Borders in Remezov’s Atlas of Siberia

• In Event: Uncertain Boundaries: Border Issues in Early Modern Russia

Abstract

Remezov’s atlas of Siberia (compiled ca. 1697–1711) is an imperial atlas that spills little ink demarcating international borders. It does, however, demarcate some borders. After taking stock of the very few places in the atlas where Remezov explicitly deploys the concept of border—either visually or with words—this atlas focuses on the use of boundary language on two maps in Remezov’s first atlas of Siberia: Tomsk and Kuznetsk. These towns were Russian outposts in southern Siberia bordering the Baraba steppe, a territory in which the Russian empire made very little headway in the late seventeenth century. It is not surprising that explicit indications come in southern borderland region where the tensions between Russian and non-Russian groups were high, but our task is to understand what this particularity means and illustrates for us. One question these two maps, situated in the greater context of the atlas, pose is: why do we see more explicit attention to demarcating boundaries between Russian districts in a region where Russian sovereignty was so tenuous (perhaps aspirational is a better descriptor)? One possible answer may have to do with the deployment of Russian personnel stationed at various towns; a central function of statehood is organizing how it allocates its resources. This analysis of maps in a contested region where Russia had rhetorical claims and aspirations but limited capabilities of imposing its will should help us to better appreciate how Russian empire looked and functioned along its remote southern reaches seventeenth-century Siberia.

Author

• Erika L. Monahan, U of New Mexico