Time to read: 24 minutes(s)

Vyacheslav Shadrin: Each guest is a completely different matter; it's a system of hospitality: you have to welcome them, feed them, and give them drink, no matter how poor they are. It was always meant to be that way. They leave, and after a while, others arrive, suddenly accusing them of being a Red or a White, and you're helping them, and it turns out you're either White Bandits or, conversely, Red.

STUDIO: About 300 years earlier, the northern peoples of Siberia, which then included what is now the Far East, also suddenly began receiving visitors. But instead of sitting around the fire with the locals, they immediately began taking hostages, shooting, and demanding yasak (a tribute or tax) and allegiance to the tsar (or tsarina) thousands of kilometers away. This is the podcast "We'll Manage It Ourselves." My name is Andrey Allakhverdov. Hello.

In one of our podcast episodes, we discussed self-government in Siberia, plans for Siberian autonomy, and the vision for this vast region's place within the Russian state. Back then, we barely mentioned the indigenous peoples who lived in the conquered lands and ultimately became subjects of the empire. How their self-government was organized. How they lived within the empire, in territories many considered a colony. Vyacheslav Shadrin discusses this today. Vyacheslav is a member of the Council of Elders of the Yukaghir People, Vice President of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North of the Sakha-Yakutia Republic, and a research fellow at the Institute of Humanitarian Research and Problems of Indigenous Peoples of the North of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

VS: I'll probably base my discussion primarily on examples from the lives of my people, the Yukaghirs. Generally, the tribal principle of self-government was built in stages, with the lowest level being the family, perhaps an extended family, living in a separate camp. Then came the clan. We had a basin principle, meaning they lived along river basins. These were clans, respectively. And then came the tribe, let's say. There could even be several clans. There could also be something national, but this was only among those who had a sufficiently developed form, say, already a pre-state state. How this system of self-government existed at the family, extended family level, is clear. Even at the clan level. But what might it have looked like at the tribal level? This question is often asked. For example, the Yukaghirs had a mandatory tribal gathering once a year. We called it "shakhadibe" and it usually took place during the summer solstice celebration on June 22nd. This coincided with the river's ice-freeing—a transitional period when the major fish runs hadn't yet begun and the hunting season wasn't yet strong, a kind of off-season. During this period, all the tribes of the Kolyma basin would converge on one spot, most often in the Sakha-Yakutia Republic, somewhere in the middle of the Kolyma River near Verkhnekolymsk, according to the map—that is, from the upper reaches of the Kolyma, in what is now the Magadan Region, and the Lower Kolyma, in what is now the Nizhnekolymsky District of the Sakha-Yakutia Republic. All these tribes would gather there, and something akin to a large gathering would occur.

In the early 19th and early 20th centuries, there were exiled explorers, like Vladimir Yokhelson, who described the functions of this festival from two perspectives. First, it was a kind of tribal review and social gathering. Merchants would arrive, and trade would sometimes take place there, something akin to a fair, although the fair wasn't the main function. Second, it was a way to resolve disputes, including inter-clan and other matters. Young people might form marriages. How long did it take them to gather there? After all, someone had to sail for weeks to get there. Of course, the festival could last several weeks, and it even served a kind of rescue function: they would check which clans had arrived. For example, it would turn out that a certain clan wasn't present, and a group might be sent to that clan to find out what had happened to them and why they hadn't arrived. Sometimes, this expedition truly proved to be a rescue mission in the most literal sense of the word. We read, for example, the messages of the Cossacks XVII In the 18th century, when the same Semyon Dezhnev entered the Alazeya River on three kochis, it was around this time, which means some tribes from the Alazeya basin must have gathered somewhere, and Dezhnev happened to be there during this period. He describes—of course, this was an exaggeration—that practically an entire horde of these Yukaghirs accompanied his kochis along the bank, showering them with arrows, describing his wound, and so on. But we understand perfectly well that such a number simply could not have existed. Just so you understand: today, the entire Yukaghir population is 1813. This is down from the lowest figures of the mid-20th century, when there were 449 Yukaghirs. By the mid-17th century, the number was somewhere around 4500-5000. That is, it's clear that there were thousands of people in a single small river basin, one of the small rivers. But even if we reduce the scale, say, and say there were about a hundred people, questions still arise. For city dwellers, this is probably difficult to understand. When people lived dispersedly, in a feeding landscape, when no more than a certain number of people could live in a single space because it was simply impossible to hunt more deer, elk, or other game to feed them. Consequently, to gather even 100 men, at least 10 clans would have to gather. In other words, Dezhnev's encounter with such numerous enemies could only have occurred if these clans had actually gathered.

From the petition of Semyon Dezhnev

To the Tsar, Sovereign, and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich, Autocrat of all great, small, and white Russia, your serf from the great river Lena, the man serving in the Yakutsk prison, the Ivanov Dezhnev family, bows.

…And while I, your serf, was on the Kovyma River, with Dmitry and Mikhail Stadukhin and the service men, we were on a campaign against the Yukaghir Oimok peasants, and there was a battle with those Oimok hostages on a kopje, and I, your serf Senka, killed their best peasant, Allaev's brother, on that kopje, and took Allaev's son Kenita as hostage. […] And Dmitry Mikhailov and Mikhail Stadukhin, together with their comrades, went by sea on a koch […] to the Yakutsk fort, and I, your serf Senka, remained behind on the Kovyma River in the fort […] with my comrades, thirteen men in all, for your sovereign's yasak tax. And those Yukaghir foreigners, seeing us, your serfs, a few men, gathered together, five hundred or more, […] besieged us in the fort and wounded many, wounding me, your serf Senka, in the head with an iron arrow, and many foreigners stormed into our fort. And by the grace of God and your, great sovereign, good fortune, we pierced the traitor Allaik to death with a spear in a pitched battle, and along with him, we killed many other Yukaghirs, and we, your serfs, wounded many other foreigners, and they, fearing death, retreated from the fort.

VS: And this is precisely how this tribe resolved issues, most often military ones, because in our traditional system of social organization, there was, for example, the best warrior who could lead. This is in addition to the fact that there were shamans, the best hunters, and so on, but there was also one who specifically led the wars. Let's not forget that during that difficult period, wars were a characteristic part of the lives of our peoples, because there was always a struggle for space. In the tundra, despite its apparent desolation, sparseness, or even complete absence of population, the principle of a nurturing landscape existed, and the arrival of any other people seriously impacted the ability to sustain life in a given territory. In the Russian Federation, we have about 40 indigenous peoples of the North living in the northern part. We are talking only about the small ones, but there were also large peoples—the Yakuts, Komi, and so on—peoples who lived over a vast area. Naturally, there was a constant struggle for these lands. It's no wonder that the folklore and historical legends of these peoples are filled with tales of these clashes. That is, the primary function of intertribal self-government is, firstly, to resolve internal issues, including land use, and secondly—and this was probably more important—to resolve military issues of defense or, conversely, attack, and so on—issues related to neighbors.

STUDIO: To what extent did the state and authorities interfere in the process of self-government of indigenous peoples?

VS: Of course, the arrival of the tsarist administration brought about a global revolution in the lives of the northern peoples. Firstly, we can say that it undermined very powerful peoples who had their own fairly strong military organizations, who were capable of resisting and who perhaps dominated certain territories. They were effectively decapitated because they resisted, they felt a certain strength within themselves, and they, naturally, suffered great losses. The entire 17th century was very difficult for the northern peoples, if only because there was no established system of governance, not even the so-called yasak system. After all, we know that many uprisings among local tribes occurred not because they had remained so militant for a hundred years, but because various Cossack detachments arrived, each trying to collect as much yasak as possible. And then it turned out that some clans were subject to yasak twice or even three times and literally became impoverished very quickly. Naturally, they were outraged, and then these so-called uprisings or resistances and so on took place.

From the Senate's decision of February 3, 1742

According to the report of the Irkutsk provincial chancery of October 15, 1741, on the demand for a decree on the unpeaceful Chukchi and other things, for the eradication of these Chukchi, the demand of Major Pavlutsky, stated in that report, to send the number of regular people from the regimental soldiers stationed in Irkutsk without any denial, and instead of them, for guard duty […] in the Irkutsk province, to use […] a recruit of 84 people […].

In the extermination of these unruly Chukchi, proceed according to the opinion declared in the same report of State Councilor Lang, namely, to attack these unruly Chukchi with military force and completely exterminate them, as soon as any of them become subjects of Her Imperial Majesty, they, as well as their wives and children, are to be taken prisoner and removed from their homes and henceforth, for safety, distributed within the Yakutsk department to various forts […] among the loyal subjects living, where appropriate, who, having found other yasak-paying infidels living in good condition under the power of Her Imperial Majesty as loyal subjects, may forget their former fickle life and become loyal subjects, while the rest are to accept the Christian faith. And a decree to this effect is to be sent to the Irkutsk provincial chancery.

VS: At the initial stage, when the conquest was underway, this was a very serious blow. But the government perhaps didn't expect that, in addition to direct military clashes, their arrival brought new diseases. Now, after the COVID epidemic, this has suddenly become relevant, and people finally understand what a problem this can be. For the people of Siberia, the arrival of the Russians was associated with such a huge phenomenon as the epidemics of the mid- and late 17th centuries, when many peoples practically disappeared. I'll just give an example: even according to those very same yasak books, by the mid-17th century there were about 4500 yasak-paying Yukaghirs, but by the end of the 17th century, there were fewer than 2000 left—that is, their numbers had more than halved. These are direct losses, related, on the one hand, to certain military incidents, and on the other, to epidemics.

Things only returned to normal by the end of the 17th century, and most likely this was due to the sudden, sharp decline in the flow of yasak, which required regulation and some kind of organized system. When the strength of the local yasak-paying population was undermined, when suddenly, around the 1670s and 1680s, as a result of epidemics, among other things, yasak collections plummeted, naturally, economic issues immediately arose. This was, after all, the foundation of the state's prosperity. The need for a regulated system of governance in these territories arose. When we study the history of the 17th century, one Cossack company would support one of the princes, while another would find an ally for another, that is, artificially, including by encouraging internal tribal clashes. Power struggles and so on also led to these population losses. And then, when the level of yasak fell sharply, decrees began to be issued one after another, speaking of preserving the yasak population. Suddenly, it became clear that these Cossack teams, roaming around—in a very real sense, just wandering around—were not only disrupting the lives of the peoples living there, but also the yasak collection system. They were disrupting the very system of land management for these peoples. Some regulations had already been introduced, restricting their movement. They began to restore order. And then it suddenly became clear that traders and merchants had followed in the wake of the Cossack teams. For them, the easiest way was to get the people drunk. By the 18th century, laws were needed banning the import of alcohol altogether, because everything was taking its toll; that is, they'd initially achieve some result, only to have yasak collection decline again completely. This was finally formalized by Speransky's reform, which introduced a fairly coherent system of grading these peoples. There were sedentary, nomadic, and nomadic peoples. The sedentary ones were, in fact, those who had already largely begun to live alongside the Russians; they no longer lived in forts, but in villages, and began to adopt more sedentary crafts. The nomadic ones were those who engaged in transhumance and reindeer herding. The wandering ones were primarily hunters of wild reindeer, or, say, elk or moose.

From the Charter on the management of foreigners of July 22, 1822

– Sedentary foreigners who profess the Christian faith are not distinguished from Russians by any special name, but those of them who profess the pagan or Mohammedan faith are called sedentary foreigners to distinguish them from others.

– All settled non-Russians are equal in rights and obligations to Russians according to the class they belong to. They are governed by common laws and institutions.

"Nomadic non-Russians will generally retain their former rights. They must be made to understand that, as agriculture increases, they will not be converted into peasants against their will, and will not be included in any other class without their own consent."

– Nomadic foreigners have lands assigned to them for each generation.

– Russians are strictly prohibited from settling without permission on lands allocated to foreigners.

– The foreigners are governed by their own Ancestors and honorable people, from whom their steppe Administration is made up.

– The nomadic people are governed by the steppe laws and customs that are characteristic of each tribe.

– Free trade with nomads is allowed at all times in all supplies and goods, except hot drinks.

– The import and sale of hot drinks in nomadic camps and fairs is strictly prohibited.

VS: Speransky's "Charter of Inorodtsy" established very serious protective mechanisms for the internal self-organization of peoples. This meant that outsiders couldn't simply settle in these territories. If you look at a map from the 17th and 18th centuries, it differs radically from the territories inhabited, for example, by these peoples today. Significant migrations began to occur: some territories were vacated, others, on the contrary, were settled, and so on. The tsarist government realized that if they wanted to maintain the level of yasak payments, they had to, among other things, halt the unregulated migration processes that were occurring at the time. And for a while, perhaps for an entire century, this preserved some internal relations, but at the same time, Christianization still had a very significant impact. Christianization was underway; it was, of course, integrated into the unified state system, but at the local level, church authority sometimes operated in parallel with voivodeship or gubernatorial authority, sometimes even being independent of them, and this Christianization had a significant impact on the local population. Suffice it to say that by the early 20th century, most indigenous peoples already considered themselves Christians. I'm sometimes asked, what kind of Christians were they? I say, well, take the Russians, for example; they've had Christianity for a thousand years, but they still retain vestiges of pagan rituals, like Maslenitsa, fortune-telling, and so on. Of course, the peoples of the North have far more of these vestiges, because their history of Christianity spans only 200-300 years, and even then, so to speak, it was primarily external rather than internal. Incidentally, these vestiges were also largely determined by the fact that those who converted to Christianity received certain benefits associated with this yasak tax. There were two waves, or rather, two systems of governance, one might even say. The first was complete autonomy, as it granted administrative control over the people of the North. However, the church administration, while implementing Christianization, interfered significantly, as shamans, for example, always occupied a significant place in the internal organizational system. For some peoples, shamans were a distinct social category, for others, not, but nevertheless, they played a significant social role. Christianity fought against this, and thus also disrupted the internal self-government of these peoples.

STUDIO: Was this the “civilizing” mission that many public figures spoke about?

VS: Yes, well, of course, it was believed that they were bringing civilization, but, on the other hand, there is the now fashionable word “bonds” – they tried to somehow unite these peoples, and the administration of that time understood that Christianity could be such a “bond” that could unite them.

From the Tale of Edilway

Edilvey was born the strongest man. A skilled hunter, he was the breadwinner of his people and his numerous clan. In those days, a skilled hunter was looked upon as a leader. They called him "the Hunter" and followed him, recognizing him as the leader. [2] That Edilvey was always hunting. He himself, it turns out, was born on the Bolshaya Chukochya River and could walk from Alazeya to Chukochya in a single day. Returning, he would simply say: "I got a wild deer in such-and-such a place. Take it there." That's how he indicated the location. If he took people with him on the hunt, then, after killing a wild deer, he sent them back with the spoils. If he had to cross a river, he managed without a canoe – he swung across to the other bank in a single leap. Chukchi came from the other side of the Kolyma River in Edilvey's name – to kill him. But he inspired such fear that they, after secretly observing him, returned. Edilvey then began searching for a hero like himself. He learned that there was, it turns out, a hero of his own strength. He, too, was a Yukaghir. Edilvey knew of him only from stories told by people. He lived on the Alazeya, in the Elnge area, north of Mount Irie. So he set out for the Alazeya…

VS: Conflicting tendencies, but nevertheless a certain level of self-government was maintained. But the 20th century, of course, destroyed everything in this sense. I always give an example from the civil war: you see, some clan lives surrounded for hundreds of kilometers. Suddenly people come to him. This is an established tradition. Each guest is a completely separate entity, it is a system of hospitality: you must welcome, feed, and give drink, no matter how poor you are. It was supposed to be that way anyway. He leaves, after some time others arrive, who suddenly accuse that one was a red or that one was a white, and you are assisting them, it turns out that you are either white bandits or, on the contrary, red, it turns out that why are you meeting them and so on. And at this point, many were suddenly declared accomplices of either the Reds or the Whites, and the civil war began, and in this sense, the civil war dealt a very significant, very big blow; many tribes of our peoples simply went deeper in order to avoid these repressions from both sides. That is, they didn’t understand at all what was going on there, what these ideological differences were between them, they didn’t understand it at all. This is the first such very serious blow. The second blow is when we talk about the cultural revolution. The fact is that the basis of the cultural revolution for the peoples of the North was settlement. That is, the ideological issue has already been raised that the Sovietization of peoples can only occur if they live in one place. There were even instructional letters that said: this dispersed settlement, when they live in camps, each with their own reindeer, for example, on the contrary, contributes to the development of their private property ideas. This is, first of all, the preservation of old foundations, that in order to propagate, it is necessary, on the contrary, to gather them in one place so that they live together, only then will they develop the foundations of a common existence, unity, and so on, when it will be possible to agitate them, and the children will go to school. Of course, this settlement dealt a significant blow to the principles of their traditional settlement and, in general, to the organization of the spatial activities of these peoples.  Well, and then the third blow is the invasion of the economic sphere, collective farms, state farms, people didn’t really understand this back then either. Many people thought, well, okay, we had our, well, let's call him prince, we all worked for him, that is, he was the head of our large family. We had deer there. Well, now it seems like he has become the director of a collective farm, and we continue the same way, it seems like there is no big difference.  There was a transformation where many princes simply became chairmen of the collective farm and continued to manage the same process. But the collective farm system is still a unification of property, but then state farms appear, and this is no longer the property of people, it is already someone’s property. People here also still didn’t really understand what was happening and so on. This awareness and this drama, all of this comes only after 2-3 generations of awareness of what happened, when a person is no longer the owner of his reindeer, when the land is not yours, when it suddenly turns out that at any moment only there the management of the state farm can transfer you from one place to another and so on. The concept of all ancestral lands is being destroyed, that is, traditional land use itself. That is, all the foundations that somehow contributed to the preservation of these peoples suddenly turn out to be violated.

In the past, families migrated as a family, managing their own herds, but then came the shift from self-sufficiency to so-called mass production, which required producing a certain number of reindeer for slaughter, for example, for meat. Previously, the average family kept maybe 20-30 reindeer, and there were a few families that kept up to 100, but herds of thousands weren't typical for most northern peoples. Perhaps only the Komi-Izhem people, perhaps the Chukchi, kept such large herds. For the vast majority of other peoples, reindeer herding was more of a, say, auxiliary transport function. And so, the relationships were unique. Imagine keeping a dog or a cat. It's clear that it has long since ceased to perform any function, such as catching mice or guarding the home, or anything like that, but it's simply a member of the family, a unique relationship. Now imagine that at a certain point, you're suddenly forced to set gross production targets, meaning you have to keep 100 dogs, of which 30 are slaughtered for meat or something else every year. The entire system of relationships is destroyed. Yes, we slaughtered animals, but it was always accompanied by special rituals, atonement spells, and so on, and then suddenly it's all destroyed. Reindeer herders became members not of a family, but of a production unit, a team, in which there's no place for women or the elderly. Women were simply pushed out of this way of life; women and children began living in villages, where there was a school and so on, that's all. And the reindeer herders themselves suddenly found themselves cut off from their families. In other words, the very foundation of reindeer herding as a way of life was completely destroyed, and yet it was what sustained life—self-government itself, first of all, and the tribal and economic self-government of these peoples when they were self-sufficient. And now they have lost their property, they have lost these foundations of management and they have completely lost their social self-organization precisely in this principle.

From the book by Russian ethnographer and anthropologist Vladimir Yokhelson "Along the Yasachnaya and Korkodon Rivers"

The order of the hunting expeditions was as follows. All the men skilled in bows would set out ahead on skis, led by the "old man," the eldest of the family or clan. Behind him would come the hangiche, the chief hunter; the commoners would follow. Having found the trail of an elk or deer, the old man would "chase" it. The others would follow. The hangiche took his time, stretching his legs, straightening and clearing his lungs. But the old man would tire and let the hangiche and the other young men, who would be groomed on these excursions to become future hunters, go ahead. But the hangiche ran with all his heart, outstripping everyone else, finding the animal, killing it, and the rest of the thinner men found the hangiche resting in the snow.

VS: I sometimes talk to older people, and we understood perfectly well that, in reality, Soviet power, with its declarations of equality, mutual assistance, brotherhood, and so on, was, ideologically speaking, very complimentary and close to the traditional views of these peoples. Of course, older people will always remember that period in positive terms, but I'm saying that it was precisely at that time that all these foundations were destroyed, including the self-organization of these peoples in terms of clan, family, and other tribal unification. Their economic self-government was destroyed when, in fact, families lived in clans and clans, and they had their own basis for existence. The collective and state farm system ultimately destroyed this, and people lost the land that had been the basis of their existence.

STUDIO: If all this destroyed their life system, then why will the old people, as you say, remember the positive?

VS: Because not everyone always realizes it. This is such a dichotomy. For example, we understand that boarding schools have broken the connection between children and their parents. But on the other hand, for example, in our perception, yes, well, it seems like boarding schools gave us an education, people became educated. Those same villages, we're talking about the harm of urbanization, but at the same time, they seemed to give us education and healthcare, and houses were built, so it seemed to be a plus, but at the same time, as they say here, every plus has its minus, its downside, which destroyed precisely the traditional system of self-organization of this life. Of course, sometimes it’s difficult with me; people can scold me. When I said, here is the education system, in theory, it can be called colonial. Well, for example, naturally, the main language there was Russian. That is, the entire system where these people were taught, where they received knowledge, for example, and everything was common throughout the Soviet Union. Well, that is, it led to some kind of uniform standards of thinking and so on. That is, everything was destroyed in its own way. The leveling of the national characteristics of these peoples, their traditions, all this destroyed their own systems and organizations. The same old people who have always been a respected category in traditional society. And at work, you reach retirement age and then they say goodbye to you, you’re already a pensioner. It seems like there were some guarantees, it seems like, on the one hand, it seemed like there was care, here again is a contradiction, yes, but on the other hand, a person was deprived of the meaning of existence, that he and his family should have been there anyway. When at the beginning, that is, at the end of the 80s, at the beginning of the 90s, it suddenly collapsed. The North simply found itself on the brink of extinction. And the majority of the visiting population of specialists suddenly began to leave there en masse. I am asked, what can you say about the system of self-government of the peoples of the north today? I’m saying, well, look, there are so-called declared systems of national territorial self-government of these peoples. Well, it seems like there are districts, there are national districts, there are national regions, there are even some national villages, but they are mostly declarative in nature. Because the real status is national, it should still be aimed at preserving the language, culture, economy, species, and so on. But that's precisely what they don't do. They are simply engaged in the same system of implementing state construction from the bottom to the top. The second part of this self-government, this is what appeared, probably, in the late 80s, early 90s - public self-government. At some point, its expression or its core were the associations of indigenous peoples of the North at the Russian level, at the regional level. In some places, councils of elders began to appear, in some places, ethnic organizations appeared, women's organizations - this was a certain channel through which the problems and so on of these peoples were transmitted, at least to the regional level. If we recall, the 90s were characterized by a process called deindustrialization, when it suddenly became unprofitable to extract oil and gas in large quantities, except for the largest enterprises; even gold mining suddenly became unprofitable. Such economic foundations have become completely different. And the mass exodus of the population in the north led to the fact that in many ways these lands suddenly, well, one could say, became ownerless. And then the local authorities moved towards assigning these lands to these communities, municipal unitary enterprises, state unitary enterprises, and cooperatives. But then the 2000s arrived. Suddenly, oil prices began to rise, and the land rights of the peoples of the North began to be attacked first and foremost. Although by that time legislation seemed to everywhere declare the rights of the indigenous peoples of the North, in reality, as soon as the matter seemed to concern industrial companies, they were always given priority. Unfortunately, even today, even where some community or something else seems to have all its land rights formalized, but then, for example, someone's oil, gas, or gold deposits are suddenly discovered, state interests are immediately discussed, and that's it, so to speak, and the rights of peoples then fade into the background. When they talk to me about public self-government, I also say, well, this can’t be true when the entire system of human rights, public rights, is destroyed; we can’t talk about how any such system of rights could have been preserved among the peoples of the North. We act and live in the system that has been formed today.

STUDIO: Thank you for Vyacheslav Shadrin's interesting story. It was from the podcast "We'll Do It Ourselves." Listen to us, comment—your opinions are important to us. See you there.