Russian Language In Intercultural Communication During The 17th Century West Siberian Frontier

Reconstruction of the intercultural and linguistic situation in Western Siberia in the 17th century

In the northern Trans-Urals there were the Nenets, whom the Russian people called "Samoyeds" or "Samoyad". Their language belongs to the Samoyedic group in the genetic community of the Uralic languages. On the left bank of the Ob there were the lands of the Khanty ("Ostyaks") and Mansi ("Voguls") peoples, belonging to the Ob-Ugric group of Finno-Ugric languages. "Samoyeds" roamed the tundra and were engaged in reindeer herding, and "Ostyaks" and "Voguls" - fishing and hunting.

Along the middle reaches of the Irtysh, in the lower reaches of the rivers Tobol, Tura, Tavda, Iset, Ishim, along the rivers Tara and Om, the Turkic-speaking tribes settled, which were called "Tatars" from the Russian people. They lived by nomadic cattle breeding, if they lived in the forest-steppe and steppe zones, and some tribes were engaged in arable farming.

On the Ob, above the Khanty ("Ostyaks"), there were rare Selkup tribes, also Samoyedians by language. The Russian people called them "Ostyaks", apparently because of the similarity of languages, closeness to the Khanty in their way of life and culture. Even higher up the Ob River with its tributaries, the Turkic-speaking peoples settled, differing in their economic activities and everyday life: Tomsk, Chulym and Kuznetsk Tatars, as well as Teleuts - "White Kalmyks". Their main occupations were hunting, fishing, picking nuts. Blacksmithing was developed among the Shors (Kuznetsk Tatars).

The Yenisei Kirghiz and the tribes of the southern Altai, who had developed nomadic cattle breeding, were also Türkic-speaking; some of them were familiar with agriculture. In the northern foothills of Altai, mostly settled tribes and peoples lived. They were engaged in hunting, collecting pine nuts, hoe farming, blacksmithing.

Historians note that for most of the West Siberian tribes, fur hunting was of particular importance in the economic structure. She was traded, paid tribute (yasak). Siberian peoples in the XVI-XVII centuries differed from each other in the level of social development, but in general they lagged far behind in the economy and culture from the population of Russia, European and Asian countries located to the south. At the end of the 16th century, the only Siberian people who had their own statehood were the Tatars of the "Kuchumov kingdom" (Nikitin, 1990).

Thus, Russian settlers began to develop Siberian territory, settling among the peoples:

• speaking different languages that are not related to the Russian language and belong to several linguistic families and groups;
• leading, as a rule, a nomadic way of life and having a way of life that is completely different from that characteristic of the Russian world;
• not connected by statehood, having a tribal organization of society.

The Russian state quickly became a new and active force in Siberia. The arrival of Russians in Siberia in the 17th century had a significant impact on the entire course of the historical development of the Siberian peoples, redirected linguistic assimilation processes (Bakhrushin, 1955; Kaufman, 1894; Kafka, 1892).

The composition of migrants from the European part of Russia was also not homogeneous in socio-economic, political and linguistic terms. The following went to Siberia:

• free people: tradesmen ("industrial people"), arable peasants, who made up the flow of voluntary migrants;
• service people who went beyond the Urals on the order of the tsar: Cossacks, archers, gunners, etc.;
• exiled people, whom the tsarist government sought to get rid of as a restless, politically unreliable part of the population.

Most scientists share the opinion about the strong interdependence of the state and the free-folk principles in the development of Siberia, which ultimately led to its permanent entry into the Moscow state (Bakhrushin, 1955; Nikitin, 1990; Shunkov, 1946).

The settlers brought the Russian language to Siberia. However, documents of those years mention, especially among exiled people, speakers of other languages of the Indo-European language family: "nemtsy" - so called almost all immigrants from Western European countries; "Lithuania" and "Cherkasy" - natives of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians).

Functional types of the Russian language in Western Siberia in the 17th century

On the basis of the language of early Russian settlers, Siberian dialects were formed, which are usually called old-timers (Grigoryev, 1921; Lamanskiy, 1895). Palagina (2007) identifies four main types of dialects that exist in modern Siberia: old-timers; mixed type; dialects of new settlers (which arose in settlements founded later in the second half of the 17th century); insular dialects. This typology of Siberian dialects is based on the actual linguistic principle. Therefore, “the old-time dialect should be understood as such a dialect of Siberia, which is characterized by a combination of phonetic-grammatical and lexical-phraseological features identified on the basis of the study of the speech of the descendants of the Russian population of Siberia in the 16th-18th centuries and having a common Siberian distribution” (p. 20).

The specificity of the first (old-timers) dialects in the territories of late settlement, according to Filin (1962), consists in a noticeable modification of the maternal dialects of migrants and, in fact, in the creation of new dialects. The talk of the settlers in the subsequent period of the XVIII-XX centuries “remained the same, new dialectal features were usually not formed in them (except for innovations, primarily in vocabulary, arising in a foreign language environment or generally under the influence of other languages)” (p. 26). Thus, the opinion that the old-time dialects, which had the same language material as the mother's dialects four hundred years ago, developed according to the same laws as the European ones, but independently (Russian dialects, 1984, p. 6-33).

The question of the origin of the Siberian first settlers, whose speech was the basis of the Siberian old-timers' dialects, seems extremely difficult and continues to be the subject of discussion. In the historical and linguistic literature, two points of view are known regarding the places of exodus of Siberian settlers: 1) the Siberian population was initially mixed in its dialect composition – position of (Palagina, 2007; Shunkov, 1946; Zakharova, 1977, et al.); 2) the North Russian origin of the first settlers – the opinion of (Chernykh, 1953; Selishchev, 1968, et al.). In our research, we adhere to the first point of view.

Some researchers of the XIX century believed that the literary language began to spread in Siberia only from the end of the 17th century. Historical and linguistic facts do not allow agreeing with this opinion. Let us dwell on such of them as the development of urban affairs, the spread of Orthodox Christian religion, the development of Russian and Church Slavonic writing in the region.

The accession of the Siberian territory to Russia took place simultaneously with its economic development. These were two sides of the process of transforming Siberia into an integral part of the Russian state. The city, considered as a social phenomenon, arose in most of the Siberian lands with the beginning of Russian colonization. Several important tasks were assigned to Siberian cities and forts: to ensure the defense of the region, to manage it, to collect taxes (yasak) from the population. In addition, they were supposed to serve as a place of trade, industrial production, a transport hub, and a center for the spread of the Orthodox faith and culture. During the XVII century Russian people erected in Siberia (reaching the shores of the Pacific Ocean) about 150 fortifications. 20 of them became the district centers of Western Siberia at that time: Tyumen, Tobolsk, Pelym, Berezov, Surgut, Tara, Narym, Verkhoturye, Turinsk, Mangazeya, Tomsk, Ketsk. Kuznetsk fortress, built in 1618, became until the 18th century a Russian outpost in the south of Western Siberia and protected the lands inhabited and mastered by the Russian people from the raids of nomads. Historians associate with this event the completion of the first stage of the accession of Siberia to Russia, the incorporation of the West Siberian lands into the Moscow state (Nikitin, 1990, p. 17).

The arrival of the Russian people to Siberia was also marked by the arrival of Orthodox Christian religion in this land. The sign of the Russian presence in the new lands became not only log cabins of huts, but also log cabins of churches. In fortress "ostrogs" and cities, churches, then cathedrals, towered above the rest of the buildings along with the fortress walls. Monasteries also appeared in Siberia in the 17th century (Belikov, 1898). Historians and philologists are unanimous in assessing the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Siberia: "... the clergy occupied a leading position in public life, not yielding it almost until the very end of the 18th century." It acted "as the creator of a new ideology" (Romodanovskaya, 2002, p. 17).

The role of the church in the development of the folk-literary type of the Russian language and the creation of Siberian literature is very important, which led to their special tradition and "Church Slavicization." These are the features that distinguished them from the general Russian literary traditions.

Siberian literature, understood as Russian literature, created in this region, originates from the works included in the Siberian chronicles, the story "skazka" of Siberian explorers, "Life of Vasily Mangazeya", "Stories about the cities of Tara and Tyumen", etc. (Romodanovskaya, 2002, p. 11). The earliest work of Siberian literature is the Esipovskaya Chronicle (1636). It was created by clerk Savva Esipov during the reign of Archbishop Cyprian of Siberia and Tobolsk.

When describing the linguistic situation of the West Siberian frontier of the 17th century, it should be noted the cultural and linguistic influence on the Russian language from the languages of the Siberian peoples-autochthons. It can be generally defined as destabilizing. But it was implemented in different ways in different regions and affected "primarily the manifestation of the Russian language, which acted as an interethnic means of communication" (Panin, 2006, p. 134).