The article examines an understudied aspect of religious life in Omsk during the First World War, associated with mass conversion to the Orthodoxy of Rusin prisoners of war – former soldiers and officers of the Austro-Hungarian army. The research is based on the materials from the journal Omskie Eparkhialnye Vedomosti and the registration records of the birth books of Omsk Orthodox churches for 1915–1917. The combination of the anthropological approach with the problem-chronological and historicalcomparative methods allowed a thorough investigation of the phenomenon of mass conversion of Rusin prisoners of war to Orthodoxy, linking it with the specific historical situation and the personalities of church hierarchs who served in Siberia. The authors argue that the “Omsk phenomenon” of Rusins’ joining Orthodoxy was conditioned by the ascetic activity of the missionaries from the Omsk and Pavlodar dioceses, lead by Bishop Sylvester (Olshevsky). However, it should be emphasized that the dynamic development of this process was ensured by the official ideology based on Orthodox values, which dominated in the Russian Empire. The ideological factor of the conversion to Orthodoxy was decisive for the Rusins, who were attracted by the Orthodox empire, the “state of the Russian people”. The fall of the monarchy as a result of the Russian Revolution changed the paradigm of the country’s development and immediately put an end to the massive conversions of Rusins to Orthodoxy in Omsk. The article may be of interest to researchers of the history of Rusins, military and social history, as well as national and religious politics.

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The paper studies report of the Omsk regional department of the OGPU to the local party leadership on anti-Soviet organizations and groups in the Omsk region in 1927, reflecting the efforts of Omsk security officers to combat anti-communist opposition, which in terms of the era was “anti-Soviet.” Source analysis of the OGPU information statement shows its high reliability and informative value in relation to presence and nature of opposition in the Omsk region. Thus, diachronic research has become key method for analyzing data of the source. It has helped to analyze the state of opposition in the Omsk district in 1927 and to conclude that there was no real anti-communist opposition that could have been the basis for creation of counter-revolutionary organizations allegedly exposed by Omsk Chekists in the 1930s. Statistical method has made it possible to compare the Cheka data on the number of ex-White officers groups in the Omsk district with information on the number of lishenets officers (those deprived of voting rights) and thus to assess social and political activity of this category of Soviet citizens. Biographical method has permitted to study the document in connection with life and activities of the OGPU employee D.A. Bulatov who prepared it. The author comes to the conclusion that the document objectively testifies of absence of any significant organized anti-communist activity in Omsk in the first half of 1927. The focus of the work of the secret operational unit of the Omsk District Department of the OGPU in relation to anti-Soviet groups was surveyance of ex-White officers, mostly apolitical. This also confirms assessments of contemporary historians, courts, and prosecutors concerning fabricated cases of counter-revolutionary officer organizations in Omsk in the 1930s. The work may be of interest to researchers studying Russian society and activities of Soviet special services in the Stalin era.

The article is a source study of the special note written by the head of the NKVD district department and concerning settlement of children evacuated from the city of Leningrad to the Kalachinsk district of the Omsk region. The special note is a special services top secret document of informational nature. It contains some negative information on poorly organized reception of the evacuated children, which the authorities attempted to gloss over. Text analysis of the special note and comparing its data with information from the minutes of the meetings of the Kalachinsk executive committee allows the authors to study various problems of settlement of children evacuated from besieged Leningrad. The source highlights the role of the NKVD bodies in organizing control over the placement of children evacuated to the Omsk region that has been practically unknown to researchers before. Independently from local district officials, the Chekists observed the evacuated children’s settlement and timely informed the higher party and state leadership of difficulties, shortcomings, and negligence of individual officials in this work. The district and regional party leaders could not ignore the information coming from the NKVD bodies. On Chekists’ urging, it made local officials normalize the living conditions of children from besieged Leningrad. The NKVD officers fought irresponsibility of some of those responsible for management of the evacuated children’s lives. The authors conclude that in circumstances when the country was transformed into a single camp, governed by emergency laws of war, the work of special services to control the placement of children from besieged Leningrad was necessary and productive. The materials of this article may be of interest to researchers studying Russian society in the days of the Great Patriotic War and wartime childhood as a part of the rear daily life, as well as activities of the Soviet special services in relation to government agencies.

In the context of events of the Russian Revolution and the Civil War in Russia the Omsk cadet Valentin Aleksandrovich Zhardetsky`s views on the Siberian regionalism are considered. He was a one of the main Kolchak regime ideologists. The source for the study is the Siberian periodicals, as well as the testimonies of our hero about the activities of the Siberian regionalists and the connection of the issue of Siberian autonomy with the international situation given to the Omsk Gubchkom on the eve of his execution. The last source is introduced into the scientific turnover for the first time. The authors conclude that the Russian nationalist V. A. Zhardetsky was one of the most consistent opponents of «Siberian selfhood» similar to the Ukrainian nationalism. His arguments about Siberian regionalism are also relevant for modern Russia, which once again faces the potential threat of separatism in Siberia

На материалах истории Сибири формулируется проблема поиска критериев тождества национализма на одной территории. Изучается соотношение идей и практик сибирского сепаратизма. Анализ трехвековой истории сибирского сепаратизма показывает, что его не существовало непрерывно в своем развитии, но существовал сибирский дискурс, пропагандировавший идею самостоятельного политического развития Сибири, оспаривавший идею единства России. Этот дискурс основывался на эмоциях и чувствах жителей Сибири, которые испытывали эмоцию зависти к лучшим социальным условиям жизни в России, и такое положение жители края обоснованно считали несправедливым.

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of manning the formations of the 6th Stalinist Siberian Volunteer Rifle Corps formed in the summer of 1942. The study has been carried out on the basis of office materials of the Siberian regional party organizations of the CPSU (B) and the NKVD bodies involved in the formation of the corps. The study has been conducted on the basis of principles of consistency and historicism. It uses problem-chronological and comparative-historical methods to compare data from departmental and party documents, to trace the formation of volunteer formations in Siberian cities. The article proves that the historians’ assessments of timely formation of Siberian volunteer formations do not correspond to facts. The reason for this is that the existing scientific research on the history of the 6th Stalinist Siberian Volunteer Rifle Corps is based on party reports that paint a picture of successful recruitment of volunteers into the military formation. They quote figures, telling of thousands and tens of thousands who wrote applications for admission to the brigade, but they keep silent about difficulties that frustrated the timely recruitment of the required number of volunteers. The article analyzes difficulties in the corps formation due to lack of mobilization potential for recruitment of volunteers in Siberia at that time. Data is given on 5 failures in the formation of the corps. The principle of “voluntariness” in the formation of the corps was not respected; a significant number of citizens born in 1924 were conscripted. Particular attention is paid to the formation of the 75th Stalin’s Volunteer Separate Rifle Brigade of Omsk-Siberians. In its formation, the regional authorities faced great difficulties; only 29% of the brigade personnel was recruited in accordance with the principle of voluntariness. The author comes to the conclusion that despite conscription, the corps was voluntary. More than half of its personnel were volunteers. These people brought the “Siberian volunteer spirit” into their units, showed high stamina and mass heroism on the battlefields and subsequently earned the title of guards. The work is addressed to a wide range of researchers studying the history of the Great Patriotic War, problems of creating military units of the people's militia and volunteerism, history of the “Siberian divisions.”

The article is a review of a documents collection “The Siberian Council Meeting of 1918: Materials” repared by the well known Omsk church historian Dmitry Vladimirovich Olikhov. It was published in Moscow in 2020. It contains an informative introductory article on the Siberian Council and publishes its documents known at present date, as well as materials from the periodicals and memoirs. The article emphasizes the relevance of the book and its scientific significance. Institutional and historical-anthropological approaches provide scientific basis to the documents collection and, accordingly, to this article devoted to its analysis. The principles of consistency and determinism have made it possible to characterize the publication, considered as a phenomenon of science with its particular structure and at the same time as a part of the historical scholarship. Due to specifics of the topic, the main scientific method used in this publication is problematic. The article contains critical remarks and considerations on the introductory article prefacing the analyzed documents collection. It offers its opinions on main initiators of the Tomsk Council and its results. The article disputes the author-compiler’s point of view that the Siberian Council managed to avoid political extremes. Drawing on the analysis of documentary materials from the said collection, the author of the article claims that the Tomsk Council Meeting created conditions for consolidation of right-wing politicians and religious leaders on anti-Bolshevik platform. Despite his expressed criticism, the author of this article is of the opinion that publication of generally available materials on the Siberian Council Meeting and similar publications on the All-Ukrainian Church Council and the South-Eastern Church Council create opportunities for comparative historical analyses of these church forums. In conclusion the article expresses hope that the established source base should allow us to expect an appearance of new articles and monographs on the development of the conciliar principle in the Russian Orthodox Church during the Civil War in Russia.