On the question of the origin of the subethnic group of Russian Arctic old-timers of Yakutia

Antonov Egor Petrovich ORCID: 0000-0002-5779-6893 PhD in History Leading Researcher; Department of History; Institute of Humanitarian Studies and Problems of Small Peoples of the North of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 677009, Russia, Republic of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Yakutsk, Dzerzhinskiy str., 41/3, sq. 85 Antegor@yandexd.ru

1. Introduction

The problem of the genesis of the Arctic Russian old-timers of Yakutia has been one of the most difficult and controversial not only in local and Russian, but also in world historiography for more than a hundred years. The accumulated materials on oral folklore, archaeological materials and archival documents in scientific and popular science literature published in the pre-revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet periods need systematization and theoretical generalization.

The purpose of this article is the genesis of the Russian Arctic old-timers of Yakutia in the context of local, Russian and world historiography.

The methodological basis of the research is a civilizational approach, since the genesis of Russian old-timers in the Arctic was directly related to the formation and development of ethnocultural characteristics and consciousness of subethnoses. A comparative historical approach was also used to identify the common and special features of the problem, as well as to analyze in detail local materials on the origin of the Indigo and Marchers in the context of new documentary sources from the United States.

2. The genesis of Russian Arctic Old-timers: Pre-Revolutionary historiography

The historiography of the genesis of the sub-ethnic group of Russian Arctic old-timers has a long tradition. As early as 1889, historian P.N. Bucinsky pointed out that the majority of the first inhabitants of Siberia were residents of the Pomeranian cities of Vyatka, Kargopol, Ustyug the Great, Solvychegodsk, Kholmogor, etc. It was "extremely rare" to find "Kaluzhanin," "putivlets," "rylenin" in the lists of military personnel, townspeople and peasants. Of the 617 who took the oath of office to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in Verkhoturye, fifty percent were Ustyug residents, Solvychegodtsy, Vyatchans, Solikamians, etc. In Western Siberia, they met with familiar peoples: Tatars, Voguls, Ostyaks, whose languages, beliefs, customs and customs were well known to them in the European part of Russia ^{[4, p. 219, 305]}.

Astronomer E.F. Skvortsov, a participant in the Lena-Kolyma expedition led by K.A. Vollosovich, kept his diary in the Russian Mouth from May 15 to June 7, 1909. He noted that it was "difficult to find out anything about the genesis of the Indigir Russians from themselves." He assumed that the time of their arrival "dates back to ancient times" and is connected with the sea route from Arkhangelsk, if we refer to folklore. He was struck by the similarity of some of the surnames of Russian old-timers with the surnames of the ancient boyars and their division into indigenous (root) and non-indigenous. The researcher considered them to be descendants of boyars exiled to the north, "who moved across the Arctic Ocean to distant Indigirka" ^{[12, p. 72]}.

In 1914, political envoy V.M. Zenzinov, based on folk legends, songs, language features, and customs, noted that: "Fleeing from the hardships of military service, residents of different cities left Russia by sea on bots and kochs under Ivan the Terrible and moved east, where they settled at the mouth of the Indigirka River among the foreigners, calling his first village was called "Russian Mouth". At the same time, the author points out that in the 1640s. "they were stumbled upon by Russian Cossacks who moved from Yakutsk to Kolyma in search of a new "land" and yasak" ^{[8, p. 16-17]}.

His references to the documents of the Russian-Ustinsky Archive that existed at that time are especially valuable. They dealt with a dispute between the Yakuts and Russian old-timers over fishing areas in the lower reaches of the Indigirka River and hunting grounds. In their complaint to Irkutsk dated April 10, 1831, the Russo-Austenians wrote: "Our ancestors, grandfathers and fathers, had residence along the Indigirka River, in the places of Uyandin, Ozhogin, Shansky and Russian Estuaries, but with what permission we do not know at all; subsequently, time, experience, and from the elders, we learned that the river this was originally found by some Russian nomads, then our ancestors had permanent residence at the Shan post...". In another document dated March 15, 1832, it was recorded that "our permanent residence from our ancestors, as is known from the experience of our elders, was more than 150 years," i.e. until 1682^{[8, p. 23]}.

Russian Russians settled from the north to the south along the route Edomka – Russkoye Ustye – Elon – Ozhogino ^{[8, p. 25]}. The author's description from the words of informants is also interesting. He explained Postnik Ivanov's report on sable fishing and silver mining in the upper and middle reaches of the Indigirka River by saying that the Cossacks "did not go down" to the lower reaches of this river. However, V.M. Zenzinov admitted that "Russo-Austenians appeared later" ^{[8, pp. 26-27]}.

3. The genesis of Russian Arctic Old-timers: Historiography of the Soviet period

In 1949, an article by S. Markov was published based on documents found from the Selifontov Archive Fund in Kostroma. A naval officer, Governor-General of Siberia, Senator I.O. Selifontov (1793-1822) brought many documents from Siberia that were kept in the Selifontov family archive. It is likely that Ivan Osipovich was acquainted with the Siberian surveyor and provincial registrar Ivan Kozhevin and received from him in 1806 a quarter-sheet notebook decorated with hand-drawn color drawings depicting scenes from the life of the Yakuts – the manuscript "Practical geographical description in Zhigansky district." This "description" was compiled by Ivan Kozhevin in 1804 based on the records of his father, the surveyor Yefim Kozhevin in 1795-1799.

In the work on pages 30-31 there was a so-called "Mixture about kochs". During his stay in 1795-1799 in Zhigansky district, Yefim Kozhevin was told by local residents a legend passed down from generation to generation by Russian settlers about the sailing of three "great nomads" down the Lena River into the sea even before the founding of Yakutsk (1632) and Zhigansk (1633). One of these ships reached the Indigirka River, went upriver, where it was wrecked and thrown onto the rocks near the village of Shanskoe, located south of the Russian Mouth. According to popular rumor, the base of a large koch from a thick ship's forest lay for a long period. The second koch passed through the mouths of the Kolyma and Anadyr, reached the tip of Kamchatka and entered the Gizhiga Bay before the foundation of the Gizhiginsky prison (1651). The third was attributed to the shores of Alaska. Kozhevin added the legend of the Chukchi and Koryaks, as their ancestors observed the Russian people who rounded the Chukchi nose. The manuscript mentions Herman the hermit, Ivan Kobelev, the centurion, and Yakov Lindenau, the veterinary ensign, who testified about Russian people who visited Chukotka, Kamchatka, and Alaska before Semyon Dezhnev sailed ^{[9, p. 13, 15, 16]}.

Russian Russians of Lower Indigirka In 1949, based on the materials of language and folklore, T.A. Shub came to the conclusion about the origin of the "hitherto" Russian old–timers of lower Indigirka from the Russian North - Pomerania and dated the approximate time of their arrival in Yakutia "no later than the first quarter of the XVII century"^{[17, p. 315]}. The exact time of their arrival was not established, due to the loss of archival documents in Zashiversk and the fire of the Yakut Voivodeship office. Therefore, the written mention of the Russian Mouth begins only in 1739, although the author was sure that the "hitherto" arrived "much earlier" than the Cossacks from the Lena and Yana rivers. The argument in favor of this argument was served by legends from one generation to another that the ancestors of the Indigirschikov from Pomerania "spread pestilence on the nomads" under Ivan the Terrible, fleeing from "suffocation." They were all noble families, and when the question of paying taxes arose, "they were recorded in the bourgeoisie." In the finds of bows, arrows, quivers, spears, etc. – everyday tools of the Russo-Austenians discovered off the eastern shores of Taimyr in Sims Bay, T.A. Shub became convinced that "Russians in the XVII century already knew the way to Siberia from west to east ^{[18, p. 208]}.

M.I. Belov wrote that the navigators on the voyage of Semyon Dezhnev, as throughout Siberia, were natives of the Russian Pomerania, who knew excellent seamanship and were accustomed to naval service. The ban on sailing to Mangazeya left some of the Russian pomors without fishing, but they were in high demand due to their access to the sea. From the first appearance of the Russian vessel in the North-East of Russia to the end of the 17th century, i.e., over the course of half a century, 177 major sea expeditions were made between Lena, Kolyma and Anadyr along a route of six thousand kilometers, which was halfway from Europe to America.

M.I. Belov noted that back in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the famous historian of Siberia P.A. Slovtsov, archivist N.N. Ogloblin, American researcher F.R. Golder, and others denied the very possibility of Russian Cossacks sailing on S.I. Dezhnev's nomads by the Northern Sea Route and their discovery of the strait separating America from Asia. At the same time, M.I. Belov rejected the legend that the Kochi from Fedot Alekseev's Dezhnev campaign drifted to the coast of Kamchatka, where the Russians lived for some time among the peaceful tribes of the Kamchadals, and a year later crossed Cape Lopatka and traveled to Penzhinsk Bay, where everyone died during a fight with the Koryaks. These records, which appeared at the beginning of the 18th century, caused him "great doubts about his veracity" half a century later. He also considered unfounded the version that "Fedot Alekseev's ships landed on the shores of Alaska and thus laid the foundation for Russian settlements in America" ^{[1, p. 69, 72]}.

In 1957, A.P. Okladnikov described the results of the work of the Hydrographic Department of the Main Northern Sea Route, consisting of topographer N.I. Linnik, hydrographer A.S. Kasyanenko and others on September 14 and 26, 1940 on the island of Thaddeus. They found various household and military items (an axe, a squeaker with bullets, a bow, arrows, quivers, scissors, boilers, pans, scales, tin plates, ropes). Among the objects were: a bell, a comb, beads, coins, earrings, rings, crosses, icons, chess, etc. In June 1944, on the shore of Sims Bay, members of the East Taimyr expedition of the Hydrographic Office, led by surveyor S.I. Nesterenko, found the remains of a winter quarters, wooden ships and many things. Authentic samples of ancient national clothes and shoes worn by ordinary Russians, scraps of a sundress, rotted furs and a piece of tanned deer hide were discovered on the coast of Taimyr. Subsequently, B.O. Dolgikh and A.P. Okladnikov studied in detail and dated the found remains of the commercial and industrial expedition of 1620.

The fishing sailors had first-class firearms at that time and were equipped and prepared for fishing. These were industrial people who came from Russia for profitable trade and hunting of valuable fur-bearing animals. Such campaigns were widespread. So, in 1630 608 people came to the Turukhansk winter quarters from fishing, in 1634 – 674, in 1636 – 707, etc. These numerous commercial and industrial expeditions required thorough preparation and a significant material base. An important circumstance was that the objects found belonged to a naval expedition, when the travelers traveled by sea, not by land. The Koch's design and equipment were designed for the vessel to travel vast distances in a short Arctic navigation. The Pomors put all their centuries-old experience of northern navigation, their remarkable powers of observation and knowledge of the northern seas into the construction of the nomads ^{[10, p.. 6-8, 16, 32, 39-41, 48]}.

In 1976, A.P. Okladnikov and R.S. Vasilevsky, during their archaeological excavations in the United States, wrote with reference to the Anchorage Daily Times newspaper about a Russian village in the wilderness of the Kenai Peninsula, located 200 miles southwest of Anchorage in Alaska. There were 300 people living in the settlement who were engaged in fishing and worked under contract at a local sawmill. They revered the Orthodox religion of the 16th century before the split of the church, encouraged early marriages between their own and wore old Russian clothes. Their children played Russian games and spoke their native language. Russian Russian settlements have also been preserved on Kodiak Island, where A.P. Okladnikov and his archaeologists listened to Russian folk songs and stories from the villagers. On the Aleutian Islands, the locals had first names and surnames: Sergey Suvorov, Daniil Kryukov, Ivan Plotnikov, Pelageya Dyakova, Agrafena Dushkina, and others. Russian Russian words made up about 30% of their language: bread – klibach, kettle – chanik, chess – shakhokh, knife – nusakh, etc., and Russian utensils and customs were preserved in everyday life^{[11, p. 54-55]}.

I.S. Gurvich explained the origin of the legend about the settlement of the lower reaches of the Indigirka by the ancestors of the Russo-Austrians by a complaint from the Yakuts to the Commission for the Redistricting of Foreigners by Yasak in 1831, which claimed that fishing and hunting grounds near the Arctic Ocean had been seized by Russian settlers from the abolished city of Zashiversk. Therefore, the authors proposed to evict all Russians from the Indigirka River valley, and this idea found support in Irkutsk. In response, the Verkhoyansk burghers began their lengthy correspondence with their superiors, proving that their ancestors had migrated 150 years ago, i.e. in 1682. According to the ethnographer, this dispute gave rise to the myth "about the settlement of the ancestors of the Russian-Ustin people in the North from time immemorial." There was a similar tradition among the marchers, who called themselves the descendants of Ermak's associate, Ivan Koltso, and among the Ustyankians, who traced their ancestry back to the Lena peasant who landed from a ship under sail at the Holy Nose. According to I.S. Gurvich, the vague legends of the Indigirschiks, Kolymians and Ustyankians reflected the real events of the XVII–XVIII centuries. related to the resettlement by land and sea of Russian artisans and arable peasants, as well as the stories of exiled settlers, borrowed from literature and folklore of the era of Ivan the Terrible, Ermak and Ataman Koltso^{[7, pp. 193-194]}.

In 1972, A.L. Birkengoff noted in his monograph that Ivan Rebrov, the leader of a group of Cossack explorers, asked in 1633 to "go by sea to Yana." In 1649, he reported in a petition that he had set off from Yana by sea to Indigirka, insisting "that Russians had not yet visited both Yana and Indigirka before him." From here he came to the conclusion that the traditions of the Russo-Austenians about the discovery of the Indigirka River by "some Russian nomads" coincided "with the petition of Ivan Rebrov, and nothing more." However, the author emphasized that Ivan Rebrov "did not leave" a Cossack garrison in the lower reaches of the Indigirka River, whose descendants could become Russo–Austenians. Thus, he tried to refute the widespread tradition of the old-timers of the Russian Estuary, which was not "proof of the penetration of the ancestors of the Indigir people to the "mother Indigirka" by sea "directly from Russia"^{[3, p. 82-83]}.

A.L. Birkengoff noted that the participants in the campaigns of Ivan Erastov, D.M. Zyryan (Yerilo), I.Belyany, M. Stadukhin, S. Dezhnev, T. Buldakov, P. Mokroshubov did not meet or hear that in the lower reaches of the Indigirka "there were unknown Russian zaimkas or villages of the ancestors of indigirschikov." The study of these reports allowed the author to state "with confidence" that "permanent Russian inhabitants were absent in the tundra of the Indigirka delta and in the lower reaches of the river, and in 1650-1651," and the Russo–Austenians themselves were "descendants of the first settlers of the basin - the discoverers of the Yukaghir land" by "land" and by sea."

A.L. Birkengoff also refuted the legend that the Russo-Austenians were descendants of exiled boyars who "moved across the Arctic Ocean", since their surnames were strikingly similar to the "ancient Boyars". Almost all of the 15 "root" surnames of indigirschikov: Antonov, Golyzhinsky, Kiselyov, Koryakin, Panteleev, Rozhin, Suzdalov, Strukov, Cheremkin, Chikhachev, Khabarovsk, Shelokhovsky, Shkulev, Shchelkanov, Yarkov were found in archival documents of the 17th century. Only four "previous" surnames – Shelokhovsky, Shkulev, Shchelkanov, Yarkov "it is difficult to say anything definite"^{[3, p. 86]}. A.L. Birkengoff's interest was aroused by the surname of the Kisilevs, natives of Anadyr, who served as the basis for the legend about the arrival of the ancestors of the Russo-Austenians from Chukotka. The author linked the Kisilevs' surname to the version about the disappearance of the Novgorod colony in the village of Kazilova near the mouth of the Kazilova River, or the Kisileva River in the Kenai Bay area in Alaska ^{[3, p. 91]}.

A.L. Birkengoff explained the Russians' advance from Zashiversk to the lower reaches of the Ingigirka River by fleeing the smallpox epidemic and the decline in animal hunting. No information about them was heard from the Yukaghirs, "with whom the Russian explorers fought and communicated" ^{[3, pp. 83-84]}. As for the settlement of the Indigirka River basin, unlike V.M. Zenzinov, he associated the Russian advance to the north with the need to support sled dog breeding, which required the capture of "more and more fishing"sands", where fish resources were increasing ^{[3, p. 17-19]}. He attributed the foundation of the Russian Mouth to 1739, Edomka to 1756, Ust Eloni to 1761 and Stanchik to 1821. He identified the main areas of settlement: from the south of Ust-Eloni and Russian Estuary along the western Russo-Ustinsky channel, and from the east of Edomka and Stanchik to the lower reaches of the eastern Kolyma channel^{[3, p. 94]}.

Regarding the ancient Russian settlement in Alaska, A.L. Birkengoff noted that it was founded not in the XVI, but in the XVII century. and it was not a colony of Novgorod, but, according to his assumption, a settlement of participants in the voyage of Semyon Dezhnev in 1648 – the discoverers of the North-West of America and descendants of immigrants from Novgorod ^{[2, p. 307]}.

A.G. Chikachev also acknowledged the lack of "substantial evidence" that "the ancestors of the Russo-Austenians reached the mouth of the river. Russian Russians traveled by sea "directly from Russia," since the Russian Cossacks, explorers who arrived in the lower reaches of the Indigirka River by sea and land, did not mention the Russian Mouth. Russian Russians therefore settled this territory in 1682, mainly along the route from south to north, and he ranked the Indigirschikov among the descendants of Russian explorers and sailors of the 17th century who advanced from the city of Zashiversk^{[13, pp. 365-368]}. Later, A.G. Chikachev made it more ancient for Russian people to settle Indigirka in the middle of the 17th century^{[14, p. 28]}

3. The genesis of Russian Arctic Old-timers: Post-Soviet Historiography

However, later on, A.G. Chikachev, who participated in the preparation for the publication of A.L. Birkengoff's book "Descendants of the Explorers", emphasized that it did not refute the version of the mixed genesis of the Russo-Austrians from the settlers from Veliky Novgorod (before), descendants of Cossacks and tradesmen, exiles and peasants. In conclusion, A.G. Chikachev stated that: "Therefore, we are still inclined to believe that there cannot be a strictly unified version of the settlement of the Russian Mouth in only one way" ^{[15, p. 318]}.

A.G. Chikachev provided interesting information about the destruction of archives in the Russian Estuary and on the Kolyma, where birch bark documents of the 17th century were used for kindling furnaces. An example was also given when, according to an order received from Yakutsk (the date of this document is not specified and under whose signature it was issued), the Russian-Ustinsky archive was destroyed. Then, by decision of the local government (the date of this document is not specified and under whose signature it was issued) the archival documents were collected and sunk into an ice hole (the text does not specify in which specific area this happened). However, a month later, a new order was received from the capital of the republic to raise this archive from the bottom of the reservoir. The Russo-Austenians cut a large-diameter ice hole, froze the bottom of the reservoir, managed to lift the wet and frozen papers and spread them out to dry on the roof of the yurt. But the rains and winds finally destroyed the entire archive ^{[15, p. 54]}.

In 2004, N.B. Vakhtin, E.V. Golovko and P. Shweitzer explained the appearance of V.M. Zenzinov's version about the arrival of the ancestors of the Russo-Austrians in the lower reaches of the river. The Indigirki sea has been "almost since the time of Ivan the Terrible" an attempt to secure the rights to fishing grounds and hunting grounds, which have been actively contested by the Yakuts since 1831. In their opinion, this legend had "nothing to do with real historical events" and unfairly criticized the works of A.G. Chikachev, published "not so much within the framework of academic as local patriotic discourse." They also accused Alexey Gavrilovich of suppressing the "unprofitable" legend, according to which the ancestors of the Indigo people came from Chukotka, which emphasized their insufficiently ancient origin. The authors also questioned the traditions of the Pokhodchans and Ust-Yangs, who present themselves as descendants of one of Ermak's close associates, Ivan Koltso^{[5, pp. 40-41]}.

The authors also questioned the date of the founding of the Russian Mouth in 1638 by Ivan Rebrov, since they were passing through through this area, Ivan Postnik, Ivan Erastov, Andrey Gorely, and others. We have not seen "any Russian settlements" here ^{[5, p. 41]}.

N.B. Vakhtin, E.V. Golovko and P. Shweitzer listed the efforts of A.G. Chikachev on archival research, the use of "profitable" quotations from literature, assistance in the construction of monuments to the Cossack explorers (ancestors of the Russo-Austrians), the reanimation of the legend of the "Boyar" origin of the indigirschiks, the filming of documentaries about the Russian Mouth, the publication of popular publications, Russian Russian Ustye published an article by Alexey Gavrilovich in the academic volume "Folklore of the Russian Ustye", organizing and holding the 350th anniversary of the founding of the village of Russkoye Ustye in 1988. Russian Russians were assessed by N.B. Vakhtin, E.V. Golovko, and P. Shvaytser as A.G. Chikachev's desire to "raise the social status" of the Russo-Austenians, turning them from "not quite Russian" into "the most Russian" of all ^{[5, pp. 99-100]}.

A.G. Chikachev's son, I.A. Chikachev, wrote about the discovery of V.M. Zenzinov's archive by Vladimir Ryazansky, a native of the Aby district of Yakutia, a professor of biology at the University of Chicago. 50 boxes, 6 packages and 1 folder with photographs were kept at Columbia University in New York. Some of the documents were available at Amherst College in the USA ^{[16, p. 256]}.

4. The genesis of Russian Arctic old-timers: new documents

In 2014, we managed to visit the USA on a business trip. The Columbia University archive mainly contains photo albums by V.M. Zenzinov, and the Library of Congress has managed to discover and copy materials about the arrival of Russians in Alaska in the 16th century. Among them is a copy of the article "The First Russians in Alaska" without a signature, which was published on page 5 of the Vozrozhdenie newspaper in Paris on August 23, 1908. This publication was reprinted from the German newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung on August 22, 1908. Russian Russian Orthodox Church rector Nikolai Ivanovich Kedrov (Kedrovsky), while sorting through accumulated old papers in the basement of the church, found a bundle of old papers describing the discovery of Alaska by Russians, citing the American newspaper New York Times.

Based on these new sources, a new date was set for the arrival of Russians in America in 1546, and not in 1741, as was customary in official historiography. The fugitives were natives of Veliky Novgorod and participants in the failed rebellion during the accession to the throne of Ivan the Terrible, who fled through Siberia to Alaska. The conspirators' flotilla consisted of 7 ships, of which 6 arrived on American shores. The specified year of arrival in America is 1546, which is doubtful, since Ivan the Terrible became tsar only in 1547. The settlers, among whom there were several clergy, built the city of Anadyr in Alaska with a stone church. The newcomers were assimilated by the Tlingit and Haida Indians, and Anadyr was either destroyed during the fighting or abandoned by the inhabitants^[19].

There is also a copy of Alexander Brailovsky's article "About a remarkable find. Russian Russians in America under Ivan the Terrible", published in the newspaper "Russian Voice" with the date of arrival of Russians in Alaska – 1570 The arrival of the fugitives in it was associated with suspicions of "Lithuanian treason" and seditious relations with Lithuania and the defeat of the Novgorod Republic by Ivan the Terrible's troops. All supporters of the seditious party, their families, and even their serfs were subjected to severe persecution, mass executions, torture, and ruin. However, not everyone obediently put their necks under the axe, and some brave and enterprising sailors fled on 7 ships to the mouth of one of the Siberian rivers.

From there, the descendants of the legendary Russian Sinbad Sadko traveled the Vitus Bering route to Alaska, where they founded the city of Anadyr, whose location, according to church documents, was to be discovered and mixed with the native tribes. The article reported on the transfer of the found documents, in which Alaska was called "eastern Russia", to the Library of Congress of the United States. It is likely that the settlers considered their place of refuge from the tsar's wrath to be a geographical extension of Siberia. Alexander Brailovsky compared this interpretation with the mistake of Christopher Columbus, who also considered America to be an extension of Asia^[19].

The discovery of ancient manuscripts during the analysis by Orthodox priest Nikolai Ivanovich Kedrov (Kedrovsky) of the basement of St. Nicholas Church in the former administrative center of Alaska, Sitka, aroused great interest among the scientific community. The old papers, presumably of Chinese origin, stuck together so tightly in places that they turned into a solid mass. The surviving writings were read by Yakut emigrant M.Z. Vinokurov, who stated that a previously unknown chronicle of Alaska had been discovered and sent these documents to Washington^[19].

However, in response to the publication of Alexander Brailovsky's article "About a remarkable find. Russian Russians in America under Ivan the Terrible"in the "Russian Voice" published a "Letter to the editor" by N.I. Kedrov (Kedrovsky). The author wrote that all the facts stated in the article by A. Brailovsky are kept in his library, and the publication itself is a repeat of his article already published in the New York Times on August 3, 1930. In this regard, the Orthodox priest expressed his protest^[19].

This article provoked an angry response to the article "The Right to Facts" by Alexander Brailovsky, where the protest of Father Nicholas was assessed as a passion for petty litigation – a common phenomenon for the Russian clergy. The author firmly stated that he was not afraid of the desire of N.I. Kedrov (Kedrovsky) to compare and expose his texts. Russians Russian Voice weekly magazine officially responded to the hapless Orthodox priest in this way: "A journalist, whoever he is, has the moral and legal right to use any quotes and sources for his articles. A. Brailovsky did not invent or take out of his head the facts about the stay of Russians in America under Ivan the Terrible, When composing my article, I referred to the facts given by you." The journalist pointed out that Father Nikolai had just stumbled upon the documents while cleaning the basement of the church and was ready to burn the old papers. On his own, he was unable to analyze the documents he found, "show off the gift of historical reconstruction" and present the facts in a coherent form in front of Americans and compatriots. Therefore, the priest Kedrov (Kedrovsky) was assessed as a barren fig tree, since the article in the New York Times was written not by him, but by Theodore Farrelli^[19].

Not everyone trusted these public articles. For example, in a private letter dated September 16, 1930, Archpriest A. Kashevarov complained to Yakut emigrant M.Z. Vinokurov, an employee of the Library of Congress, about a completely incomprehensible article in the New York Times newspaper. It mixed Ivan the Terrible, persecution for the faith, and the voluntary departure of Russian peasants. to Siberia, visit Alaska Russians with priests, etc. At the same time, the author of the letter emphasized that the found papers would allow for a new look at the history of Alaska. Some residents of this state believed what was stated in the article, but the Orthodox clergyman himself assessed the publication as fiction^[19].

5. Conclusion

Thus, in the pre-revolutionary period, V.M. Zenzinov, based on oral historical traditions and archival documents, for the first time in historiography, put forward the question of the migration of Russians by sea from Pomerania to the lower reaches of the river. The Indigirka. During the Soviet period, the Kostroma archival documents identified by S.N. Markov were recorded folklore data. Confirmation of the migration of pomors by the Arctic Ocean was the discovery of the remains of a trading expedition of the 17th century on the island of Thaddeus and Sims Bay in Taimyr (A.P. Okladnikov), which testified to the existence of ancient traditions of navigation not only in Western but also in Eastern Siberia.

T.A. Shub actively introduced historical folklore into scientific circulation. M.I. Belov associated the legends of sailing the Northern Sea Route as preserved in the memory of oral testimonies of indigenous people and old-timers about the expeditions of Cossack explorers of the 17th century. I.S. Gurvich considered ancient historical legends to be the result of lawsuits over fishing and hunting areas between Indigirtshiks and Yakuts.L. Birkengoff noted the absence of archival documents on the voyages of the Pomors along the coast in Eastern Siberia (without mentioning two large fires in the Yakut archive in the 19th century), doubts about the "ancient Boyar" origin of most of the surnames of Russo-Austrians and mentioned the flight of the ancestors of the Indigir people from the epidemic in Zashiversk to the lower reaches of the Indigirka. Based on these three data, he denied the possibility of Russian Pomors settling the Indigirka Delta by sea.

In the post-Soviet period, A.G. Chikachev, who fully agreed with the opinion of A.L. Birkengoff, published interesting memoirs of his countrymen about the destruction of the unique Russian-Austrian archive, in which political envoy V.M. Zenzinov still managed to work. N.B. Vakhtin, E.V. Golovko and P. Schweizer sharply criticized the works of A.G. Chikachev, published "not so much within the framework of academic, as much as local patriotic discourse." They also questioned the traditions of the Pokhodchans and Ust-Yangs, who present themselves as descendants of one of Ermak's close associates, Ivan Koltso. Russian Russians appreciated the active activity of A.G. Chikachev as a desire to "raise the social status" of the Russo-Austenians, turning them from "not quite Russian" into "the most Russian" of all.

The formation of the subethnoses of Indigirschiks and Marchers occurred due to migration waves from the Northwest by the Northern Sea Route and 17th century Cossack explorers who traveled overland and also descended the Lena River by sea to the Indigirka River. Yukaghirs, Evens and Yakuts, who partially assimilated with them, played a decisive role in the emergence of the Russian Arctic old-timers of Yakutia. In our opinion, the long-term discussions of historians and local historians around the question of the genesis of the old-timers of the Arctic population and the various arguments presented by the parties only complement each other. Also, the archival documents introduced here for the first time and the previously published results of archaeological excavations in the United States support this version of resettlement, based on the centuries–old rich experience of Pomeranian sailors, who were actively in demand in the XVII-XVIII centuries. As we can see, the totality of oral traditions, archaeological excavation data and the corpus of archival materials confirm A.G. Chikachev's guess about the multi-faceted nature of the origin of the Russian Arctic old-timers of Yakutia.

Bibliography

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2. Birkengoff A.L. On the question of the ancient "Novgorod colony" in Alaska // Proceedings of the All-Union Geographical Society. 1967. Volume 99. Issue 4. July – August. pp. 301-307.

3. Birkengoff A.L. Descendants of the explorers. Memoirs-essays on the Russian porechans of the lower reaches and delta of the Indigirka River. Edited by Yu.B. Simchenko. Moscow: Mysl, 1972. 222 p.

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9. Markov S.N. Kostroma and the Pacific Ocean // Around the world. 1949. No. 8. pp. 13-16.

11. Okladnikov A.P., Vasilevsky R.S. On Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. Novosibirsk: Nauka Publ., 1976. 168 p.

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Russian Russian Folklore 13. Chikachev A.G. On the history of the Russian population along the Indigirka River. Edited by S.N. Azbelev, N.A. Meshchersky, L.: Nauka, 1986. pp. 363-369.

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References

1. Belov M.I. Semyon Dezhnev. - M.: Sea Transport Publishing House, 1955. 155 p.

2. Birkenhoff A.L. On the Question of the Ancient "Novgorod Colony" in Alaska // Bulletin of the All-Union Geographical Society. 1967. Vol. 99. Issue. 4. July - August. Pp. 301-307.

3. Birkenhoff A.L. Descendants of Explorers. Memoirs and Essays on Russian Porechans of the Lower Reaches and Delta of the Indigirka River. Responsible. ed. Yu.B. Simchenko. - M.: Mysl, 1972. 222 p.

4. Butsinsky P.N. Settlement of Siberia and the Life of Its First Inhabitants. – M.: Veche, 2012. 320 p.

5. Vakhtin N.B., Golovko E.V., Schweitzer P. Russian Old-timers of Siberia. Social and Symbolic Aspects of Self-Awareness. – M.: New Publishing House, 2004. 292 p.

6. Vize V.Yu. Seas of the Soviet Arctic. Essays on the history of research. – M.-L.: Publishing house of Glavsevmorput, 1948. 496 p.

7. Gurvich I.S. Ethnic history of North-East Siberia. Rep. ed. B.O. Dolgikh. – M.: Nauka, 1966. 269 p.

8. Zenzinov V.M. Ancient people by the cold ocean. Russian Ustye, Yakut region, Verkhoyansk district. Izd-2, rev. and additional repr. ed. – M.: Printing house P.P. Ryabushinsky, 1914 (Yakutsk, 2013). 140 pp.

9. Markov S.N. Kostroma and the Pacific Ocean // Around the World. 1949. No. 8. P. 13–16.

10. Okladnikov A.P. Russian polar seafarers of the 17th century off the coast of Taimyr. Second edition, corrected and supplemented. – Moscow: Publishing house “Morskoy transport”, 1957. 120 p.

11. Okladnikov A.P., Vasilievsky R.S. Across Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. – Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1976. 168 p.Skvorcov E.F. V pribrezhnyh tundrah Yakutii. Dnevnik astronoma Lensko-Kolymskoj ekspedicii 1909 g. // Trudy Komissii po izucheniyu Yakutskoj ASSR. Tom XV. Lensko-Kolymskaya ekspediciya pod nachal'stvom K.A. Vollosovicha. L.: Izd-vo AN SSSR, 1930. P. 68–84.

12. Skvortsov E.F. In the coastal tundra of Yakutia. Diary of an astronomer of the Lena-Kolyma expedition of 1909 // Proceedings of the Commission for the Study of the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Volume XV. Lena-Kolyma expedition under the command of K.A. Vollosovich. L.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1930. pp. 68–84.

13. Chikachev A.G. On the history of the Russian population along the river. Indigirka // Folklore of the Russian Ustye. Rep. ed. S.N. Azbelev, N.A. Meshchersky. L.: Nauka, 1986. pp. 363–369.

14. Chikachev A.G. Russians on Indigirka. Historical and ethnographic essay. Rep. ed. A.I. Fedorov. – Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1990. 189 p.

15. Chikachev A.G. Russian heart of the Arctic. Comp. E.N. Ammosova, I.A. Chikachev. Ed. E.N. Ammosova. – Yakutsk: Lit. fund, 2010. 496 p.Shub T.A. Starozhiloe russkoe naselenie nizov'ev r. Indigirki // Trudy Vtorogo Vsesoyuznogo Geograficheskogo s"ezda. Tom III. M.: Gosudarstvennoe izd-vo geograficheskoj literatury, 1949. P. 315.

16. Chikachev A.G. Russians on the Indigirka. Historical and ethnographic essay. Rasputin V.G. Russian Mouth. 2nd edition, corrected and augmented. Ed. and compiled by I.A. Chikachev. - Yakutsk: Publishing house "Literary fund named after Vladimir Frolov", 2016. 264 p.

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19. Library of Congress, Collection Michail Z. Vinokourov – Shelf/Accession. – No MSS 18, 147.