The "domestication" of cold by the Russian population of Yakutia in the second half of the XIX – first half of the XX centuries.

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to identify the main directions and reconstruct the practices of using cryogenic resources (cold, snow, ice, permafrost) and, in general, the "domestication" of cold by the Russian population of Yakutia during the mid XIX century and the twentieth century. The source base for writing the work was a set of disparate ethnographic information presented by published works and documents from the collections of the State Archive of the Irkutsk Region (Irkutsk), the Scientific Archive of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Novosibirsk), the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) and its St. Petersburg branch. In addition, a number of information was obtained during the author's empirical research in a number of rural settlements of Yakutia during 2017-2023. The methodological basis for the preparation of the article is the principles laid down in cryosophy, which involve the study of the cold matter of the Earth through the prism of their role as an active element of the universe, as well as in the Cryoanthropology. Within the framework of the Cryoanthropology, the formation of the traditional culture of the indigenous ethnic groups of the Arctic and Subarctic is considered through the prism of the dominance of natural cold in the region, cryogenic processes and phenomena as fundamental, environmental factors. In this regard, the article shows the practices of the exploitation of cryogenic resources by the Russian population of Yakutia in cattle and horse breeding, agriculture, in ensuring the functioning of residential and outbuildings, organization of storage and preparation of food, etc. It is noted that they had certain specifics within various groups of Russian settlers caused by specific natural and geographical features of their areas of residence, as well as characteristics of interethnic ties. In this regard, differences between, for example, the Prilensky and Arctic groups of the Russian old-timers have been recorded. The key vectors of the "domestication" of cold by the Russian population of Yakutia are highlighted.