How did the Czars rule Asian Russia?

Factual Questions
1

How did the Czars enforce their authority on the far Eastern portions of their domain? Did they have army posts at intervals all the way from St. Petersburg to the Pacific? When Russian soldiers came across some Asiatic Siberian tribe, to what degree did these folks consider themselves Russian? Did the Czars collect taxes from these regions? Did locals just govern themselves and give lip service to the Czar when rare occasions demanded it? What prevented soldiers stationed in far-flung outposts from acting as warlords in their own immediate area?

I mean, that area is HUGE. Yet the entirety of Russia has been considered a single political entity since the seventeenth century, at least. How did this work, before modern communications and transportation?

2

I’m no Russian historian, and couldn’t begin to answer our question. However, I did go to a rather wacky anthropological/linguistic conference on the indigenous peoples of Siberia a few years back, in Siberia, and can assure you that for the most part, they still very much consider themselves members of the respective groups they come from and not ethnic Russians.

Another linguistic issue to keep in mind is that there are two Russian words that both translate into English as “Russian.” One, rossiiskii, is a territorial understanding, as in “citizen/inhabitant of Russia,” and the other, russkii, means “ethnically Russian.” (The latter also applies to the Russian language.)

ALso, it’s hard to really get a feel for how vast Siberia is unless you go there. It’s much more extreme than, say, the American West, partly because the transportation infrastructure is still awful to nonexistent in a lot of places. I spent the summer of 1995 in Novosibirsk, and we were supposed to take a side trip to Altai region, on the Mongolian border. If you look at a map, it’s only a couple hundred kilometers away, so I couldn’t understand why we allotted 8 entire daytime hours to get there and wasted half the time for the trip, instead of driving, say, 4 hours at night. My Russian professor friend laughed and explained that “road” is a relative term in that neck of the woods. And indeed it was; barely paved, with no lights, reflective paint, or guardrails, and sometimes the road would stop abruptly and the bus would be sitting in front of a 10’ pit, not marked with any sort of lights or sawhorses whatsoever.

Fuel and repair facilities are also few and far between outside the major cities; it’s not like you pull off the interstate to a rest stop with shower facilities and hot coffee. At one point on the road to Altai, a classmate bought a shashlyk (shish kebab) from a roadside vendor, which I didn’t think was so bright given that the vendor was a few feet from open pit latrines and wandering livestock, with no washing facilities in sight; my classmate ended up with dysentery, and the nearest doctor was a couple hours’ drive away.

Communications out there also suck; flying east 4 hours from Moscow is like going back in time 40 years, and in small villages, life is much like it must have been 100 or even 200 years ago. Someday I’ll get a scanner and post my photos. Even calling Moscow from Novosibirsk, a major city of 1 million + people, you had to try a dozen times or more before you could actually reach Moscow. Heck, even calling across town sometimes took several attempts. It’s a wild and wacky place; we used to cal it the Wild East.

3

I cannot address details, either, but I have encountered some general outlines.

When the Cossacks first moved eastward in the middle of the 16th century, the remnants of the Mongol empire were already pretty shaken up and there were, north of China, no strong nations or anything approximating nation-states. The land was very similarly held to the way that North America was held at the same time. And, similarly to North America under the French, the Cossacks and their Russian successors tended to simply establish strong posts or forts or, occasionally, cities for trading. European/Middle-Eastern diseases reduced many of the populations and weakened all of them.

The control exercised was analogous to the control the later British tended to exert in Canada (with the differences in the types of laws and manner of enforcement reflected in British and Russian societies). Local indigenous societies functioned independently unless they were adjacent to Russian settlements or unless they crossed various lines challenging Russian authority. If they were large enough to be noticed, they might be taxed in the manner of the minor khanates that Russia replaced, but there was little beyond furs to be offered up as tax. (The great hunt for minerals and petroleum did not get a good start before the establishment of the U.S.S.R.) There was no U.S.-style immigration and settlement until after the completion of the Siberian Railway at the beginning of the 20th century, so there was no need for conflict between small groups of ethnic slavs and small groups of indigenous peoples.

For day-to-day government or law, you’ll have to wait for Tamerlane or someone, (since Eva did not seem to have it at hand).

4

Not very well. Although tightly centralized in Russia proper, until at least the 19th century or even the early twentieth, the reach of the Czar in Siberia was mostly indirect, barring the very occasional regular military expedition.

Siberia was of much less political interest than Europe and thus was neglected.

Yes, but these trading post/forts were mostly quasi-autonomous.

[quote]
When Russian soldiers came across some Asiatic Siberian tribe, to what degree did these folks consider themselves Russian?

[quote]

Generally not at all - they were sullen subjects at best, actively hostile at worst.

Yes, the yasak. In of itself it was not seen as unnatural by the Siberian tribes, who were used to being taxed in the same way by their more formidable cousins on the steppe to the south. The problem was that the local Russian/Cossack warlords ( Telly Savalas plays a jim-dandy one as Captain Kazan in Horror Express, which despite the lurid title is a surprisingly decent little horror/sf movie set on the trans-Siberian railway ) were greedy, extortionate thugs that tended to tax to the point of provoking local rebellion. Moscow attempted to stem this ( which resulted in valuable subjects fleeing across the borders into Dzungaria or Manchu China ) by setting standardized tax rates, but local authorities eeled around it by demanding “gifts” on top of the yasak.

Pretty much, yes. Of course by locals, I mean local Russian voevodes. The tribes might have some internal autonomy, but they were conquered dependents on local Russian commanders.

Nothing. Warlordism was not just the rule, but near-universal until political exigencies ( compeition with China, the Great Game with Britain ) forced the extension of central authority late in the game.

Generally what happened is minor official/warlord clashes with neighboring tribe, either after being raided, horning in on fur grounds, whatever. Conquers tribal neighbor with their advantage in firearms and sets up new outpost/fort further east to oversee and tax new territory. Which brings him in conflict with next set of neighboring tribes and so on until they hit the Pacific ( and beyond ).

To quote:

From approximately 1550 to 1800 these several foreign policy issues preoccupied the attention of the Tsars. During these years the relations of Russia with Europe and the Ottoman Turks became the top consideration, while Muscovite relations with other parts of Asia such as China or Mogul India were definitely of secondary importance. Moscow had the same attituide of neglect towards the conquest of Siberia. The Russian Tsar in Moscow, despite all the centralizing tendencies of his burecracy, left the chief work of the administration and defense of Siberia to his local officials or voevodas. These provincial functionaries and private persons of the settlements first founded and then enlarged Russia’s empire in Siberia. They repeatedly operated on their own, procuring the approval of Moscow for their activities only after they had already accomplished their objectives, not bothering to seek Moscow’s permission beforehand. No one in the center of Moscow at Moscow seemed to have the time to sit down and work out a detailed for Ruissian expansion in northern Asia. They did not trouble to scrutinize closely and regulate events in Siberia. The local voevodas, who governed the districts in Siberia with their Cossack servants, pursued their own course for the most part, with only an occasional decree coming from Moscow moderating their behavior. In making policy decisions, three basic motives ruled the voevodas’ operations; a. the need of security from outside attack for their bailiwicks, b. the the prestige of empire building, and c. the love of adventure of their Cossack subordinates.

From The Partition of the Steppes: The Struggle of the Russians, Manchus, and the Zunghar Mongols for Empire in Central Asia, 1619-1758 - A Study in Power Politics by Fred W. Bergholz ( 1993, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. ).

  • Tamerlane
5

Tamerlane, I know I can always count on you for something like this. Thanks.