YASAK (FUR TRIBUTE) IN SIBERIA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (1955) S. V. Bakhrushin Edited and translated by Ryan Tucker Jones University of Oregon, 363 McKenzie Hall, Eugene, Oregon, USA; [email protected] Andrian Vlakhov European University at St. Petersburg, Yaroslava Gasheka 10/85-478, 192281 Saint Petersburg, Russia; [email protected] INTRODUCTION Siberian people, such as the Komi and Vogul, about whom little is otherwise known, especially to non-Russian read- According to The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979), Sergei ers. Although the sources he relies upon are all Russian Vladimirovich Bakhrushin was born in 1882 in Moscow (since Siberians were mostly nonliterate), a rare picture of and died in the same city in 1950. Bakhrushin graduated early-modern Siberian life can nonetheless be glimpsed, from Moscow University in 1904, then worked at the uni- including these peoples’ difficult and reluctant transition versity in various capacities from 1909, becoming profes- to subjects of the Muscovite Tsar. sor in 1927. He also worked in the Institute of History in For more recent histories of Siberia see Forsyth 1994; the USSSR’s Academy of Sciences. A student of the famous Hartley 2014; Slezkine 1994; and Wood 2011. Russian historians V.O. Kliuchevskii and M.K. Liubavskii, Bakhrushin wrote on a wide variety of topics, including REFERENCES premodern Russia and Russian borderlands history. Bakhrushin’s scholarship was particularly important Forsyth, James for the development of Siberian history, especially its eco- 1992 A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia’s North nomic and cross-cultural history. The article translated be- Asian Colony, 1581 – 1990. Cambridge University low demonstrates his strengths. Dealing expertly with old Press, Cambridge. and difficult documents, while describing a vast physical Hartley, Janet M. and ethnographic landscape, Bakhrushin is able to expose 2014 Siberia: A History of the People. Yale University the ambiguities of the Russian relationship with indige- Press, New Haven. nous Siberians. He is attentive to the stories hidden behind Slezkine, Yuri the bureaucratic Russian language of the chancelleries de- 1994 Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small peoples of the veloping in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which North. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. attempted to hide the true power relations on the ground White, Richard in Siberia. Well before it became the norm among Soviet 1991 The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Repub- or Western historians, Bakhrushin conceived of frontier lics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815. Cam- relations as a series of workable compromises (the kind bridge University Press, Cambridge. of “Middle Ground” that American historian Richard Wood, Alan White [1991] would later describe) crafted by cultures 2011 Russia’s Frozen Frontier: A History of Siberia and which barely understood each other. Bakhrushin’s work the Russian Far East, 1581–1991. Bloomsbury Aca- is also invaluable as an anthropological description of demic, London. Alaska Journal of Anthropology vol. 14, nos. 1 & 2 (2016) 41 A NOTE ON TRANSLATION him (directly or in writing) or referring to his possessions, was always translated as “tsar”—except in several exam- This paper was first published in 1927 in Sibirskie ogni (issue ples when the tsar was addressed directly, in which case 3, pp. 95–129) and was written in modern Russian; nev- “sire” was used. When the possessive adjective государев ertheless, the author refers to various older texts on many (gosudarev) was used in the direct address, “Your” was occasions. The excerpts from the chronicles, yasak books used in the English version to reflect the reverence but and other historical documents cited by Bakhrushin are avoid the tautology. It should also be noted that most let- translated as if they were in modern Russian. The historic ters’ authors addressed the tsar himself, as this was a com- terms (measure units, etc.) used by Bakhrushin are clari- mon figure of speech in formal language even if the actual fied in brackets on their first use and italicized thereafter. addressee was different. The key terms of the taxation system were translated If a page break in the Russian text occurred in the the way that reflects best their meaning in Russian; their middle of a sentence whose grammatical structure could wording may vary slightly, but the translation uses the not be preserved during translation, the bracketed page same terms for the same concepts. For example, царское number was inserted in the nearest position possible. жалованье (tsarskoe zhalovan’e), царская награда (tsar- Transliterations are done according to the Modified skaia nagrada) and царский подарок (tsarskii podarok) Library of Congress System, with exceptions made for are all translated “the tsar’s gift” since they all refer to the Russian words with accepted nonstandard transliteration same concept. such as “boyar” or “yasak.” The Russian word государь (gosudar’), а common term referring to the tsar but mainly used when addressing * The following is excerpted from volume III, pp. 50–85 of S. V. Bakhrushin’s Nauchnye Trudy (Scientific Works) published in 1955 by Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, Moscow. 42 YASAK (fur tribute) in siberia in the seventeenth century (1955) I [ORIGINS OF YASAK] We see what divergences this word yasak, which had its original meaning as a Mongol-Turkish adverb, has Today, Soviet power has done away with yasak, which the taken. The origin of the yasak term meaning generally Russian tsars had collected for over three centuries from “submission” used for example in the Saadet-Girey’s yar- the Siberian people. lik [a Mongol patent of office], allows a simple explana- In Siberia’s history, yasak has played a large—one tion. Yasak is a tax established by law, levied and made might even say decisive—role. It was the attractive force compulsory, in distinction to voluntary tribute or “of- which drew the imperial state into the Urals and to absorb ferings.” Yasak is mainly a tribute which the conquered all the territory to the east up to the Pacific Ocean. In or- pay to the conquerors; it is therefore a sign of allegiance der to collect yasak, fortified zimov’es [winter camps] were and [p. 50] is associated with something defamatory. built on the taiga, which were later transformed into ostrogs The peoples and tribes of Siberia experienced and un- [forts] and cities. Garrisons were maintained, buttressing derstood this type of yasak very distinctively. Frequently and supporting the insanely brave military-commercial agreeing to pay tribute when couched as an offering, they undertakings of serving men [men in the service of the would refuse to pay this same tribute in the form of ya- Muscovite tsar; also sometimes translated as “servitors”] sak. In 1645 a representative of the White Kalmyk horde and promyshlenniki [private fur traders]. Even earlier, be- of Bachik came to Kuznetskii ostrog, “and this repre- fore government agents and troops appeared beyond the sentative of Bachik said about yasak . that Bachik and Urals, adventurous Zyryans (Komi) and Vymians (Vym ulus [governmental] people do not order taking yasak; Komi) from Pomorye along with the Stroganovs’ “hired and when winter comes, Bachik and his ulus people of- Cossacks” from the Upper Kama came to collect yasak. fer us (i.e., to the tsar) one fox or marten from each bow Yasak, a word used for the tribute collected from (i.e., one piece of fur from each warrior).”3 This volun- Siberian “foreigners,” is Turkic in origin. tary tribute —“one fox or marten from each bow”—was The primary meaning of the word “yasak” is, in fact, termed an “offering” in the tsar’s charter. An even clearer “a law, regulation, or code.” Genghis Khan termed his law opposition of yasak to offering can be seen in the Koda code the “Yasak” or “Yasa” of Genghis Khan. We have a of the princedom of the Alachev Khanty. Here, the in- whole host of meanings derived from the main meaning digenous population, the Koda Khanty servitors, only of the word yasak—law, regulation, code. Everything de- paid an offering, while yasak was levied exclusively on creed, defined by the law, or “coded” is called yasak. For the townships of Emdyr [Emder], Vakh, and Vas-Pukol, example, yasak means the punishment ordained by the which were attached to Koda by the order of the Russian law; instead of “to punish,” “to subject to yasak” is said. government; the Koda princes viewed these townships Everything forbidden by law is also yasak. Not long ago, as conquered. Offerings paid by Koda “offering” Khanty Turks in Istanbul used the cry “yasak” to stop Christians were strictly defined; they differed little in their essence who were approaching a mosque (that is why yasak means from yasak in form and measure. However, the Khanty “sin” amongst the Persians).1 themselves made a strict distinction between both forms Less intimately tied to the principal meaning of the of payment, and when Dmitry, Koda prince, attempted word, the use of the expression “yasak” can signal some- to levy three rubles from each yurt’s income, following thing being “coded.” This was the meaning familiar to the Russian model, they declined on the basis that “they Prince Kurbskii and used by Russians in the seventeenth were servitors, and not yasak people” and implored the century. The word yasak“ ” was not only used in conjunc- lord “not to make them give yasak” to Prince Dmitry.4 tion with the yasak signal in the seventeenth century, but The Russians first encountered the concept of yasak also in the first years of the eighteenth century, in the sense among the “foreigners” of Povolzhye, whom the Tatars of a military watchword or military codeword. Stepan had subjected to yasak in the thirteenth century. The Razin’s Cossack forces had their own “yasak.”2 Ar (Udmurt), Hill, and Meadow “Cheremisa” (Mari), Alaska Journal of Anthropology vol.