Editorial

Vladimir Klavdeevich Arsen’ev is one of the best-known figures of the Russian Far East, and yet the scholarly literature — particularly in English — on his historical significance is surprisingly thin. Literary scholars, drawn by Arsen’ev’s famous novel Dersu Uzala, and cinema scholars, intrigued by Akira Kurosawa’s masterful film adaptation of that work, have most critically engaged with the Russian polymath’s work (Arsen’ev was, after all, a military officer, an explorer, an author, an ethnographer, a bureaucrat, and more). Much more rarely have scholars assessed Arsen’ev’s important role as an actor in and commentator on Russian colonization in the Far East. This special collection of articles in Sibirica makes a start at that assessment, identifying several areas where a study of Arsen’ev’s life and writings can illuminate important aspects of the region’s early twentieth-century history.