Nikolai M. Yadrintsev

Nikolai Mikhailovich Yadrintsev (Russian: Николай Михайлович Ядринцев; October 18, 1842, Omsk – June 7, 1894, Barnaul) was a Russian public figure, explorer, archaeologist, and turkologist. His discoveries include the Orkhon script, Genghis Khan's capital, Karakorum and Ordu-Baliq, the capital of the Uyghur Khaganate. He was also one of the founding figures of Siberian separatism.

Nikolai Yadrintsev was born into the family of an Omsk merchant. After Tomsk gymnasium, he matriculated at Petersburg University. There he began his active public work. In 1860, together with his friend and soul-mate G. N. Potanin, Yadrintsev organized a group of Siberian students with members S. S. Shashkov, N. I. Naumov, I. V. Omulevsky, I. A. Khudyakov, Ch. Valihanov and others, future outstanding writers and scientists. The social movement of the 1860s captivated the members of the Siberian countrymen. They established connections with democratic revolutionaries, read forbidden literature, and participated in student revolts, which resulted in their arrest. During those years, the journal "Spark" (Russian "Iskra"), a clone of "Contemporary", printed its first indicting feuilletons of N. Yadrintsev. In the 1860s Yadrintsev became a committed democrat.

The members of Russian-Siberian community took close to their hearts the needs of their native land, transformed by czarism into a colony, and decided to selflessly struggle for the development of the Siberian fringes, against its subjugated position. The movement started by N. Yadrintsev and G .N. Potanin received a name "Siberian patriotism" or "Siberian separatism". They believed that only Siberians can protect the interests of Siberia, the purpose and obligation of all Siberians they saw only in the service to their land. They raised the inevitability of separation of Siberia from Russia, and in their leaflet they called on the fellow countrymen to rise and create in Siberia an independent democratic republic.

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