“European” Rationalization: New Knowledge and Technologies of German Entrepreneurship in Western Siberia in the Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries

The development of Siberia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was closely linked to the phenomenon of modernization. As a result of the “transport” and “resettlement” revolutions, the transformation of traditional values, old economic practices and social relations was carried out at an accelerated pace. Historians have yet to study the conditions in detail, identify the lines of interaction, and reveal the features of the modernization transition, innovative changes, and archaic consciousness in the Siberian local community of this period. This article analyzes the conditions, identifies channels, agents and features of innovation diffusion in Western Siberia in the late 19th – early 20th centuries using German entrepreneurship as an example, and determines its role in the region’s infrastructural modernization. Based on archival and published sources, the issues of innovation in agriculture, trade, industry, and the service sector are examined, and the activities of German entrepreneurs in Western Siberia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are revealed. They not only transmitted, but also transformed the latest knowledge and technologies. German businessmen were “innovators”, having many formal and informal social contacts, willing to take risks, popularize the benefits of innovation, and demonstrate to the rest of the local community that novelty was useful and necessary. The methodological basis of the study was the theory of diffusionism. Modernization changes at the regional level, as well as economic and cultural “backwardness”, perceived as a transition from the “Asian world” to the “European world”, determined the social demand for overcoming archaic patriarchal structures. The commercialization of social relations induced a transformation of the everyday practices of Siberian residents, involving them in active economic activity. At the same time, the introduction and dissemination of innovations in the region was realized through two complementary vectors: vertical (through institutional mechanisms) and horizontal (through spatial dissemination). The article is intended for the specialists in the history of Siberia, and all those interested in social and economic history, the history of Russian Germans.