Civil Status of Members of Ethnolocal Groups in Western Siberia in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Siberia's integration in the late 16th and first half of the 18th century proceeded in parallel with its settlement and economic development. First Poles and Jews took up residence here already in the second half of the 17th century. In the first half of the 18th century, Western Siberia witnessed Germans turning up as mining engineers and military personnel and first Gypsy caravans came. Over the 18th and 19th century, Western Siberia continued to be an environment for dynamic formation of various ethnolocal groups. Jews, Germans, Poles, Gypsies, Finns and others found themselves in the region as part of state migration campaigns or as convicts and political offenders sent here for penal servitude or exile. The diverse population mix required for the government to introduce and enforce legal regulations for rights and obligations. This gradually resulted in the formalized civil status of members of certain ethnolocal groups, which had an ethnic focus and was predominantly restrictive in nature. The outcome of the ongoing class policy was the registration of members representing ethnolocal groups under review mainly in the non-privileged social estates (sosloviye) (state peasants and townspeople (meshchane)). With the acquisition of a clearly defined legal status, Jews, Poles, Gypsies and others were able to engage in various types of economic activities, and this determined their economic “niches”. The scholarly paper is based on the materials of regulatory legal acts and documents collected in central and regional archives (Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tomsk).