SUMMARY:

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Wardroppers, a family of Scottish engineers, moved to Russia and settled in Tyumen in Western Siberia. Three generations of Wardroppers lived in Tyumen until the early 1920s. They fully acculturated, developed loyalty to Siberian patriotism, and were perceived by their Russian acquaintances as locals. Yet the Wardroppers never applied for Russian citizenship and remained subjects of the British Empire. Numerous foreign travelers who visited their home on the way to or from Siberia perceived the Wardroppers as exemplary Englishmen, as is documented in many published travelogues. This article relies on these travelogues, most of which found their way to the Wardroppers’ home library, as a biographical text that sheds light on the phenomenon of these Scottish Siberians. The Wardroppers appear to embody the epoch of transimperial globalization characterized by multiple political loyalties and the broad circulation of knowledge. The first generation arrived in Siberia as engineers, bringing advanced British expertise to the modernizing Russian Empire. Engineering helped them to start their own business, which already was completely local, Western Siberian in scope and nature. Their business interests brought the Wardroppers to a geographical exploration of Siberia and eventually to researching the Northern Sea Route. As experts on the region the Wardroppers earned international recognition in the early twentieth century. The initial import of expertise to Russia eventually gave way to the export of unique geographic and logistical expertise. The author traces this transformation of global circuits of knowledge and multilayered loyalties by studying annotated books, dedicatory inscriptions, and marginalia in the books now identified as part of the Wardropper private library.