#37'2022
CONTENTS
Oleg I. Sergeev
The Resettlement of the Russian Cossacks to the Far East in the Middle of the 17th — Early 20th Centuries: the Main Stages and their Features
The article discusses the most important component of the history of the Russian Far East — its settlement. Noted the role of one of the main groups of migrants — the Cossacks. The main stages of the resettlement Cossack movement for two and a half centuries are highlighted: the middle of the XVII to the beginning of the XX centuries. The middle and second half of the XVII century are particularly distinguished (the initial exit of Russian explorers to the Pacific coast and the creation of large settlement centers on the banks of rivers in the region, primarily Yakutsk); and the turn of the XIX—XX centuries (when the local Cossack population was heavily Cossacks of the European part of Russia and the Urals and, thereby, received strong support in the form of solid class traditions, which was so lacking in the newly organized young Cossack troops: Zabaikalsky, Amur and Ussuri). The history of the formation of the Cossack estate in the region is briefly considered. At the same time, administrative transformations in the Far East are affected, since it is at this time that the new territory is included in the Russian state, and there are constant changes in the emerging administrative units on its territory. All this certainly affected the situation of the local Cossack population. It is important to note that the settlement of Cossacks in the Far Eastern region, including the border territories, was accompanied by constant contacts with both the neighboring Chinese and representatives of local indigenous peoples. Practically, the Cossacks were the first Russian that the native people encountered.
Keywords: Far East, Cossacks, resettlement, main stages, comparative characteristics.
Anna S. Zakolodnaya
Projects of Peasant Colonization of the Russian Far East
The article discusses the projects of peasant colonization of the Russian Far East, which were developed in the period from the moment of the annexation of new territories until the first quarter of the twentieth century. Most of which were implemented. The only exception is the plan of resettlement of Czechs from the United States of America to the Amur region. The main attention is paid to the project of sequential colonization of the Amur region by N.K. Shuman. The main feature of which is that its development and implementation began under the tsarist regime, and the decision to suspend it was made after the revolutionary events of 1917. Another distinctive feature of it is the rate of resettlement proposed by the author — he considered it quite realistic to relocate more than 1 million people to the region within 15 years. The project had both opponents and supporters. Nevertheless, an attempt was made to implement it in practice, but not on the entire territory of the region, but only on its part — in the Ulminsky district. In March 1917, meetings of the commission were held, composed of representatives of departments of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Amur region, which reviewed the preliminary results of the N.K. Shuman project. It was concluded that the main provisions of the planned colonization project are expedient and justified. Despite the positive assessment of the results achieved, it was decided to almost completely suspend all work due to the difficulties caused by the First World War and the revolutionary events.
Keywords: resettlement, colonization, peasantry, Amur region, Far East.
Lyudmila I. Gallyamova
The Role of the Amur Expedition of 1910 in the Preparation of State Plans and Projects for the Development of the Far East
The article is devoted to the Amur Expedition of 1910 and its role in the preparation of plans and projects for the development of the Russian Far East. It is noted that the situation on the eastern outskirts of the Russian Empire, which developed as a result of Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese war, posed a great danger to the defense capability of the empire. The construction of the Amur Railway was deemed vital to ensure the defense capability of the state and the socio-economic development of the Far East. However, the new construction that began revealed many problems that required thorough study and reasonable recommendations for their solution. The created special Committee for the settlement of the Far East came to the conclusion that it was necessary to organize a large Amur expedition with the money of the treasury. It started working in 1910, and in a short time its participants were able to give a qualified assessment of the colonization prospects of the Amur region, describe the main natural resources of the region, the possibilities of developing agriculture, mining and manufacturing industries, the scale of peasant resettlement, the development of means of communication, etc. According to the results of the expedition, more than 30 volumes of materials were published. Qualified conclusions of scientists began to be immediately used in practice, according to their advice and recommendations, adjustments were made to existing or developing plans, projects and solutions; the works of the Amur Expedition found application in planning and project activities in the later Soviet period.
Keywords: Russia, Amur Governor-General, defense capability, Far East, development, plans, projects, Amur Railway, Settlement Committee, Amur expedition, works and results of the study.
Olga A. Ustyugova
The Research of Prospects of Salt Extraction in the Russian Far East (1865—1925)
The paper deals with the history of the search for salt deposits and the study of the prospects of its extraction in the Russian Far East in 1865—1925. At that time, the region was supplied with foreign salt mainly, as the delivery of cheap but low-quality salt from Transbaikalia was expensive. The region was in high demand for salt as raw material for the fishing industry and one of the basic essentials. Because of high dependence on the import, the government was in need of supplying the local population with salt by its extraction in the Far East of Russia. This problem was supposed to be solved by the exploration and further development of salt deposits in the region. However, the search for deposits of rock salt were unsuccessful: reports from local residents about salt springs and lakes were not confirmed. Further research of salt clays found by mining engineer A. Yefimov on the right bank of the Maly Iskay River in the Nikolaevsk area of Primorsky region was not continued, despite the fact that the need for geological exploration was emphasized by both local administration officials and experts. In the 1920s, at the initiative of the authorities, artisanal methods of salt extraction from sea water were investigated for technological improvement, but their potential profitability proved to be low.
Keywords: Russian Far East, salt deposits, geological exploration, salt extraction, salt-works.
Galina A. Tkacheva
Mobilization Model of Modernization the Far East of the USSR in the 1920—1930s
The article using various sources defines the main directions of modernization of the Far East of the USSR in the 1920—1930s, which were determined by regulatory and enforcement acts and programmatic mobilization decisions of state-party structures, had uniform standards, but differed in form and content. It was noted that the parameters of the accelerated modernization of Soviet society were carried out on the principles of centralized management, socio-economic unity and specialization of territorial entities. In the Far East, large-scale projects of a spatial strategy were implemented. In the Soviet evolutionary model of modernization of 1920 and the mobilization 1930, the targeted landmarks were political, military-strategic factors in increasing the defense capabilities of the eastern regions by integration into a all-Union space. Institutional and investment decisions took into account the balances of production and consumption, intersectoral and interregional ties on the delimitation of industrial and agricultural, resource areas. It is substantiated that the spatial strategy has focused on the most effective areas of development of the Far Eastern region as part of a single economic complex of division of labor, exchange between economic regions, taking into account natural resource capabilities, the availability of transport communications, labor resources and significance for the implementation of national tasks not only for the nearest one, but also a distant perspective. Intra-political and social transformations, the inability to obtain a quick system response to investments with a lack of labor resources did not allow the declared principle of uniform development of the territories of Soviet society.
Keywords: Far East of the USSR, economic region, modernization, transformation, industrialization, collectivization.
Oleg K. Pavlenko
Planning of the Development of the Coal Industry of the Far East During the Period of Industrialization (1928—1941): Problems, Features, Results
The article deals with the problems of planning and reorganization changes in the coal industry of the Far East during the period of industrialization. It is shown that the main directions of modernization of the Far Eastern coal mining were determined by the general patterns of economic and economic development of the USSR. During the first five-year plans, the center released colossal financial resources for the reconstruction of the regional mine funds, the tasks of complete technical re-equipment of enterprises, increasing the volume of general and mechanized production, full self-sufficiency of the region with fuel were set. In practice, the results achieved turned out to be much more modest, the reasons for the current situation were both miscalculations in the planning itself and numerous reorganizations. Reassignments in the system of People’s commissariats, changes in the structure of the coal mining trust itself led to a poorly organized supply of equipment to the mines of the Far East. Due to the peripheral nature of its position, the Dalugol trust was supplied, as a rule, with decommissioned machines and mechanisms from the mines of Donbass and Kuzbass until the mid-1930s. In addition, when drawing up the plans themselves, the center, as a rule, did not take into account the production capabilities of enterprises, the regional specifics of the work of mines in the Far East; directly at the enterprises themselves, the lack of qualified personnel and unsatisfactorily organized work were serious obstacles to the fulfillment of the tasks set. As a result, despite significant progress in the modernization of the coal industry during the period of industrialization, the implementation of planned tasks was achieved only in exceptional cases.
Keywords: coal industry, planning, reorganization, industrialization, Primorye, Far East.
Sergey A. Vlasov
Individual Housing Construction in Cities and Working Settlements of the Far East in the Post-War Years (1946 — Early 1960s)
Based on a wide range of archival materials, the article examines the role of individual housing construction in resolving the housing crisis in cities and working settlements of the Far East in the conditions of the post-war reconstruction process. Since the state could not pay enough attention to improving the living conditions of citizens, it was decided to involve them themselves in solving the housing problem. It was revealed that individual housing construction was largely formal, since individual developers were dependent on the administration of the enterprises they worked for. They were assisted in obtaining a land plot and a loan for construction, building materials, transport for their delivery, specialist builders to perform complex work. The developer, at the expense of his own and borrowed funds, purchased building materials, paid for the work of invited specialists, worked himself on the construction of a house, which passed into his ownership after paying the half-paid loan for the construction. It was found that the most successful individual construction was carried out in the cities and working settlements of the southern part of the region, where there were large industrial enterprises with material and technical resources, at the expense of which they could help those wishing to build a house on their own. In the northern regions — Magadan, Kamchatka, Sakhalin regions — it was carried out on a smaller scale, both because of the absence of large industrial enterprises, and because of the unwillingness of some people living there to connect their future lives with the Far East. Individual construction continued until the early 1960s. As the volume of well-maintained multi-apartment construction increases within the framework of a large-scale housing program, it began to be curtailed, and in large and medium-sized cities it was suspended. In conclusion, it is concluded that despite some costs — the lack of cold and hot water supply, sewerage, central heating in houses; low architectural and communal arrangement of settlements — due to individual housing construction, it was possible in the post-war years to reduce the severity of the housing problem in the region.
Keywords: housing problem, housing construction, individual housing construction, bank loan, building materials, comfortable housing.
Aleksey V. Maklyukov
Nuclear Power Projects in the History of the Far East of the USSR (1960—1991)
The article deals with the historical aspects of the development and implementation of nuclear energy projects in the Far East in 1960—1991. The relevance of the research topic is due to the fact that at present the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation plans to start construction of the Primorskaya NPP, one of the projects of the Soviet era. The author sets the task of rethinking the importance of nuclear energy projects in the USSR in the light of the problems of developing the electric power industry in the Far East. The study draws on a corpus of unpublished sources, including recently declassified documents. It is shown that the first proposals for the development of nuclear power in the Far East appeared in the late 1950s — early 1960s during the preparation of long-term plans for the economic development of the region. In 1966—1976 built the first nuclear power plant of low power — Bilibino NPP in Chukotka. Since the early 1970s projects of large nuclear power plants were developed in the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories, in the mid-1980s the USSR government included them in the programs of economic development of the region. The Far Eastern public after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant negatively perceived these projects. The author comes to the conclusion that there were no opportunities and conditions for the implementation of nuclear projects in the Far East. The region’s electric power industry was in a fever of underfunding, and the pace of energy construction remained low. With the collapse of the USSR and the fall of the regional industrial complex, the main problem that nuclear power plants had to solve was smoothed out — an acute shortage of energy resources. Currently, there is no such problem in the energy supply of the region. New nuclear construction in the Far East is not only economically, environmentally, but also historically unjustified.
Keywords: nuclear energy, nuclear power plants, electric power industry, the Russian Far East, the USSR.
Angelina S. Vaschuk
Nonna M. Platonova
Two Strategies of Planning and Development of the Far Eastern Territory: from Scientific Ideas to Implementation Practices (Second Half of 20th — Beginning of 21st Century)
The article analyzes the historical experience of planning and development of the Russian Far East in the second half of the 20th — the beginning of the 21st century. The methodological approach of taking into account the interaction between the movement of ideas and their historical environment is applied. The author identifies the features of the formation of the Soviet and post-Soviet models of planning the development of the Far Eastern territory, establishes the relationship between the dominant scientific ideas and the process of adopting political documents in the context of the scientists and politicians role. The implementation of the planning strategy is shown taking into account the Far Eastern policy, which, during the imperial and Soviet periods, depended on the internal situation in the country, the state of the managerial class, and the geopolitical situation. The evolution of the Soviet model based on the theory of territorial complex allocation of productive forces and the directive method of planning is revealed. The transition to a model based on the program-indicative method and theories of “growth points” is analyzed. The conclusion is made about the creation of an industrial base in the region, but with a certain specialization and concomitant lag in the living standard of population from the western and central regions of the USSR. The crisis of the Soviet planning system during the years of perestroika and the collapse of economic ties in 1989—1992 led to deindustrialization and social tension in the Far East. In the 1990s, during the formation of a new system of relations along the Center — region line, the Far Eastern policy had an inertial character. At the beginning of the 21st century, there was an active introduction of the ideas of spatial economics and the accumulation of experience in indicative program-target planning, which was accompanied by the illusion of a rapid effect from the planning model based on the “points of growth” model.
Keywords: Far East, planning, forecasting, territorial distribution of productive forces, spatial economics, intellectual history, Far Eastern policy.
Reforms and Social Transformations of the Far East
Education for a Cossack: Pro Et Contra
The article is devoted to an aspect of the history of education that has not been studied in Russian historiography — school reform in the Cossack troops of the Russian Empire in the late 19th — early 20th centuries. The reform of Cossack schools was an integral part of the modernization processes in the national education system that took place in the conditions of the rise of the public pedagogical movement for the introduction of universal primary education in Russia. The objectives of the research are focused on the analysis of the main problems of the reform, showing the specifics of its implementation, the introduction of new materials into scientific circulation. Based on the analysis of published and unpublished sources, a comprehensive study and generalization of the history of the regional vector of reform was carried out. On the example of primary schools of the Amur Cossack army, the dynamics of the school network, personnel potential and the number of students in Cossack schools, the state of their material base are studied. The “bottlenecks” of the reform that have manifested themselves in the process of its implementation are shown. The decisive role of the solidarity actions of Cossack societies, the military board and the teaching community in the implementation of the reform was emphasized, despite disagreements with the central departments that called its further implementation into question. The conclusion is made about the incomplete nature of the reform within the framework of the legislation that existed at that time and due to the lack of material and financial resources within the army necessary to carry out a full-fledged modernization of the departmental education system on their own.
Keywords: reform, education, modernization, Cossack schools, Amur Cossack army.
Tatiana Z. Poznyak
“The Ill-Fated Buffer”: the Struggle of Supporters and Opponents of the Buffer State and Mass Sentiments in the Far Eastern Republic in 1920—1922
The article is devoted to the struggle of supporters and opponents of the buffer in the Far East Bureau (Dalburo) of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) and mass political sentiments in the Far Eastern Republic. The author analyzes not only the dynamics of disagreements among responsible party workers, but also how the split in their ranks affected the work of the regional party and state bodies and how the population of the republic treated the buffer and the communists. Despite the periodically repeated instructions from the center about the invariability of the line on the buffer, the confrontation between supporters and opponents of the buffer in Dalburo continued throughout 1920 and until the middle of 1921 and ceased only with the departure of A.M. Krasnoshchekov from the Far East. This suggests that it was not only ideological in nature — a different understanding of the nature of the buffer, but also personal — dislike for A.M. Krasnoshchekov, ambitions of members of the Dalburo and the government. These disagreements interfered with the work not only of the Dalburo, but also of the government, regional authorities. Many responsible party workers and rank and file communists could not internally reconcile themselves with the buffer and strove for the speediest unification with Soviet Russia. The mass moods were varied and often polar — from the demand for the elimination of the buffer and the establishment of Soviet power to the establishment of a truly bourgeois-democratic buffer with freedom of private enterprise, the press, meetings, multi-party system, and a permanent parliament. Support for the existing authorities depended on the economic situation in the republic, as well as on the degree of pressure from the authorities on the rural population, which expressed dissatisfaction with the increased underwater conscription, food distribution or tax burden, mobilizations, etc.
Keywords: Far Eastern Republic, Far East Bureau (Dalburo), Siberian Bureau (Sibburo), Central Committee of the RCP(b), buffer, mass moods, Soviet Russia.
Elena S. Volkova
Khabarovsk Regional Organization of the Union of Artists of Russia in the Context of Radical Reforms (1990s)
During the period of market reforms in Russia the social status of creative unions, as well as the cultural figures they united, changed radically. The termination of state regulation of the sphere of fine arts and centralized financing of unions leads to uncertainty and instability of their position. The article discusses the process of adaptation of one of the regional branches of the Union of Artists of Russia to the new socio-economic reality. If the first post-Soviet years in the history of the Khabarovsk regional organization can be characterized as “confusion and vacillation” (as a result, the organization acquired huge debts and its very existence was in question), then in the second half of the 1990s a turning point occurred. All accumulated debts were paid, the organization’s affairs were put in order, and it got financial support from the regional authorities. By the end of the decade, the Khabarovsk organization was able to largely restore its role in the artistic life of the region, revive the regional art fund, which is a rarity for the regional branches of the Union of Artists in the post-Soviet period. Built in the second half of the 1990s the system of functioning of the organization in the market conditions worked successfully for the next two decades, but found its failure during the COVID-19 pandemic and border closures. Since the mechanisms of state support for creative unions are not recorded in the federal legislation and such organizations do not have a special status indicating their importance for society and the state, their position remains unstable, largely dependent on general economic situation.
Keywords: Russian Far East, culture, market reforms, 1990s, artistic intelligentsia, union of artists.
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