Layers of property in the tsar's settlement colony: projects of land privatization in Siberia in the late nineteenth century

In the 1890s the authorities in St Petersburg attributed enormous value to the introduction (nasazhdenie) of private land property in the eastern peripheral regions. It was considered urgent task and a fundamental aspect in the overall scheme of building an empire. article examines the preparatory materials of the 1901 law on land privatization in – in itself a failure with little practical significance – in the context of other forms landholding and the peasant resettlement policy, within the social and spatial hierarchy the imperial periphery. The journals of the Siberian Railroad Committee and other materials are used to highlight conceptions of individual ownership, the and ideologies of the officials who endeavoured to draft the law. The debate as who had the right to own land, and why, constantly intersected and mirrored the visions the desired future of the eastern territories. Private property was treated as an addition to existing social landscape and as an instrument of transformation. The search for a ‘suitable’ or ‘enlightened’ landowner represented an adaptation of the traditional social to new conditions and new colonial duties to a large extent.