Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/25

 SIBERIA 11 condemned to hard labour, 28,382 to be settled with loss of civil rights (ssylno-posclcntsy), 23,383 to be settled without loss of rights (na vodvorenie), 2551 to live nearly free (na/ftfe),jwhile 78,686 were transported simply by orders of the administration or decisions of the village communities. In 1884 21,104 exiles, followed by 1752 women and 3631 children, were transported to Siberia. Their dis- tribution under different heads was nearly the same as the above. The hard -labour convicts (some 1800 or 1900) sent every year are distributed among several prisons in Western and Eastern Siberia, the imperial gold-washings at Kara on the Shilka, and the salt-works of Usolie and Ust-Kut ; but, as these prisons and works cannot take more than 10,000 in all, the surplus have to be sent to SAGHALIN (q.v.), where they are employed in the coal-mines, or settled. After liberation the hard-labour convicts enter the cate- gory of ssylno-poselentsy, and are settled in villages. It apprars from recent inquiries that nearly all are in a wretched condition, and that of the 200,000 on the official registers more than one-third have disappeared without being accounted for. Nearly 20,000 men (40,000 according to other estimates) are living in Siberia the life of brodt/aghi, trying to make their way through the forests to their native provinces in Russia. The exile population of Siberia is much smaller than is generally supposed, being in Tobolsk, 59,000, 4 - 6 per cent, of population ; in Tomsk, 29,800, 2 - 6 ; in Yeniseisk, 45,000, 10-6; in Irkutsk, 40,000, 10; in Transbaikalia, 21,335, 4 "3 ; in Yakutsk, 3000, 1'2 ; total, 198,153 or 4'9 per cent. Educa- Education stands at a very low level. The chief town of every tion. province is provided with a classical gymnasium, where the sons of the local officials prepare for the university, and a gymnasium or progymnasium for girls ; but the education there received is not of a high grade, and the desire of the local population for "real schools " is not satisfied. The sum of 10,000 bequeathed by Demidoff in 1817 for the foundation of a university in Siberia, together with an additional 40,000 raised by subscription, remains unemployed, and, although the Government finally permitted the erection of buildings for a university at Tomsk, it again decided (1885), for political reasons, to postpone its opening. In 1883 there were in Western Siberia only 534 schools of all descriptions, with 14,097 male and 4915 female pupils. Transbaikalia had in 1881 108 schools of a very inferior kind, with 3828 pupils ; Yakutsk, 23 schools, with 633 pupils in 1882. There are in all five gymnasia and five progymnasia for boys, three gymnasia and two progym- nasia for girls, two "real schools," and three normal schools ; but many vacant teaching posts in gymnasia remain unoccupied. Primary education is in a very unsatisfactory state, and primary schools very scarce. Adminis- Siberia is divided into four governments, Tobolsk, Tomsk, trative Yeniseisk, and Irkutsk, and four provinces, Yakutsk, Trans- divisions, baikalia, Amur, and Maritime or Primorskaya. The first two are under governors, like Russian governments ; the next four are under the governor-general of Eastern Siberia, who resides at Ir- kutsk ; the Amur and Maritime provinces are under the governor- general of the Amur, who resides at Khabarovka, at the junction of the Amur and the Usuri. The respective chief towns are Tobolsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Tchita, Blagove- scheusk, and Khabarovka. The provinces of Akmolinsk (chief town, Akmoly) and Semiryetchensk (chief town, Vyernyi) are now parts of the steppe governor - generalship. Each government and province is subdivided into districts ; the administrative head is a civil governor in the governments and a military governor in the provinces. By the regulations of 1834 each governor and governor -general is assisted by a council composed of chiefs of several departments (nominated by the governor -general), and several officials depending directly upon the respective ministries. The council has only a consultative voice, the final decision resting with the administrative head. The governors-general and military governors command the military forces of the provinces, Cossacks and regulars. The new system of legal procedure introduced in Russia in 1866 has not yet been extended to Eastern Siberia, where the old courts are still in force. It has been introduced in Western Siberia, but without juries. The towns have received the new municipal organization. The zemstvo is not yet organized. The dis- tricts are under the control of ispravniks and zasedatels, who have very extensive powers, and are not controlled by self-government of the peasantry. The Cossacks the Siberian on the Kirghiz frontier (90,000 persons, stretching in villages along a line of 1200 miles), the Transbaikalian, and those of the Amur and the Usuri, whose villages are dotted along the Amur to its junction with the Usuri and along the Usuri to Lake Khangka and Vladivostok are under their own officers, and special administrative functions are entrusted to the military chief (ataman) of each separate Cossack voisko. The Altai and Nertchinsk mines, with their territories and populations, are under the imperial cabinet, all private mines being under the inspection of mining engineers. Since the earliest years of conquest Siberia has been placed under the rule of voivodes (governors), under a special department at Moscow. In 1708 it was divided into five provinces, depending upon a governor residing at Tobolsk. Catherine II. introduced in 1764 a vice-royalty, which existed, however, only until 1799, when governors and governors -general were introduced. This system prevailed until 1819. This part of the history of Siberia was an unbroken record of robbery, tyranny, and folly on the part of the governors and isjjravniks, such as would seem incredible were the facts not testified to by the annals and documents recently .published in Russia. In vain were the severest measures resorted to. Peter I. ordered the governor Prince Gagarin to be hanged, and the governor Jolobotf was executed in 1736, while many minor officials were condemned to hard labour or the knout. The robberies and the cruelties of rulers like Kryloff, Pestel, Treskin, Loskutolf, and their myrmidons compelled the Government to undertake a thorough inquiry, and for this purpose Speranskiy was sent in 1819. To him Siberia is indebted for the new system of administration which has since remained in force. The chief towns of Siberia are Ekaterinburg (25,150 inhabitants), Towns, which belongs, however, to Penn, although situated on the eastern slope of the Urals ; Tomsk (31,550), a commercial city, selected as the site of the university; and Irkutsk (36,120 in January 1884), capital of Eastern Siberia, a trading city. Tobolsk (20,130), Kras- noyarsk (16,800), Tchita (12,600), Blagovyeschensk (8000), and Khabarovka (2500) are mere administrative centres. Biysk in Tomsk (18,700) yearly acquires more importance from its trade with the Kirghiz steppe. Kurgan (8915) and Yahitorovsk (4500) in Tobolsk are large villages, dependent chiefly on agriculture and some trade. Barnaul (17,350), Koryvan (12,450), Kuznetsk (7355), Zmeinogorsk (6160), and Zyrianovsk (4450) in the Altai are mining centres ; Barnaul is the seat of the mining administration. Tyumen (14,300) and Tara (8650) in Tobolsk, Mariinsk in Tomsk, Kainsk (8050) and Minusinsk (7400) in Yeniseisk, Kiachta (4300), Verkhne- udinsk (4150), and Nertchinsk (4070) in Transbaikalia, may be mentioned as local commercial centres Kiachta having once had great importance in the tea -trade with China. The others are merely administrative centres. Towns like Obdorsk, Berezoff, Narym, Viluisk, Verkhoyansk, Okhotsk, and many others which figure on the maps are merely administrative centres for levying the yasak, each with less than 1000 or even fewer than 500 and 300 inhabitants. Of the fifty-three towns of Western and Eastern Siberia only two have more than 30,000 and eight from 12,000 to 21,000 inhabitants each ; in ten towns the population ranges from 5000 to 10,000. The shores of all the lakes which filled the depressions during the History. Lacustrine period are covered with remains dating from the Neo- lithic Stone period ; and numberless kurgans (tumuli), ovens, and so on bear witness to a much denser population than the present. During the great migrations in Asia from east to west many populations were probably driven to the northern borders of the great plateau and thence compelled to descend into Siberia ; suc- ceeding waves of immigration drove them still farther towards the barren grounds of the north, where they melted away. According to Radloff, the earliest inhabitants of Siberia were the Yeniseians, who spoke a language different from the Ural-Altaic ; some few traces of them (Yeniseians, Sayan-Ostiaks, and Kottes) have been found among the Sayan Mountains. The Yeniseians were followed by the Ugro-Samoyedes, who also came originally from the high plateau and were compelled, probably during the great migration of the Huns in the 3d century B.C., to cross the Altai and Sayan ranges and to enter Siberia. To them must be assigned the very numerous remains dating from the Bronze period which are scattered all over south Siberia. Iron was unknow r n to them ; but they excelled in bronze, silver, and gold work. Their bronze ornaments and im- plements, often polished, evince a great development of artistic taste ; and their irrigated fields covered wide areas in the fertile tracts. On the whole, their civilization stood much higher than that of their more recent successors. Eight centuries later the Turkish stocks of "Tukiu" (in Chinese spelling), Khagasses, and Uigurs also compelled to migrate north -westwards from their former seats subdued the Ugro-Samoyedes. These new invaders have likewise left numerous traces of their sojourn, and two dif- ferent periods may be easily distinguished in their remains. They were acquainted with iron, and learned from their subjects the art of bronze-casting, which they used for decorative purposes only, and to which they gave a still higher artistic stamp. Their pottery is also much more perfect and more artistic than that of the Bronze period, and their ornaments now have a place among the finest collections at the St Petersburg Hermitage. This Turkish empire of the Khagasses must have lasted until the 13th century, when the Mongols, under Jenghiz Khan, subdued them and destroyed their civilization. A decided decline is shown by the graves which have been discovered, until the country reached the low level at which it was found by the Russians on their arrival towards the close of the 16th century. In the beginning of the 16th century Tatar fugitives from Turkestan subdued the loosely associated tribes in- habiting the lowlands to the east of the Urals. Agriculturists, tanners, merchants, and mollahs (priests) were called from Txirkc- stan, and small principalities sprang up on the Irtish and the Ob. These were united by Khan Ediger, and conflicts with the Russians