Christoph Witzenrath Cossacks and the Russian Empire, 1598–1725. Manipulation, Rebellion and Expansion into Siberia. Routledge London, New York 2007. XVII, 259 S., 4 s/w-Abb. = Routledge Series in the History of Russia and Eastern Europe. ISBN: 978-0-415-41621-4.

This important monograph examines the role of the Cossacks in the construction of the Russian Empire in Siberia. Challenging earlier studies which presented all of the success of the imperial project to individual entrepreneurs or state forces, Witzenrath argues that the Cossacks were necessary participants whose contributions facilitated tsarist success. As the Cossacks were from Muscovy’s lower social ranks, he extends the approach of Valerie Kivelson in her Autocracy in the provinces: The Muscovite gentry and political culture in the seventeenth century, (Stanford, 1997) to suggest that the state required the complicit support of all ranks to enforce tsarist policies and imperial control.

Witzenrath’s innovation is the presentation of the Cossacks as a Perso­nen­ver­band, built as a primary group based upon their oaths rather than through a kinship connection. The Personenverband was flexible, organized around a common set of goals, but importantly served as an essential unit for organizing Siberian society. This group served the interests of the state as much as its own, as the Cossacks controlled and regulated trade in order to funnel resources into their own pockets as much as for the state treasury. This did not imply that the Cossacks and the state administrators worked for common goals, yet each was dependent upon the other for the extension of the Russian state power.

Witzenrath’s study focuses more upon the process of administration than previous studies on Siberia. This is a necessity for uncovering the role of the Cossacks as they frequently appear in the sources as a challenge to the Russian administrative apparatus in Siberia. Witzenrath utilizes the moments of the Cossacks’ collective actions against the administration as a way of unpacking both their participation in the colonization process and the limitations of the state presence in Siberia. While his intention is to demonstrate that the Cossacks’ role in Siberia was a necessity for Russian control, it also reveals the local administrators’ continuous failures and personal pursuits came at the expense of effective governance. Though the rebellions publicly demonstrated these failures, the Cossacks’ revolts also served the central administration’s interests by focusing Siberian discontent on local men rather than as a criticism of tsarist failures. Revolts, in Witzenrath’s presentation, reinforced tsarist centralized control at the expense of local governors.

Considering the ongoing rebellions and continuous failures of the local government, the reasons for Siberia and the Cossacks’ commitment to Moscow remains a central question to this study. Witzenrath offers several answers for this question, each of which played a role in resolving this difficulty. For example, he suggests that the entirety of seventeenth-century Russia remained threatened by external forces, especially the continuing danger of enslavement. Another pressure in Siberia was its dependence on trade, and in particular its need for food exports from the center. Most of all, the ability of the Cossack Personenverband to participate in the system and influence local politics provided the Cossacks’ an opportunity for improving their position in Russian society, which ultimately benefited the state as much as the Cossacks themselves.

Witzenrath has written an innovative study of seventeenth-century Siberia that offers much to scholars of the Russian Empire, and social and empire historians more generally. It poses new questions and offers new interpretations of Russian expansion, by shifting the focus to the process of establishing the empire on the ground, rather than as a projection of Moscow’s ideas. At the same time, the text is clearly focused on revolts as important moments of contestation of tsarist power. While he has made use of the extensive records from the Sibirskii Prikaz stored in the archives, he has not included much material beyond the revolts. Records concerning everyday life including petty legal cases, civic complaints, or trade disputes could have offered other insights into daily living in colonial Siberia. This heavy reliance upon the revolts presents the Cossacks in constant rebellion against tsarist and local control, weakening the author’s own argument that the Cossacks’ participation in the imperial project was a necessity. In the end, Witzenrath has offered several new ideas for the study of the Russian Empire, and suggested several avenues for further investigation. As Witzenrath suggests at the beginning of the text, his monograph is merely the start of a new approach to the history of Siberia and Russia’s imperial subjects.

Matthew P. Romaniello, Honolulu, HI

Zitierweise: Matthew P. Romaniello über: Christoph Witzenrath Cossacks and the Russian Empire, 1598–1725. Manipulation, Rebellion and Expansion into Siberia. Routledge London, New York 2007. XVII, 259 S., 4 s/w-Abb. = Routledge Series in the History of Russia and Eastern Europe. ISBN: 978-0-415-41621-4., in: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. Neue Folge, 57 (2009) H. 1, S. 106-107: http://www.dokumente.ios-regensburg.de/JGO/Rez/Matthew-Romaniello-Witzenrath-Cossack.html (Datum des Seitenbesuchs)