Traditional Cattle Breeding Economy of the Kolyma Region of Yakutia in the Conditions of Socio-economic Transformations in the First Third of the Twentieth Century.

Grigorev Stepan Alekseevich PhD in History Senior Researcher, Yakut Scientific Center Institute for Humanitarian Studies and Problems of Indigenous Population of the North SB RAS 677027, Russia, respublika Sakha (Yakutiya), g. Yakutsk, ul. Petrovskogo, 1, kab. 403 DeTample@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Relevance.The north-eastern regions of Yakutia are traditionally considered a place of interweaving and mutual interaction of various ethnic groups and economic practices.

Over the past centuries, this region has been a "melting pot" of cultures and socio-economic traditions, while regularly experiencing the implantation of new models of life organization, as well as the penetration of representatives of non-territorial communities with their specific experience of farming in the Asian Northeast. As a result, the constant contact of cultures has left a significant imprint on the development and self-perception of local societies.

Currently, one of the key elements of the modern ethno-cultural picture of the Arctic regions of the republic is the pastoral lifestyle introduced by the Yakut settlers who began migrating to the north from the XVIII century and continue to do so today. The formation of a special type of economy in the conditions of forest-tundra zones and under the influence of the subarctic climate made it possible to expand the range of distribution of cattle and horse breeding traditions, as well as to develop certain adaptation strategies that allow developing new territories.In the twentieth century, the ethnocultural processes taking place in the Arctic regions of Yakutia were largely predetermined by the large-scale political, social and economic transformations that took place during this period of time.

Social upheavals caused by wars, revolutions, as well as the implementation of state projects for the development of natural resources have had a significant impact on the traditional livelihoods of local communities, including their Yakut component. The pastoral culture of the Arctic region, as well as other ethnic and economic communities, also underwent significant changes during this period and had to adapt to permanently changing conditions.

The process of development of the Russian Arctic has received a fairly complete coverage in Russian historiography. Among them, there are works devoted to the history of economic development of the northern territories of the country at different stages of development, as well as touching on the problems of the history of state policy on the formation and consolidation of the population in the areas of industrial development of Siberia in the 1950s and 1980s, when the processes of industrialization and urbanization were actively taking place, which predetermined fundamental socio-economic and demographic changes in the region ^{[8, 17, 19]}. The problems of preserving and developing the traditional economy of the indigenous peoples of the North in the conditions of the modernization processes of the twentieth century were studied in sufficient detail. In more detail than in other regions of the North-East of Russia, the fate of the indigenous population employed in traditional industries was specially studied on the materials of Yakutia by Atlasov S.V., Tarasov I.A., Kovlekov S.I., Vinokurova L.I., Sannikova Ya.M. ^{[1, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, 15]}. Of particular interest are the works of S.I. Boyakova ^{[3, 4]}, who actualized the issues of the relationship of the interests of the aboriginal population with industrial projects for the development of the North and the Arctic in different periods of the twentieth century.

Results and discussion.As already noted above, the relatively intensive and consistent resettlement of the Yakut population to the northeast was documented as early as the beginning of the XVIII century ^{[7, p. 92]} and was closely related both to the Russian colonization of these territories and the yasachnaya (tax) policy pursued by the authorities.

At the same time, in the XVIII century. cattle and horses began to be bred in the Kolyma River basin. In the natural landscape conditions of the Arctic, the traditional cattle-breeding and horse-breeding structure of the Yakut economy was rapidly transformed, forming a special culture of northern Yakut cattle breeders in the north-east of Yakutia, where there were steppe foci ^{[21, p. 145]}.

Unfortunately, statistical indicators relating to the pre-revolutionary period are fragmentary and reflect only some aspects of the development of the local economy. It is known that according to the 1820s, there were 2,924 horses and 333 heads of cattle in the Kolyma District ^{[2, p. 11]}. As for reindeer husbandry, due to the fact that local "wandering foreigners", i.e. Lamuts, Yukaghirs and Chukchi, due to their nomadic lifestyle and lack of bureaucratic control over them, only occasionally got into the reports of the official apparatus of the Yakut region, accurate data on the number of domestic deer are also very scarce. It can only be noted that by the end of the XIX century in the Kolyma district reindeer husbandry among the Lamuto-Yukagirs was poorly developed, only some families from wealthy families kept significant herds (several hundred heads) that could provide them well ^{[12, p. 87]}. The indigenous population at that time was mainly engaged in fishing and hunting, and deer were mainly used as a means of transportation.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, according to official statistics, there were 2,467 heads of cattle, 2,404 horses and a total of 188 sled deer in the Kolyma district ^{[20, p. 246]}. Probably, these indicators also do not reflect the full picture of the state of animal husbandry in the region, especially the reindeer husbandry industry. Researchers involved in this topic have long noted that the economy of the northern regions of Yakutia in pre-revolutionary times was studied very poorly in statistical and economic terms. Even in archival materials, not to mention special literature devoted to reindeer husbandry, there is no complete information about the number of reindeer in Yakutia. More reliable and complete data on the number of livestock were obtained for the first time only as a result of the All–Union Circumpolar Census of 1926-1927, which provided extensive materials for studying the economy of the northern economy, being one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of the North in the early twentieth century ^{[11, p. 7]}.

But even these data obtained as a result of the census of the 1920s are rather conditional, due to the fact that subsequently the territory of the Kolyma region repeatedly changed its administrative boundaries and, consequently, the accounting of indicators of the local rural economy was inconsistent. Part of the territories of Yakutia was eventually transferred to neighboring regions and local farms were also transferred along with them. According to E.D. Konnikov, according to the census in 1927, there were 147.2 thousand deer in the Kolyma district. But from this number it was necessary to exclude 101.7 thousand heads of deer owned by the Chukchi of the Eastern Tundra and 11.6 thousand heads of deer of the upper reaches of the Kolyma, since this territory in 1931 was withdrawn from the Yakut ASSR into the jurisdiction of the Khabarovsk Territory (and later into the Magadan Region that separated from it). In total, in the Kolyma districts remaining in Yakutia, there were 15570 deer (of which 2975 were sledged) ^{[11, p. 8]}. These indicators are very different from the figures of the beginning of the century, which once again demonstrates the conditionality of statistical assessments of the state of local reindeer husbandry in the first third of the twentieth century.

Probably, due to the greater static nature and attachment to specific natural areas of cattle and horse breeding farms, information about their development is more detailed and informative. According to published data, in the Kolyma District in 1917 there were 2,650 cattle and 2,754 horses, in 1922, respectively, 2,734 cattle and 2,712 horses, in 1926 – 5,521 and 3,219, in 1927 – 5,028 and 3,133, and in 1928 – 5,800 and 3310. The above indicators, although they raise a number of questions, which will be discussed below, demonstrate a generally positive dynamics and a tendency to increase the number of livestock in cattle and horse breeding farms in the region. According to experts, some periods of its decline were the result of unfavorable natural and climatic conditions or the consequence of socio-political and economic instability caused by the civil war ^{[1, p. 41]}.

According to S.V. Atlasov, from 1917 to 1928, the Yakuts were mainly engaged in breeding cattle and horses. In the Kolyma district in 1917, the Yakut population owned 2,475 cattle and 2,647 horses, i.e. the vast majority. The circumpolar census of 1926 revealed a significant increase in the number of cattle belonging to the Yakuts. According to her data, 828 Yakut farms owned 5,230 cows and 3,126 horses out of 5,521 and 3,219, respectively, that were then in the entire district ^{[1, p. 45]}. At the time of the 1926 census, 7,773 people lived in the Kolyma district, among whom there were 4,454 Yakuts. Since 1897, the Yakut population in the Kolyma district has grown by 1,134 people, i.e. by 33% ^{[7, p. 233]}. Here we need to make a small digression and note that a slight inaccuracy (or just a typo) crept into the calculations of I.S. Gurvich. In the materials of the Russian statistician and ethnographer S.K. Patkanov, to whom I.S. Gurvich referred, it is indicated that in the Kolyma district in 1897 there were 1603 male and 1727 female Yakuts, i.e. a total of 3330 people ^{[13, pp. 796-797]}. If we subtract 3330 from the 4454 people indicated in the 1926 census, then in the end we will get 1124 people, i.e. 10 less than given in I.S. Gurvich's monograph. But such a slight discrepancy does not negate the fact that the Yakut population of the Kolyma District has grown quantitatively by a third over 30 years and by the second half of the 1920s was an ethnic majority (57.3%).

Apparently, such an increase in the number of Yakuts in the region was explained not so much by natural as by mechanical growth due to historical events that took place during that period. The territory of Yakutia, especially its central part, populated mainly by ethnic Yakuts, despite its remoteness from the main theaters of military operations of the Russian Civil War, also became the scene of a fierce armed confrontation that continued in various manifestations until the 1930s. The prevailing conditions at that time caused by military and political events forced the Yakuts from the central regions, who were mainly engaged in cattle breeding, to move to the north and settle there. Probably, this trend is associated with a sharp increase in the number of farm animals in the region that are traditionally bred in Yakut farms. It is noteworthy that during this period in the north-east of Yakutia, the indicators of cattle began to significantly exceed the indicators of horse breeding, which was previously a priority area of farming for both the local Yakut population and Russians engaged in agriculture (see Fig. 1) ^{[1, p. 41; 2, p. 17-19]}.

Traditionally, the pastoral economy of ethnic groups engaged in cattle and horse breeding in the north-east of Yakutia was focused primarily on horse breeding practices. Even in the reports of the pre-revolutionary period, it was noted that in the Kolyma district, the number of horses prevailed over the number of cattle. In one of the documents of the mid-XIX century. it is noted that the local population "tries to breed horses in greater numbers than cattle, because horses require less care, staying for a whole year on foot food, as well as for the reason that they deliver incomparably more benefits to foreigners than cattle, convenience to travel and transportation of heavy loads, and meat is eaten" ^{[2, p. 20]}.

Convenience, economy, stability and adaptability of northern horse breeding in harsh Arctic conditions predetermined its predominance over other productive forms of economy that existed in the region. The ratio of animal husbandry types in the Kolyma district that had developed by the beginning of the twentieth century differed significantly from the general picture in the rest of Yakutia, where a gradual numerical predominance of cattle over the number of horses was noted throughout the XIX century. The reasons for this trend, according to G.P. Basharin, were both the development of commodity-money and market relations, and the influence of the rapidly developing infrastructure of the Lena gold mines, which caused a great demand for beef ^{[2, p. 20]}. In this respect, remote from the main economic and cultural centers, Kolyma was practically unaffected by the unfolding processes and, to a certain extent, developed autonomously from the rest of Yakutia for a long time preserving the traditional way of life of the population. Apparently, this factor contributed to the preservation of the position of horse breeding in the region until the revolution of 1917 and the civil war that followed.

The sharp change in the ratio of the number of horses and cattle in the Kolyma regions of Yakutia, which occurred in the 1920s, has not yet received its scientific explanation. As already noted above, the recorded lability of the livestock of domestic animals during the period of political and socio-economic transformations caused by the revolution was explained either by natural and climatic crises or by military actions. But the sharp increase in the number of cattle recorded in 1926 does not find interpretation in the historical and local history literature. On the contrary, the available evidence of contemporaries points to the opposite trends observed in the Kolyma district after the revolution. According to the observations of the scientist-economist and part-time member of the government of the Yakut ASSR, G.G. Kolesov, since 1918, cattle breeding in Kolyma was rapidly declining. He summarized the various reasons for this and named the main ones: the mass slaughter of livestock for food of the ulus and urban population (for the latter, the local authorities made a mandatory opening for the ulus population); the fall of livestock from hunger and anthrax, its extermination by wolves. Based on the data collected by him in 1924-1926 from the foreign administration, the regional executive committee and other information, it was approximately stated that the number of cattle on average throughout the Kolyma district by that time had decreased by half and amounted to 2,992 heads of large and 2,045 heads of horse cattle ^{[16, p. 48]}.

G.G. Kolesov associated this negative trend primarily with the violation of transport links between the Kolyma region and other regions of Yakutia during the Civil War. The termination of steamship voyages, through which the main cargo turnover was carried out, caused a shortage of food (primarily bread), which forced the local population to slaughter cattle en masse for food. "The resumption of transport links and, as a result, the supply of bread to the district caused a reduction in the slaughter of livestock, the population was extremely careful of cattle, endured all kinds of hardships for the sake of preserving excess cattle. By the time under consideration (1926 – author's note), it could be assumed that the decline in cattle breeding had decreased. Due to the fact that more fish were caught in 1925 than in previous years, and the ulus population was supplied with bread in the 1925/26 economic year in such quantities that it had never been supplied before, the slaughter of livestock, with an exceptionally economical attitude of the local population to it, was brought to a minimum. It can be said that the number of livestock has not only stopped declining, but also, apparently, gradually began to increase, albeit slightly" ^{[16, pp. 48-49]}.

The explanation of the discrepancy between G.G. Kolesov's observations and the official data preserved in the archives and published later in the works of historians specializing in agriculture in Yakutia requires separate study and is not part of the objectives of this article. One can only make cautious assumptions that these discrepancies are caused by the poor state of the accounting and document management system characteristic of that time, as well as the general disorder caused by the consequences of the Civil War. It is possible that the movement of significant masses of people and the subsequent changes in the economic structure of the region could simply fall out of the scientist's field of view and not get into his reports.

Conclusion.Summarizing all the above information, it can be assumed that it was the movement of the rural population fleeing from the war from the central regions of Yakutia, where cattle breeding has long prevailed over horse breeding, that led to a change in the economic structure of the Kolyma district.

It is likely that it was the newcomers, whose entire previous life experience was focused on breeding cows and, to a lesser extent, horses, who got into the statistical reports of the circumpolar census, significantly changing the economic and cultural landscape of the most northeastern regions of Yakutia.

Thus, the first third of the twentieth century in the Kolyma district became a time of impulsive transformations of the traditional way of life of the local population caused by the political and socio-economic crisis that followed after the revolution of 1917. The geographical isolation of the region from the rest of the republic largely determined its autonomous development and conservation of the local economic model of life oriented primarily on transport livestock, i.e.e. for breeding horses and deer. The shift of priorities among the Yakuts towards the development of cattle breeding and the rejection of horse breeding as the main type of economic activity, recorded by the Circumpolar Census of 1926, was the result of active migration to the north of cattle breeders from the central regions of Yakutia who fled from the threats of civil war. As a result, by the second half of the 1920s, the number of cattle exceeded the number of domestic horses, affecting the way of life and the structure of the local economy, expanding, in a global perspective, the distribution areas of northern cattle breeding.