Siberian Merchants. Trade in Eurasia in the Early Modern Period

The key role in establishing and expanding the power of the Moscow state, and later the Russian Empire, in the ethnically diverse Siberian borderland was played by continental trade. Erika Monahan's book is an attempt to analyze the connection between the merchant world and state building in the early modern period, as well as to shed light on the social history of several merchant dynasties in Russia. The focus of the researcher is on several generations of three families that traded in Siberia for over a century: the Filatyev family, which belonged to the merchant elites of Russia; the Shababin family, Muslim immigrants who mastered local and long-distance trade while successfully combining private entrepreneurship with service to the Russian state; and the Noritsyn family, merchants of a more modest status who actively participated in the developing Russian-Chinese trade. The author of the book explores the lifestyle they led, the strategies they employed in relations with the state, and the social niches they occupied in the Siberian borderland. Erika Monahan is a historian and a professor at the University of New Mexico, USA.