ann
(Ann)
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historical process as“the exhaustion of hunting grounds, the discovery of
new ones and their subjugation to Russian authority.”State policy in
general has, moreover, been characterized as“essentially subordinated to
the goal of exacting tribute”from indigenous peoples, who are all seen as
“direct or potential providers of fur tribute.”Russian state officials them-
selves could even be partly paid in pelts. Fur certainly was the explicit
medium of subjugation for Erofei Khabarov’s 1649 – 53 expedition, the
second major SAH incursion following Poiarkov’s. He was specifically
ordered to compel the peoples of the basin to pay tribute, calledyasak.
Yasakwas a core policy for Russian steppe penetration whose origins can
be traced back several hundred years to the Mongol Golden Horde.
Russia imposed it as a generic levy, whose medium differed by locality,
on non-Christians. Consequently, the basin would pay in furs, in contrast
to Khabarov’s previous operations where there had been“no sable, foxes,
beavers or otters in the steppe.”Of course, Russian eastward expansion
was not entirely determined by fur, which nevertheless has been charac-
terized as its chief economic motive. So steppe dwellers were not to be
exempted fromyasak, but pay“in whatever precious goods the land may
offer,”for“they must not think that because there is a scarcity of animals
foryasakthat they will not come under the [Russian] Sovereign’s mighty
hand.”^77
Russian Eurasian expansion was, in this way, conditioned, rather than
determined, by the biodiversity of distinct ecoregions, as reflected in the
qualification in Khabarov’s orders regarding the issue of fur-bearing
animals. Differences in the biodiversity of steppe and forest diversified
Russian Eurasian expansion in this respect. This suggests additional
consideration of forest foraging practices for restructuring accounts of
regional conflict between the Russian, Manchu, and Zunghar Mongol
empires during what Peter C. Perdue calls“the decisive turning point in
steppe-settled interactions.”^78 An important part of this interaction, con-
tributing to the Romanov defeat, was the mobilization of basin peoples
mainly on behalf of the Qing in a conflict that occurred in and over the
fur-rich forests of the SAH basin, not out on the steppe.
Consequently, the way in which Russian empire would be constructed
within the basin’s boreal and Manchurian mixed ecoregions was substan-
tially conditioned by the presence or absence of fur-bearers. Human
consumption of fur-bearing animals was decreed as the distinct, boreal
idiom of incorporation within Romanov imperial space, which remained
in the grip of a veritable“fur fever”from 1585 to 1680. During this
period, which nearly encompasses the span of Sino-Russian conflict in the
84 Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain
