Mikhail Konstantinovich Sidorov through the eyes of contemporaries and descendants: to the bicentenary of the entrepreneur, philanthropist and “zealot of the North”

Abstract

The main stages in the evolution of the image of a notable Russian entrepreneur, explorer of the European and Siberian North of Russia, and an enthusiast for establishing the sea route to Siberia, Mikhail Konstantinovich Sidorov (1823–1887) in historiography, memoirs, popular science and general fiction, and in the media, are reconstructed. The role of M.K. Sidorov himself in the formation of his biographical canon is shown. The motifs underlying the campaigns carried out at different times to popularise the figure of M.K. Sidorov are clarified. There have been identified and analysed main topoi for evaluation of the personality, life and work of M.K. Sidorov: “unheard prophet”, “zealot of the North”, “unmercenary entrepreneur”, “progressive capitalist”, “outstanding dilettante”, among others. The need for a critical turn in the study of the life and works of M.K. Sidorov is argued. In particular, there have been proposed the options for a broader contextualisation and a more focused problematisation of research on the northern entrepreneurship in the later Russian Empire. It deems very productive resorting to research programmes of global history, new imperial history, and historical anthropology. It should not be forgotten that M.K. Sidorov was active in an epoch of extensive transformation of the Russian Empire; his activities, in our opinion, are interesting precisely because of that they were an important part of the trans-imperial and global processes. © 2024 Tyumen Scientific Centre of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.