Absorbing the Asian Frontier: Food and food-related knowledge in seventeenth and eighteenth century Siberia

该项目调查了食物和与食物有关的习俗、知识和信仰在西伯利亚的探索过程中所起的作用，以及它在17世纪和18世纪并入莫斯科和俄罗斯帝国的过程中所起的作用。主要目的是研究食物如何决定西伯利亚原住民和边疆社会(哥萨克人、商人、传教士、定居者、行政人员、流亡者以及俄罗斯和外国科学家和旅行者)相互作用、影响和感知的方式。这项研究调查了这一论点，即食物以及围绕食物的实践和理论的复杂性，对于西伯利亚的探索和管理非常重要，既促进了这些过程，也使这些过程复杂化。通过研究食物如何(在宗教、政治、文化和智力上)作为西伯利亚人融入莫斯科和俄罗斯帝国的工具和障碍，该项目可以为这些运动的成败提供一个新的视角，并提供对西伯利亚当地人和非西伯利亚外国人之间跨文化交流的微妙但非常有形的方面的更深层次的理解。直到今天，关于该地区的历史研究在很大程度上忽略了食物。拟议的项目旨在填补这一研究空白。这项研究基于历史资料，主要包括编年史、法律文件，如地方行政报告、个人记述、研究以及17世纪和18世纪西伯利亚贸易和科学探险中的文物。这与当代关于医学、人种学、宗教和政治理论的著作相辅相成。对所有类型来源的分析将以纠缠历史理论为指导，这将有助于看到历史参与者不是静态和不变的，而是通过他们的互动相互转化。这一理论还将有助于解决饮食习惯、知识和信仰的转移和转变的根本问题。此外，还将运用比较方法和语篇分析来研究在两个世纪的时间里，与食物相关的实践、态度和语篇是如何变化的。该项目通过不同的视角观察西伯利亚，有助于对西伯利亚熟悉的历史有一个新的理解。在研究食物对跨文化对话双方的转变、转移和相互影响的同时，该项目展示了西伯利亚并入莫斯科和俄罗斯帝国及其科学探索是一个双向的过程，不仅影响了西伯利亚土著人民，也影响了那些努力理解、征服和改变他们的人。

The project investigates the role that food and food-related practices, knowledge and beliefs played in the process of exploration of Siberia and its incorporation into the Muscovy and the Russian Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The main goal is to examine how food determined the ways the indigenous population and the frontier society of Siberia (Cossacks, merchants, missionaries, settlers, administrators, exiles, as well as Russian and foreign scientists and travelers) interacted, influenced and perceived each other. The research investigates the thesis that food, as well as the complex of practices and theories surrounding it, were of great importance for the exploration and administration of Siberia, both facilitating and complicating these processes. By studying how food functioned (religiously, politically, culturally and intellectually) as both a tool for and a hindrance to Siberian integration into Muscovy and the Russian Empire the project can offer a new perspective on successes and failures of these campaigns and provide a deeper understanding of a subtle, yet very physical aspect of the transcultural communication between Siberian locals and non-Siberian foreigners. Until today food has been largely overlooked in the historical studies on the region. The proposed project aims to fill this research gap. The study is based on historical sources consisting mainly of chronicles, legal documents such as local administrative reports, personal accounts, studies and artefacts from trade and scientific expeditions to Siberia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is complemented by contemporary writings on medicine, ethnography, religion, and political theory. The analysis of all types of sources will be guided by the theory of entangled history, which will help see historical actors not as static and unchanging, but rather mutually transforming each other through their interactions. This theory will also help address the underlying questions of transfers and transformations of eating practices, knowledge and beliefs. Additionally, comparative methods and discourse analysis will be applied to study how the practices, attitudes, and discourses connected with food changed in the span of the two centuries. The project contributes to a new understanding of the familiar history of Siberia by viewing it through a different lens. While studying the transformations, transfers and mutual influences that food provoked on both sides of the transcultural dialogue, the project shows how the incorporation of Siberia into the Muscovy and the Russian Empire and its scientific exploration was a bidirectional process which affected not only the Siberian indigenous peoples, but also those who strove to understand, subdue and transform them.