SUMMARY:

Anatolii Remnev explores in his article the process of incorporation of acquired regions into the space of the Russian empire. He focuses on the Siberian direction of the imperial expansion, tracing the evolution of dominant assumptions about the relationship between “European” and “Asiatic” Russia and the Russianness of Siberia. Remnev notes that although the military conquest was important in acquisition of new territories, peasant colonization was considered by the government and educated public as the main tool for making a new territory Russian in character. In this respect the history of the government sponsored colonization appears to be an important feature of empire and nation-building. Remnev demonstrates how the Russian authorities drew on foreign experience (German and North American) in populating new territories, borrowing techniques and modifying them in the Russian context. He also analyzes governmental discussion about the ethnic composition of colonists, discerning nationalist and racial optics in the official perception of Siberian population. Complex processes of nation-building under the resettlement conditions brought about a more tolerant than in Central Russia governmental policy toward the Siberian population (in respect to confessional and national cultures) but also gave rise to fears about Siberian separatism.