Russian migrants in XVII century Siberia: uncontrolled behaviour in stressful situations

Purpose. The article deals with the history of Russians settling in Siberia in the XVII century. So far, researchers have rarely mentioned social, ethnic and psychological aspects of the squatters’ lives. This issue was considered only with reference to specific issues, e.g., ethnic relations between settlers and the indigenous inhabitants of Siberia. The aspect of their complex adaptation and the psychological climate within the squatter community has not been taken into account yet. Meanwhile, modern concepts and theories devoted to migrant communities call attention to a very important role which psychological mechanisms play in development of a community on new lands and in a new environment, and to the issue of overcoming challenges. The authors’ intention is to restrict their analysis to spontaneous acts of aggression, mainly in everyday life, rather than review all the psychological factors in the life of Russian settlers in Siberia in the XVII century. Results. Dozens of conflicts between squatters and the indigenous population have been analyzed based on the judicial and administrative records of local and central authorities (some of them can be found in the article as examples). Our analysis of the archival material gathered about western and central regions of Siberia has proved that the emotional state of those new settlers who demonstrated uncontrolled aggression was connected with the processes of adaptation. They had to adapt to the local Siberian climatic conditions, threats from the indigenous inhabitants, hard life and frequent problems with material supply. The psychological climate in the community was created by permanent stressful factors of different nature such as social, ethno-political, socio regulatory, natural, etc. The combination of these factors, which influenced the settlers every day, led to frustration, which resulted in spontaneous manifestation of negative attitudes at the individual level. Conclusions. The main approach to deter the aggressive behavior among settlers in Siberia, which the authorities were to struggle with, was to enforce the laws and norms adopted in Moscow. However, such a factor as remoteness of Siberia affected the practice of law enforcement. Permanent acute shortage of human resources in the region caused certain connivance on the part of the authorities in the field of execution. An awareness of possible aggression impunity led on the one hand to the increasing stress in the community of Siberian colonists. On the other hand, it led to the formation of the mythologized feeling of freedom and significance. Our research focusing on these issues, we have been able to reconstruct the Siberian colonists’ outlook on life and their relations with the native population in the context of coexistence.