Book review: Siberia, by Janet M. Hartley

by Janet Hartley
Yale University Press

Few lands can match Siberia for its history of exploitation, both of its people and of its minerals. That exploitation helped create its legendary reputation as one of the world's most remote and difficult places to live, with only the damned and the greedy making their homes in its vast forests.

However, author Janet Hartley shows Siberia is a much more complex place than stereotypes suggest, and that while prisoners and the wretched have had their roles in shaping the region, it has also been an engine of Russian wealth for centuries.

Siberia had its roots in an independent khanate named Sibir, which was rich in minerals and furs. It became part of Russia's grand eastward expansion in the 16th and 17th centuries, which saw the tsars reach as far as the settlement of Fort Ross just north of modern-day San Francisco) in the 1800s as well as claim Alaska, which was sold to the United States in 1867.

The expansion of the Russian empire came at the expense of the region's indigenous population, who were convinced through beatings, rapes and killings to pay tribute to their new Western masters. As is so often the case in colonial expansion, the indigenous people played only a bit role in Siberia's modern history. By the end of the 17th century some 100,000 Russians and other foreigners had settled in the region. They were still outnumbered two to one by the indigenous people, but the latter's stories are not told in this book.

The military followed the explorers and trappers, with a posting in Siberia offering many men the chance at speedy promotions and a step up in society, as moving to these hinterlands came at great cost.

"The climate was appalling - damp, cold, snow, sea fogs - and the permafrost meant that the water never drained away from the fields or the streets. There were more huskies in the little settlement than there were people," Hartley writes.