A History of the Peoples of Siberia : Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990

by James Forsyth

Release Date: 08 September, 1994

Edition: Paperback

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Worst book about Russia

The author's aim is to destroy Russia by questioning Russian territorial and national unity . The process of exploration of Siberia was not completelly clear from violence but scale of this violence is uncomparable to genocide of local population by British or Americans ... Most Cossaccs maried local women and some local tribes were enlisted as Cossacs ... ( Ussury Cossacs for instance ... ) ..
There is a Siberian subethnos of Russian nation who are called Chaldons ... This people are mixture of Cossacs and local people ... There were nothing similar in America or in other parts of Brittish empire ....
And also some of Siberian people had development comparable to development of Moskow state (Siberian Tatars , Mongols )...
So this book is typical British - American lies ... The author want to justify its own american - british racism by inventing
facts about racism in other countries ....

Forsyth narrates the stages of Soviet exploitation of Siberi

Reviewed by Johanna Granville, Clemson University, Clemson, SC USA

James Forsyth's History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581-1990 is a much needed addition to the extant literature on Soviet history. The policies of glasnost and end of censorship after the 1991 Soviet collapse have led to greater interest in the history of non-Russian nationalities. The dearth of reliable historical information on Russia east of the Urals is becoming increasingly clear as Siberia and the Russian Pacific littoral develop into a significant geopolitical and economic entity. Russia's expansion eastward may have been as defining for Russian society as was the United States' advance westward for American society. Thus, it is surprising that historians are just beginning to concentrate on this vast landscape. This is not to say that Western scholarship has completely overlooked Asiatic Russia, but there is still much work to do. In this ethnohistory of Siberia, Forsyth attempts to "narrate and interpret the stages in the conquest and exploitation of Siberia" (defined as "everything lying east of 60 degrees E and 50 degrees N") and "the place of this process in Russian and world history." Forsyth's narrative tends to emphasize the role of ordinary people--the inhabitants of Siberia--rather than of prominent decision makers. He raises several questions about the indigenous peoples of Siberia (e.g. Buryat Mongols, Yakuts, Tatars, Samoyeds, Tunguses, and Chukchis). What was the role of the native peoples, who up to the 18th century, inhabited Siberia? Who were they, and how did they live before the Russian invasion? How did the Russian invasion affect their lives? Has the fate of the Siberian natives been similar to that of the Indians and Eskimos of North America? Forsyth's main argument is fairly simple: despite the Leninist rhetoric that the Russian occupation of Siberia was a peaceful process and that it brought the indigenous peoples into contact with a "higher culture," the Siberian peoples in reality suffered a great deal from collectivization, "denomadisation," and the consequent destruction of their traditional cultures and occupations. The book is particularly strong on the early Russian conquest of Siberia after 1456 and the folk heroes like Yermak Timofeyevich who emerged in the process. Forsyth attributes the Russian success in subjugating the indigenous tribes to a number of factors: demanding tribute, trading ruthlessly for furs, dominating by superior numbers, spreading disease (especially smallpox), exploiting intra-tribal conflict, and employing superior firepower. For centuries after taking control of a certain Siberian tribes' land, the Russians would exploit that tribe by requiring them to pay "yasak" (a Turkic word meaning tribute). Yasak was often collected in the form of furs, such as sable, fox, and marten---as precious to the Russians as gold to the Spanish conquistadors in Mexico and Peru. Russian Marxist historians have made Yermak and the Cossacks into folk heroes comparable to the pioneers of the American West. (Just as the Soviet media routinely sanitized news about Soviet society, so historians also self-servingly rewrote history.) However, the actual record of the Cossacks and "voyevodys" may be closer to the genocidal campaigns of the Nazis in the occupied regions of Belarus and the Ukraine. According to Forsyth, these interlopers were "courageous but ruthless men-of-action, mainly belonging to the petty nobility." Both tsarist and Soviet regimes abused the Siberian territory and its aborigines. Whereas the tsarist regimes extracted yasak, furs, and minerals, the Soviet regimes built vast projects in the region that disrupted the environment and local way of life. Gold dredging threatened rivers, industrial pollution affected Lake Baikal, and projects such as the Baikal/Amur railway (BAM) caused ecological damage, while the KGB harrassed local people who complained. Overall, the book is grim on the future of Siberia. The native ethnic groups are still minorities in their own land. Forsyth believes that some communities may resort to creating reservations akin to the ones for Indians in Canada and the United States. The book is solid, but not flawless. Although it synthesizes multivolume ethnographic and historical works of German, imperial Russian, and Soviet scholars in one volume, the extensive bibliography will not benefit those who read neither Russian nor German. Moreover, Forsyth apparently has not worked with recently declassified archival documents, and his balance is skewed a bit toward the seventeenth century. Readers may also find the beginning section on geography extremely dry, and the multitude of ethnic groups confusing. Nevertheless, since the scope of this finely produced book is vast, and its subject very timely, it will indeed benefit both nonspecialists and general readers. It contains twelve useful historical maps of the Siberian region and fifteen illustrations.

Johanna Granville, Clemson University