1775 Treskot Map of Western Siberia, Russian Empire

Siberia Revealed: An Empire Mapped at Monumental Scale.

This is a c. 1775 Ivan Treskot map of the Siberia Governorate, one of the great achievements of 18th-century Russian imperial cartography. Produced as part of the ambitious 1770 - 1776 project undertaken by Treskot and Jacob Friedrich Schmidt to remap Siberia, it synthesizes Russia's rapidly expanding regional geographical knowledge. Stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Central Asian steppe and from European Russia nearly to Lake Baikal, the map reveals Siberia not as an empty wilderness, but as an increasingly organized imperial landscape structured around immense river systems, fortified settlements, and expanding networks of Russian administration.

A Closer Look

The Siberia Governorate, shaded yellow, dominates the map and is divided into the provinces of Tobolsk and Yeniseysk. Its enormous extent is immediately apparent, reaching from the Arctic Ocean south toward Central Asia and encompassing much of western and central Siberia. Beyond Russian territory, the map includes portions of modern Kazakhstan and Mongolia, placing the governorate within the broader geography of northern Eurasia.

Most striking is the extraordinary treatment of Siberia's river systems. The Irtysh, Ob, and Yenisei, along with their extensive networks of tributaries, form the map's geographical framework and represent one of the most significant achievements of Treskot and Schmidt's surveys. In a region where roads were few and enormous distances, forests, mountains, and seasonal conditions complicated overland travel, rivers served as the principal arteries of transportation, commerce, communication, and imperial expansion.

Cities, forts, missions, and smaller settlements punctuate these waterways and the surrounding territory, many highlighted in red. Among those identified are Omsk, Tyumen, Tobolsk, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk, Obdorsk (modern Salekhard), Beryozovo, Yeniseysk, and Krasnoyarsk. Together they reveal the emerging infrastructure through which the Russian Empire administered and consolidated its vast Siberian territories.

Beyond the governorate, Arkhangelsk, Kazan, and Orenburg appear to the west, while Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude mark the map's eastern reaches. Novaya Zemlya, still imperfectly understood by European and Russian cartographers, appears along the Arctic margin, while the Aral Sea and Lake Baikal anchor the southwestern and southeastern extremes. To the south, the Russo-Qing frontier reflects the settlement established by the 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta, which supplemented the earlier Treaty of Nerchinsk and regulated the border and commercial relationship between the two empires.

Pugachev's Rebellion and Imperial Reorganization

The administrative geography depicted here was already approaching an end. Soon after the map's publication, Catherine the Great undertook a sweeping reorganization of provincial government, and smaller administrative units, including the Tobolsk and Kolyvan viceroyalties, eventually replaced the enormous Siberia Governorate. These reforms formed part of a broader effort to strengthen imperial administration following the shock of Pugachev's Rebellion (1773 - 1775).

Led by the Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev, the rebellion engulfed a vast region extending from the Caspian and Ural regions toward the Siberian frontier, with particularly destructive fighting around Kazan in 1774. Its causes were complex, encompassing Cossack grievances, the increasingly burdensome condition of the peasantry, taxation, and resistance among non-Russian peoples to expanding imperial authority, land seizures, and religious pressure. The uprising's scale exposed the difficulties inherent in governing Russia's enormous territories. It contributed to Catherine's determination to strengthen provincial administration and bring the imperial periphery under more effective centralized control.

In this context, Treskot's map captures more than Siberia's geography. It records an immense frontier at a transitional moment, when geographical knowledge, administrative reform, settlement, and imperial authority were combining to transform Siberia from a distant frontier into a more systematically governed component of the Russian Empire.

Publication History and Census

Ivan (Johann) Fomic Treskot (Иван Фомич Трускотт) prepared this map, and Kirill Fedorovich Frolov (Кирилл Федорович Фролов; 1748 - 1810) engraved it around 1775. It formed part of the larger 1770 - 1776 cartographic program undertaken by Treskot and Jacob Friedrich Schmidt to improve Siberia's mapping.

The map is rare. We note examples at Harvard University, the Russian State Library, the University Library Göttingen, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the National Maritime Museum (U.K., from the collection of William Wyndham Grenville), Universitätsbibliothek Bern, and the National Library of Finland, where it forms part of the Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld collection.

Cartographers

Ivan (Johann) Fomic Treskot (Иван Фомич Трускотт; December 1, 1721 - May 18, 1786), also spelled Treskott, Truscott, or Truskot, was a Russian cartographer active in St. Petersburg in the late 18th century. Treskot was born in St. Peterburg, the son of an English merchant (perhaps the reason his name is sometimes recorded as John Truskott). He studied architecture and cartography at the Russian Academy of Sciences under Joseph-Nicolas De l'isle (April 4, 1688 – September 11, 1768) and Jacob Friedrich Schmidt (Якоб Фридрих Шмидт; 1723 - 1786). In 1746 he was made head of the Cartographic Department at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. They went on to compile a detailed mapping of Siberia, publishing various regional maps from 1770 to 1776. Working with Schmidt, Treskot compiled the 1784 Tabula Geographica Generalis Imperii Russici, the finest general map of the empire since after the 1734 Kirilov. Treskot was active at the Russian Academy's Geographical Department for nearly 50 years, from 1737 to his death in 1786. While he supervised the construction of hundreds of maps, only 11 of which bear his imprint.   Further Details...

Kirill Fedorovich Frolov (Кирилл Федорович Фролов; 1748 - November 18, 1810) was a Russian copper plate engraver serving the Russian Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. Frolov studied draftsmanship, painting, and engraving under the well known master engraver Mikhail Ivanovich Makhaev (Михаи́л Ива́нович Маха́ев; 1718 - 172). His two sons Nikolai (1795 - ?) and Semyon, were also engravers.   Further Details...

Condition

Good. Light wear along original centerfold. Slight discoloration in upper quadrant. Mild foxing and soiling. Several small tears around border professionally repaired.

References

OCLC 936633603.