied to the Russified Mansi of the Koshuk, Nizhne- and Verkhne-Tabarin volosts of the Turin district.

L.E. Lugovsky, an employee of the Tobolsk Provincial Statistical Committee, noted: "If some Samoyed accidentally falls into the conditions of civilized life, for example, he is sent to a theological college or a paramedic school, then he inevitably breaks with his relatives, becomes a Russian priest or a paramedic…"

In the following years, the relative number of foreigners continued to decline. According to the Tobolsk Provincial Statistical Committee, in 1913 Khanty and Mansi made up 2.5%, Nenets — 0.2% of the population of the province.