Merchants of Siberia

In The Merchants of Siberia, Erika Monahan reconsiders commerce in early modern Russia by reconstructing the trading world of Siberia and the careers of merchants who traded there. She follows the histories of three merchant families from various social ranks who conducted trade in Siberia for well over a century. These include the Filat'evs, who were among Russia’s most illustrious merchant elite; the Shababins, Muslim immigrants who mastered local and long-distance trade while balancing private endeavors with service to the Russian state; and the Noritsyns, traders of more modest status who worked sometimes for themselves, sometimes for bigger merchants, and participated in the emerging Russia-China trade. Monahan demonstrates that trade was a key component of how the Muscovite state sought to assert its authority in the Siberian periphery. The state’s recognition of the benefits of commerce meant that Russian state- and empire-building in Siberia were characterized by accommodation; in this diverse borderland, instrumentality trumped ideology and the Orthodox state welcomed Central Asian merchants of Islamic faith. This reconsideration of Siberian trade invites us to rethink Russia’s place in the early modern world. The burgeoning market at Lake Yamysh, an inner-Eurasian trading post along the Irtysh River, illuminates a vibrant seventeenth-century Eurasian caravan trade even as Europe-Asia maritime trade increased. By contextualizing merchants and places of Siberian trade in the increasingly connected economies of the early modern period, Monahan argues that, commercially speaking, Russia was not the "outlier" that most twentieth-century characterizations portrayed.

This excellent book is an impressive account of the world of trade, and of trading families, in Siberia in the seventeenth century. Erika Monahan not only provides a detailed and nuanced account of day-to-day commercial activity, but also contributes significantly to our understanding of the evolution of commercial relations and trade networks in Russia and of the relationship of the Tsars and their local officials with merchant families.... This is a rich and important study in which Monahan displays an impressive mastery of the archival records. It makes a major contribution to our understanding of Russian commercial activity and to the development of the Russian state in the seventeenth century and should be of interest to all historians and students of early modern Europe., In The Merchants of Siberia, Erika Monahan draws on a substantial amount of archival research to bring clarity to Russian expansion into a vast and complex territory. Monahan’s observations are insightful and her conclusions important. She analyzes Russian interactions with the various peoples they encountered as the Russian presence stretched into seventeenth-century Siberia, and she presents these peoples as historical actors with agency and agendas of their own. The book represents an important contribution to Russian imperial history, and those with interests in Central Asian, Chinese and early modern world history will find that it has much of value to offer them as well., Eloquent and rich in detail, the book can be read in many different ways.... Monahan helps to break new ground for a comparative and integrative history of Eurasia that bridges the artificial divide between the East and the West.

Erika Monahan is Assistant Professor of History at the University of New Mexico.