Demographics indigenous population of Siberia: objectivist direction in pre-revolutionary Russian historiography (materials for education course)

In the Novosibirsk State University for several years taught a special course on the historical demography of indigenous peoples of Siberia. When reading the course period, dating back to the second half of XIX – early XX century, is characterized by how different the rapid increase in their numbers compared to the previous time. However, it is this period is known and the occurrence of negativistic trends in the historiography of anthrax, including in the field of demography. Its representatives have argued that, on the contrary, the indigenous population died out. This contradiction, especially in the process of self-study as part of the course, puts students in a situation of dilemma unsolvable from a position of logic. Therefore, it is important to bring to the students information that during this period there was a national historiography and the direction objectively characterized the essence of demographic processes in the environment of the indigenous peoples of Siberia. To him we attributed I. N. Berezin, V. V. Grigoriev, A. P. Shchapov, V. S. Arefiev, D. A. Klements, A. A. Kuznetsova and P. E. Kulakov, S. P. Shvetsov, N. N. Koz’min, S. K. Patkanov. These researchers, drawing on a wide range of statistics, showing that in fact, while the number of indigenous populations grew. These findings suggest that there is no contradiction between the reality of the real state of affairs in the field of demographic and objective assessment in historiography. Approval as a «die-off», as shown convincingly census data of 1897, did not have a factual basis.