Travel Diaries of Siberian Merchants of the Late 18th–19th Centuries: Peculiarities, Issues and Information Potential

Abstract

The article characterizes the corpus of travel diaries created among the Siberian merchants in the late 18th–19th centuries, reveals the features, problems and information capabilities of this type of sources. Compiled both by the will of the travelers themselves, and by order of the authorities standing over them, often subsequently published, merchant diaries were originally intended for the reader, often a representative of the state administration, and aimed not just to describe the road, but to fix the difficulties of the way, natural obstacles, features of certain settlements, to give recommendations to the authorities and merchants. All this makes the travel records of merchants valuable sources on economic history, the history of international relations, ethnography. The surviving texts testify to the significant role played by merchants in the study and economic development of remote areas of the Russian Empire, the formation of a network of land and water communications in Russia, the development of international trade. Unlike men’s texts, which were oriented to the interlocutor from the very beginning, women’s travel notebooks and albums were characterized by a focus on the inner world of the author, a description of personal experiences, attention to the details of everyday life.

Keywords

• siberian merchants
• personal sources
• travel diaries
• russian empire
• economic development
• international trade