俄羅斯向西伯利亚和更远的东方的扩张浪漫史

 俄羅斯向西伯利亚和更远的东方的扩张浪漫史。其中最著名的有：

电影《西伯利亚人》。这是一部令人惊讶的社会主义现实主义作品，是 "占有西伯利亚财富的艰辛"（osvoyénie bogátstv Sibíri）的史诗般的描述，这是我们对东部领土殖民化的政治正确说法。

Dersu Uzala，电影和书。20世纪20年代初的电影化小说是以 "高贵的野蛮人 "的体裁写的。这部电影获得了奥斯卡奖。

楚科奇的酋长》。这部电影是社会主义现实主义的又一杰作，讲述了一位被派往远东最东边领土的苏联初级行政人员的冒险经历，他向 "倒退 "的当地人展示了共产主义进步主义的光芒。

否则，我们就很难从扩张中找到足够好的故事。最初，西伯利亚的殖民化是由皮毛贸易推动的，这本身就很难美化。有几场殖民战争，我们不愿意谈及。我甚至不想触及被酒和现代性对其本土生活方式的破坏所毁掉的小民族的历史，更不想触及古拉格，或被采掘业糟蹋的大片地区，或类似情况。

如果你不介意从俄罗斯文学中获得大量的社会波恩，你可以看看我们最好的笔者是怎么写这个地方的。

陀思妥耶夫斯基的《死者之家》、

安东-契诃夫的《萨哈林岛》和

瓦尔拉姆-沙拉莫夫的《科里马故事》。

你可能会感觉到为什么最好不要对这些东西挖掘得太深。

此外，潮水已经转向。现在，是去殖民化。自从苏联统治崩溃以来，东部地区失去了多达四分之一的人口。年轻人、有才华的人、有野心的人向西跋涉，到莫斯科、圣彼得堡、黑海附近的温暖地区。这是最有趣的地方，而不是在西伯利亚。

下图是最后一位苏联统治者之一列昂尼德-勃列日涅夫在1980年代为我们的东部领土设想的计划。他拿着的那张大纸是 "1981-85年及至1990年苏联经济和社会发展的总方针"。

苏联统治时期，西伯利亚和远东的整个殖民历史在广大俄罗斯人心中打下了这块广袤土地是艰苦地区的印象（"勇敢者的土地，真正的西伯利亚人"）。这是你去赚钱或做信徒的地方--而所有的聪明人都坐在莫斯科，从开采的西伯利亚石油和其他东西所产生的财富中抽走。

There were attempts to romanticize our expansion to Siberia and further east. Some of the most known are:

The movie Sibiriade. A surprisingly well-crafted item of Socialist Realism, an epic tableau of the “hardships of appropriating the Siberian wealth” (osvoyénie bogátstv Sibíri), which is the politically correct term for our colonization of the eastern territories.

Dersu Uzala, the movie and the book. The filmatised novel from the early 1920s was written in the “noble savage” genre. The movie got an Oscar.

The Chief of Chukotka. Another gem of Socialist realism, the movie tells about the adventures of a junior Soviet executive sent to the easternmost territory of the Far East to lit the light of Communist progressivism to the “retrograde” natives.

Otherwise, we struggle with finding good enough stories from the expansion. Initially, colonization of Siberia was driven by pelt trade, which in itself is hard to glorify. There were several colonial wars that we don’t like to talk about. I don’t even want to touch the history of small ethnicities ruined by booze and devastation of their native lifestyle by modernity, even less the Gulag, or the huge areas spoiled by extractive industries, or suchlike.

If you don’t mind a heavy dose of social pørn from Russian literature, you may check out what our best pens wrote about the place: The House of the Dead, by Dostoyevsky, Sakhalin Island by Anton Chekhov and Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov. You may get a sense why it’s probably better not to dig too deeply in that stuff.

Besides, the tide has turned. Now, it’s de-colonization. Since the collapse of Soviet rule, the eastern territories lost up to a quarter of their population. The young, the talented, the ambitious trek westwards, to Moscow, St Petersburg, the warmer areas around the Black Sea. This is where the fun is, not in Siberia.

Below, one of the last Soviet rulers Leonid Brezhnev envisioning plans for our eastern territories during the 1980s. The big sheet he’s holding is “The general guidelines for economic and social development of the USSR for 1981–85 and down to 1990”.

The entire history of the colonization of Siberia and the Far East during Soviet rule imprinted in the mass of Russians the image of this vast expanse as a zone of hardship (“the land of the brave ones, true Siberians”). This is where you go to earn money or being a convict—while all the smart guys sit in Moscow and skim off the wealth generated by the extracted Siberian petroleum and other stuff.