| Abstrakt: |
The timespan between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed the ethnic map of the regions taking shape in the Russian Empire. In this process, essential drivers were various types of external and internal migrations. With the influence of voluntary and forced migrations, different ethnic groups emerged in Siberia, living both in compact communities and dispersed over the vast territory. Gypsies in Siberia constituted one of the ethno-dispersed groups, with first mentions dating back to the 1720s. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Gypsies had spread throughout Siberian provinces. Despite such a long record, there are virtually no academic works in the Russian gypsiology on the history of Gypsies in Siberia and the paths their development took in different historical periods. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct certain aspects of the history of the ethno-dispersed group. It primarily focuses on the challenging sides of the group's formation, peculiar facets of its social life, legal status and specific circumstances of the economic activities undertaken by the Gypsy group in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century. The foundation for the paper is built on the documents of central and regional archives (St. Petersburg, Tobol'sk, Tomsk), which become subjects of the scholarly interest for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
