Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 17.djvu/708

 Province

Area

Population {1916)

Amur

154,795

261,600

Kamchatka

502,424

41,400

Irkutsk

280,429

821.800

Primorakaya

266,486

031,600

Sakhalin

14,668

34.000

Tobolsk

535.739

2,085,700

Tomsk

327.173

4.053,700

Transbaikal

238,308

971.700

Yakutsk

1.530.253

332.600

Yeniseisk

981.607

1.143.900

8IBEEIA 692 8ICKKIEWI0Z

with 69 seminarians; 3 boys' colleges, 51 teachers, in order to organize a Constituent Assembly, which

2060 students; 3 girls' colleges, 46 teachers, 820 stu- sat in Chita and adopted a constitution. On Maj*,

dents; 1 normal school, 3 professors, 28 students; 78 1921, the Maritime Province, 266,000 square miles

elementary schools, 116 teachers, 3961 pupils* inci- in area, defected from the republic and is controlled

dentally it may be stated that it was the French mis- at present by a secessionist government set up in

sionaries in Slam who initiated the education of the Vladivostok by a Moderate Social Democrat, S. D.

native boys and girls; 5 houses for the aged; 2 hos- Merkulov. A massacre of 700 Japanese, including

pitals; 2 infant asylums. There is an association of the Japanese consul at Nikolaevsk in March, 1920,

the past pupils of the Assumption College. The caused the Japanese government to insist that the

mission has a printiiuK press for publishing religious Chita government should shoulder the responsibili-

books and its two Catholic reviews, "£cho de V ty for that incident and agree upon a plan for settle-

Assomption," a quarterly in English, French, and ment before shS removed her troops from Sakjali,

Siamese; and ''Saxtusat Christang, a Siamese month- which occupation was undertaken as a result of the

ly. As the missionaries in the vicariate are French massacre. The Siberian "misadventure" has already

reli^ous activities were curtailed during the war, cost Japan about $400,000,000. With the presence

the vicar Apostolic, 13 priests and 9 Brothers having of Japanese troops in the Vladivostok region, the

been called to the colors; 2 priests and 1 Brother lost Far Eastern Republic is powerless to overthrow the

their lives; a priest and a Brother won the croix de Merkulov government at Vladivostok, and thus

guerre and several of their brethren were cited in the gain contrcM of the Maritime province which is

orders of the day. Siberia's outlet to the sea. Another difficulty en-

P ^^"'i9M)^^*^'^' *^ '^ ^"***^ *** '^'^'"' ^^*"^*'' ^^ ^**^* countered by the Far Eastern Republic is the in-

""• '' creasing control by the Chinese authorities of the

Siberia (cf. C. E., XIII — 767c), formerly a part of Russian line called the Chinese Eastern Railway,

the Russian Empire, has an area of 4,831,882 square linking Chita with Vladivostok. Since 1917, this

miles, divided as follows: railway has gradually passed into Chinese control.

There is a possibility that the Chita government will finally merge with the Soviet government of Russia.

According to the constitution of the Far Eastern Republic, there is no functionary corresponding exactly to president in other republics. The Cabinet consists of Secretaries, for Foreign Affairs, Agricul- ture, Finance. Home Affairs, Commimications. Education ana Labor. Elected by the National Assembly, these eight Secretaries in turn elect from The Soviet government of Russia controls Siberia, among themselves a chairman who presides at the as far east as Lake Baikal. The chief towns with their Council of Secretaries and who is commonly referred respective populations in 1913 are Irkutsk 129,700, to as President of the Far Eastern Republic (in Tomsk 116,664; Vladivostok 91,464; Krasnoyards foreign countries). 87,500; Chita 79,200; Blagoveshchensk 62,500;

Novo-Nikolaevsk 62,967; Barnaul 61 ,330; KhabarovdL Sldgreaves^ Walter, astronomer, b. at Grimsbargh, 61,300. Preston, England, on 4 October, 1837; d. at Stonv-

HiSTORT. — Siberia formed a part of the Russian hurst College^ 12 June, 1919. Entering the Society Empire until the Russian revolution of 1917, when of Jesus in his eighteenth year, he was ordained in chaos prevailed throughout the land. In 1919, 1871. He taught at Beaumont College and the Admilar Kolchak, whose remarkable military sue- English College in Malta, but he is more closelv cesses seemed to promise a unified Siberia under a associated with Stonyhurst, especially with its stable government, established at Omsk the so- observatory, all the instrumental equipment of which called All-Russia government. Upon the appearance was erected and adjusted by him. He was a pioneer of this government, the Allies and Associated in the study of terrestrial magnetism, having begun Powers, inclined to consider it as a unifving f orce in his observations in 1863; and as a result his observa- Siberia, sent help to Kolchak. His administration tory was one of the seven official meteorological however, succumbed to the Reds, who overran stations in the British Isles. He assisted Fr. Perry, Siberia, captured Omsk in November and forced S. J., in his magnetic survey of France and in observ- Kolchak to flee to Irkutsk on Lake Baikal, where he ing the transit of Venus in Kergueland Island (1874) set up a new government. The United States govern- and Madagascar (1882) on behalf of the British ment realized by this time the futility of trying to Government. Father Sidgreaves, who was elected aid Siberia and withdrew her troops in March, 1920. a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1891, The American evacuation was followed by the with- and for years was a member of its Council, specialized drawal of Japanese troops from Transbaikal and Amur in stellar spectroscopy, and his remarkable photos of Provinces. In June, 1920, Japan had completed the the spectra, especiaUy of the Nm>ce in 1892 and 1901 evacuation of these provinces and concentrated won for him a gold medal at the St. Louis Elxposition her troops some 20.(X)0 in number, within a radius of in 1904, and a grand prix at the Franco-British Ex- 150 miles from Vladivostok. The fall of Kolchak position in 1908. was followed by a period of chaos. The three pro- vinces of Eastern Siberia were divided into three Slenklowiez, Henryk. novelist, b. on 4 May, 1846, governments: a government was set up at Verkneu- at Vola, Okrzeyska, Siedlce, Poland; d. on 14 Novem- dinsk for the Transbaikal province; another at ber, 1916. He made his studies at the University of Blagovestchensk for the Amur Province and still Warsaw, was editor of the newspaper "Slovo in another at Vladivostok for the Maritime Provinces, 1869, and began his fiction work with the novel "Na all dominated by Reds of the most radical type. Mame" (In Vain) in 1870. In 1876 he came to the In 1920 respresentatives from the three governments United States and remained for some time in Cali- met and in September declared the union of the three f omia. and he travelled also in Central Africa. Nearly states in the Far Eastern Republic of Siberia with its ^l of nis novels have been translated into En^ish by seat at Chita in Transbaikal Province. In January, Jeremiah Curtin. Besides his larger books, he pub- 1921 the Provincial government held an election lished also a number of short stories which were lully