Aleksandr Ananievich Brodnikov,
Associate Professor, Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
From the Everyday Life of Siberian Townspeople in the First Half of the 17th Century (The “Women Issue” on the Example of Yeniseysk)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2026-1-15
The article discusses one of the most serious everyday problems faced by settlers from the European part of the Russian state in the first decades of Siberia’s development. Young men who arrived in Siberian cities faced a near-total absence of women, leading to long periods of singlehood. The purpose of the article is to identify how important the so-called “women’s issue” was for representatives of various categories of the Russian population of the Yeniseisk fortress in the early period of its existence, and how this situation influenced the process of further expansion of Russian possessions to the east of the Yenisei River. The sources used include collective petitions from the military personnel of the Yenisei garrison and the peasant population of the Yenisei uyezd, reports from the Yenisei and Tobolsk governors, and letters sent from Moscow to Tobolsk. The information contained in them allows to look at the problem through the prism of socio-economic relations, and to understand the impact of a seemingly purely domestic issue on the further expansion of Russian possessions in Siberia and its economic development. For the first time, it shows how the Russian population that was forming in the Yenisei district tried to solve the problem of a lack of women in legal and illegal ways, and what difficulties single plowing peasants faced in fulfilling their duties to the state. The sources indicate that the absence of women and, as a result, the inability to start families had a negative impact not only on the emotional and moral well-being of the male population, but on the economic development of the annexed territory as well.
Publishing: 28/02/2026
The article has been received by the editor on 27/11/2025
How to cite: Brodnikov A.A. From the Everyday Life of Siberian Townspeople in the First Half of the 17th Century (The “Women Issue” on the Example of Yeniseysk) // Historical Courier, 2026, No. 1 (45), pp. 185−194. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2026/ISTKURIER-2026-1-15.pdf]
Links: Issue 1 2026
Keywords: Yeniseisk fortress; service people; plowing peasants; gender structure of the population; gender relations