The Place of Modernity: German Entrepreneurship in Western Siberia in the late 19th – early 20th Centuries

The study focuses on the issues related to the process of adaptation and economic behavior of German entrepreneurship in Western Siberia in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The construction of the Siberian Railway and migration processes changed the economy, social structure and cultural practices of “old” Siberia. The “yesterday’s outskirts” became a “place of modernity”. The paper aims at presenting economic practices and strategies of German entrepreneurship adaptation in the conditions when the socio-spatial structures of the imperial periphery. were experiencing transformation. On the basis of representative resources, the mechanisms and methods of German entrepreneurs’ adaptation to the local community are shown. The structure of the market space and its segmentation as well as economic niches and economic strategies of German entrepreneurship are defined. The author comes to the conclusion that German entrepreneurs acted in the region as a “market ferment” changing Siberian society, and they could be regarded as actors of socio-economic, cultural modernization of the Siberian space. At the same time, the German merchants themselves experienced external influence from the host society. The research is based on the combination of macroanalytical strategies and microhistorical approach. The concept of “entrepreneurial minority” is a methodological basis for the study presented in the paper. The materials of the paper are addressed to the experts in the field of the history of Siberia as well as to the professional corporation of the researchers interested in the history of ethnic entrepreneurship and in the issues of various ethnic groups’ adaptation to the conditions of a non-ethnic host environment.