On the eve of the 1916 uprising: the results and problems of the colonization of the Russian-Chinese border area

Abstract

The publication introduces into scientific circulation the annual report of the head of the resettlement department in the Ust-Kamenogorsk and Zaysan districts of the Semipalatinsk region of the Steppe Territory, based on the data of the year 1915. The document was deposited in the collection of the Resettlement Administration of the Ministry of Agriculture and State Property (No. 391), stored in the Russian State Historical Archive (St. Petersburg). The survey report is supplemented by a concluding note by V.A. Sayenko, the head of the Migration department of the Ust-Kamenogorsk and Zaysan districts. It is concluded that the success of the settling of the border region is determined not so much by the number of immigrants as by the scale of their settlement and integration. It is noted that in the future the territories of Ust-Kamenogorsk and Zaysan
districts would allow significantly increasing the scale of resettlement, and the “Russification” of border areas
would create the necessary conditions for ensuring security at the borders of the Empire. The document serves as a vivid example of how a contemporary interprets the migration process, realizing Slavic resettlement as a
manifestation of state policy on the colonization of the Asian outskirts. The report provides estimates of the
size of the displaced population and the current results of the agrarian colonization of the Russian-Chinese
borderlands. It contains scenarios for the accelerated modernization of both nomadic and resettlement societies
and options for optimizing economic and intercultural contacts. The conclusion is made about the colonization
potential of this territory, and recommendations for the implementation of colonization policy are provided in
the context of Russia’s economic and military-political interests in a strategically important region.