The First World War and the Economic Situation of Siberia in the Materials of the Journal “Sibirskie Zapiski”: Socio-Political Narratives

The aim of the research is to reconstruct the socio-political narratives about the impact of the First World War on the economic policy pursued in Siberia, which were presented in the journal "Sibirskie Zapiski".The source base was a corpus of journalistic works placed in the said publication, to which political and textual analysis was applied.In the cognitive and methodological respect, the work relies on the tools of the "new political history".This epistemological strategy allows us to focus not so much on the political past of sovereigns and public authorities, but on the personalities and groups of public associations that influence the agenda through journalism.The article reconstructs and shows the negative consequences of the war for the Asian part of Russia.Publicists attributed to them an increase in the cost of goods and services, as well as the growth of speculation in the region.The reasons for this were explainable by the fact that human and other resources were required for military needs.The content of the journalistic materials of the analyzed publication allows us to note that the state policy in the field of economy of the "era of wars and revolutions" carried out in Siberia had significant flaws.The sore point was the pricing policy, which needed state control.The situation in book publishing worsened, which in turn demonstrated the serious influence of wartime on the minds of Siberians.Cities, their infrastructure and landscaping also found themselves in a disastrous financial situation.Settlements developed ambiguously, since on the one hand their budgets grew due to the railroad, while the social environment evolved extremely poorly.The authors come to the conclusion that a separate narrative was the topic of demand for skilled labor in the region.The discourse was widely disseminated that the First World War would become a necessary driver of economic development in Siberia, the development of its mineral resources and the improvement of the transport infrastructure of the region.