V. K. Arseniev and his Research of the Russian Population of the Far East

Abstract

The paper describes the study of the Russian population in the Far East, which was carried out by the famous traveler Vladimir Klavdievich Arsenyev (1872–1930). At the first stage, his research was of a military purpose with elements of ethnography, aimed at the defense of the Russian Far East. After 1917, Arseniev dealt with the problems of the indigenous inhabitants of the region, as well as activities related to the settlers. His publications on Slavic studies are based on travel diaries and field reports on the results of expeditions (1906-1926). The first monograph on the Russian population was the “Military-geographical and military-statistical essay of the Ussuri Territory” (1911), the last “Life and Character of the Peoples of the Far Eastern Territory”, prepared in collaboration with E. I. Titov (1928). In some cases, his assessments are subjective. The publication notes scientists and local historians who were engaged in the same research and were in close relations with Arsenyev (local historian S. I. Yakovlev, Russian historian M. A. Petrakeev, anthropologist E. M. Chepurkovsky, ethnographers M. K. Azadovsky, G. S. Vinogradov, V. V. Bogdanov and A. G. Danilin, philologist A.P. Georgievsky). The publication uses the personal library and archival collection of the scientist, stored in the Society for the Study of the Amur Territory (OIAK) in Vladivostok. The paper is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of V. K. Arsenyev, which is celebrated in September 2022.