Article
Article name Siberia in the National Narrative: The Image of the Siberian in Russian Historical Thought of the 19th Century
Authors Klimova Olga G., Doctor of Sciences (History), Professor, climovolga@yandex.ru,
Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, 49 Leningradsky pr., 125993, Moscow, Russia
Bibliographic description Klimova OG. Siberia in the National Narrative: The Image of the Siberian in Russian Historical Thought of the 19th Century. Humanitarian Vector. 2026;21(2):48-57. (In Russian). https://www.doi.org/10.21209/1996-7853-2026-21-2-48-57
Section Siberia in the Humanitarian and Geopolitical Dimension
UDK 93/94
DOI https://www.doi.org/10.21209/1996-7853-2026-21-2-48-57
Article type Original article
Annotation Scholarly interest in the construction of regional identities during the imperial period determines the relevance of this study, including the need to deconstruct classical narratives about Siberia, which still influence memory politics. The research’s novelty is in its comprehensive analysis of the image of the Siberian as a “convergence point” for key 19th-century discourses: imperial unification, regional distinctiveness, and colonial expansion. The problem is that in historiography, the image of the Siberian has often been examined fragmentarily. The goal is to critically analyze existing historiography and identify key trends in the study of 19th-century Siberia as a sociocultural phenomenon through the lens of the construction of the image of the Siberian. The work is based on an analytical revision of key 19th-century historiographic narratives. In analyzing the relevance and significance of historical knowledge, a combination of existing scientific methods was applied: historical-typological (to identify key narratives: imperial-colonial, critical-democratic, and regionalist), discourse analysis (to identify linguistic constructs that shape the image of “us/them”), historical-logical, historical-systemic, and historical-problem analysis. The theory of intellectual history, a value-based approach, and the principles of holism, integrity, and historicism allowed for the evaluation of researchers’ works based on the characteristics of the era in which they were created. We revealed that the main approaches converge in recognizing the “borderlines” of the Siberian, but diverge in their assessments–from vice to virtue. It was established that the image of the Siberian in the works of researchers is presented in figures ranging from the imperial “colonist” to the regionalist “new man”, which allows for a rethinking of 19th-century Siberia. As a space of narrative conflicts between the center and the periphery, between “violence” and “freedom”. Prospects for further study lie in a comparative analysis of the image of the Siberian with images of other “peripheral” types in Russian historical thought, as well as in examining the reception of these narratives in Soviet and post-Soviet historiography.
Key words historiography, Siberia, Siberian, 19th century, national narrative
Copyright holder Klimova O.G.
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