On the basis of the archival sources, for the first time an attempt is made to reconstruct settlement of the migrants from the Vitebsk Governorate — the armoured boyars — in the territory of Siberia. The armoured boyars was a category of servicemen who guarded the borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and later — of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the annexation at the end of the 18th century of the eastern territories of the Commonwealth by the Russian Empire, the armoured boyars joined in the peasant estate. The resettlement to Siberia of separate groups of armoured boyars in the 1840s–1850s caused by the land shortage may be considered as one of the first experiments in organised peasant resettlements to the territory of the Asian part of Russia. The foundation of the source base of this study comprises documents from the holdings of the state archives of Omsk, Tobolsk, Chelyabinsk, and St. Petersburg. Most archival documents are introduced into scientific discourse for the first time. The main stream of the migrants was directed to the Ishim and Tara Uyezds of the Tobolsk Governorate. According to the statistical data, more than 3000 armoured boyars arrived in Siberia with the permission from the government. The largest parties of the migrants were domiciled in Utchanskaya and Ilyinskaya Volosts of the Ishim Uyezd. In various developed places of their compact residence, the living conditions had significant differences. Different settlement models were implemented there, including co-settling armoured boyars with old-settlers, founding villages populated by different groups of resettlers, as well as a separate domicile. The most stable were the large groups of armoured boyars living in relatively favourable conditions. Such examples include the places of their compact residence in the territory of the Ilyinskaya and Loktinskaya Volosts of the Ishim Uezd. In the meantime, small groups of the migrants, who found themselves in less favourable conditions, were much quicker assimilating in the new ethnic environment.

Keywords: Belarusians migrants, resettlement to Siberia, peasant migrations, Siberia.

 

Funding. This research has been supported by the state task of Tyumen Scientific Centre SB RAS No. 121041600045-8.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Accepted: 28.09.2023

Article is published: 15.12.2023