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America, as far south as California. “One needs only to
recall the state of civilisation in Russia during the 16th
and 17th centuries,” says Yadrintseff, “to understand how
entirely void of all culture and scientific interest was the
conquest of Siberia. The later discoveries and annexations
were, almost without exception, also actuated exclusively
by rapacity. The trappers, hunters, and traders who
went to Siberia during the 17th and 18th centuries were
just as ignorant and not less uncivilised than the first
founders of the Siberian colonies. Even those at the head
of great undertakings were uncivilised and rough men.
The cultural level of the native Siberian population
corresponded to that of the inhabitants of European Russia. The
Russians brought with them agriculture.[1] That was all.” [2]
Not only the common people among the Russian colonists,
but also the priests were illiterate. I have elsewhere
pointed out the fact that even to-day illiteracy —e.g. among
the Buriats—is much less than among the peasantry in
European Russia. It is therefore no wonder that the
Russian colonists easily forget their native tongue and
adopt the language, manners, and superstitions of the natives,
—become, in short, “Buriatised” and “Yakutised”.
In order to escape from extortion and oppression on the
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