In this article, I will express my own opinion about Yermak's campaign to the Siberian kingdom.
The original source is ALWAYS
Reading modern history, we, as a rule, do not think deeply and “turn off” the criticality function. After all, it was written by pundits who devoted their lives to the study of facts!
In reality, everything is much more prosaic: writing a story is akin to writing an article in Zen (exaggerating) - you take the main material and retell it in your own way, supplementing it from other sources, enriching the publication with your own opinion, and now, voila - your personal WORK!
The history of the "conquest" of Siberia has only TWO primary sources: "The Kungurskaya Chronicle" by Semyon Remezov and the "Siberian Bulletin" of 1818, in which the version of Yermak's Siberian campaign, which was close to the classic, was first presented.
ALL other authors over the course of two hundred years have been rewriting and retelling information from these works, not forgetting to refer to each other as well as SOURCES.
Image from the same “ Siberian Bulletin ”, 1818
Promotional video:
Prototype
Like the overwhelming majority of other ancient documents, the Kungur Chronicle was LOST and the 1880 edition is its reconstruction. Let's leave aside the questions of trust in the reenactors and how was it reproduced - from memory?
The chronicle can be safely called comics. This is a set of pictures with explanations. Basically a description of the geography, rivers and cities of the peoples inhabiting Siberia, and their customs. And it was from these comics that the version was born, according to which grandiose "historical" films with battle scenes, in which thousands of mummers "Tatars" and "Russian knights" take part, are now being shot.
The backbone of the conquerors of Siberia consisted of the Volga Cossacks, numbering five hundred, led by such atamans as Ermak Timofeevich, Ivan Koltso, Matvey Meshcheryak, Nikita Pan, Yakov Mikhailov. In addition to them, the Tatars, Germans and Lithuania took part in the campaign.
G. I. Spassky, in his "Siberian Bulletin", gave the pictures of the "Kungur Chronicle" the appearance of an ode to the heroic Cossacks - pioneers. After that, its mass replication began, albeit in a fairly edited form.
Ethnographers or conquerors?
If we turn to the original, then Ermak here is very different from the image that historians have inspired us, thanks to the efforts of the mass media.
For example, the death of the chieftain is shown in a completely different way. He was killed not in battle, but shot under unclear circumstances, after which his body was found on the banks of the Irtysh 15 miles below the mouth of the Vagai by one of the fishermen. The fisherman reported the find to Kuchum-Khan, and he buried Ermak with honors at the cemetery of the Begichevsk Tatars.
There are other interesting information. For example, a description of the ruins of an unknown fortress, which Yermak's detachment met on the Kozlovka river, 25 miles from Tobolsk. The main thing is that none of the local Tatars could tell Ermak about whose fortress it was, when it was built, and when and by whom it was destroyed.
This is not a conquistador - this is Ermak, unfamiliar to us.
Further, the Cossacks met even more ancient remains of fortifications 29 versts from Tobolsk, between the rivers Aslana and Belkina. There at that time, there were preserved ramparts 5 m high, and ditches 5 m deep. If only the remains of the rampart were 5 meters high, then what were they originally, taking into account the fortress walls ?!
Yermak's Cossacks, in fact, were engaged in archaeological research, and not conquests. The Vestnik speaks of a huge number of finds made on the Siberian mounds by the Cossacks. Basically, these were products from … cast iron! Plates with images and letters, figurines depicting people, animals, birds, and the like. For information: in Europe, they learned to produce cast iron only in the nineteenth century.
The capital of Kataya is Khanbalik.
Historians claim that the Chinese invented cast iron in the eleventh century. But the hubs of the Scythian carts were already cast iron. And the expedition of Yermak gives grounds for the assertion that it was not in China that they began to melt cast iron, but in Katai (read more: Mongul and Tartarus. Where was the first capital?). And Katay, this is Siberia, which Yermak “conquered”.
In addition to cast iron items, the Cossacks discovered many items made of steel. There are many sickles for the harvest, which is evidence of developed agriculture, knives, axes and spades. About the origin of these artifacts, local Tatars said that probably those Chuds who lived in these places before them did it.
Here the author of the chronicle makes a reasonable assumption that the artifacts found belong not to one period of antiquity, but accumulated over thousands of years. And we are still being told that Siberia is a historically deserted, unpopulated land that does not have any significant archaeological monuments!
Routes of the Ermak group.
Myth on myth, to justify myths
Think about it: how an understaffed regiment, consisting of, albeit trained and fearless, men, was able to conquer (without technical means, transport and navigation) an area of more than 13 million square kilometers?
Even a quick glance at the official route of the Ermak expedition leaves questions about the remaining 9/10 of Siberia. But in the "Siberian Bulletin" there is information on this score. For example, about his visit by the Samoyed detachment, (New Earth). We were not told anything about this - "forgot" (as always) or the source lied a little?
Ermak's detachment in Samoyed.
Or what about the appearance of the Tungus? They are shown to us in films in a pronounced Mongoloid form, but in the source?
Tunguses.
The error is excluded, because representatives of other northern peoples are depicted in the book in full accordance with their true appearance. In addition, the detailing of the elements of the costume leaves no chance for the assumption that the artist did not know how the Tungus really look.
Irkutsk.
And this is Irkutsk. Interesting, right? Was it here that wild Siberian Tatars lived or someone else, about whom we again "forgot" to tell? It is quite a European-looking city. And the crescents on the spiers are not visible, as well as the crosses. What religion did its inhabitants belong to?
There are a lot of sketches of ancient megaliths, menhirs and ancient complexes of structures, some of which have survived to this day in the form of swollen ruins. Has anyone researched them? Hardly, because it was officially decided that Siberia has NO historical past, which means that there is nothing to study there - no matter who shows or tells what …
“This cannot be, because we (historians) have decided so. And there is nothing for us to tell all sorts of fables - the decision has been made (at the highest level)! - like that…
However, this conclusion does not diminish the merits of the Cossack detachments, who went into the unknown, aiming only for the benefit of the state.