Ethnic Entrepreneurship in the Russian Empire in the Era of Economic Modernization in the Second Half of the 19th - Early 20th Century (as Illustrated in the Example of Siberia)

The second half of the 19th century brought about the modernization reforms in the Russian political system, which accelerated the development of the country's capitalist economy. The abolition of segregationist regulations contributed to the development of bourgeois relations in industry and agriculture. The pace of economic modernization was faster in European Russia, while the country's frontier regions in the Asiatic part of the Russian Empire seriously lagged behind the center. The role of agents for capitalist change in industry and agriculture was accepted by the members of non-Russian ethnic groups, such as Jews, Germans, Poles and others. They became new bourgeois who were former government officials who had required connections to establish factories, and traders, who accumulated significant capital. In the 2nd half of the 19th century, a major role was performed by individual entrepreneurship inside ethnic communities. Its scope comprised the sectors which generated no economic interest among Russians living in Siberia, and which required large capital investments (distilling, shipping companies). In the early 20th century the social composition of communities was blurry thanks to peasants who formed a key component in migratory flows to Siberia. This shifted emphasis to small and medium-sized enterprises in the agricultural sector. The purpose of the paper is to use specific examples to show how ethnic entrepreneurship depended on a community's social composition, and determine its place in the regional economy in the conditions of ongoing political modernization and initial steps to industrialization. The foundation for the study is built on the archival documents, statistical digests and current research. The work is based on comparativism.