| Siberia is a space that is more ideologic than it is geographic; it lacks defined physical boundaries and has no precise date of founding. Throughout its contemporary history as a Russian territory, the Siberia of public imagination has been dictated primarily by the views and agendas of external actors, and its culture and literature - despite having multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and multi-religious roots - have been subsumed by the greater Russian tradition to which they are uneasily tied. Using an historical framework, this thesis establishes that there is, in fact, a canon of Siberian literature that stands apart from the Russian canon and that incorporates not only Russian texts but also other European and local indigenous ones. Furthermore, I contend that this canon has both been shaped by and continues to shape a pan-Siberian identity that unifies the border-less, ideologic space in a way that physical boundaries cannot. |
