ABSTRACT
Rather than charting Aleksandr Borisov's career in full detail, this chapter focuses on his artistic output vis-a-vis the Northern vogue mentioned earlier, as well as on his travel accounts in which he reflects on the future of the Far North and his own role as discoverer-cum-artist. By juxtaposing these very different sources (painting and travel accounts), it illustrates that Borisov's vision of the Arctic and its indigenous people was far from homogeneous and that it reflected his ambivalence about Russia's civilizing mission and his own role in it. The chapter establishes how Borisov negotiated the government's colonizing agenda (or lack thereof ), his personal ambitions, and his stated identity as a "Northerner," a "son of the region." Uniquely positioned at the crossroads of Arctic exploration and late nineteenth-century landscape painting, Borisov may also help us understand more profoundly Russia's growing fascination with the Far North on the threshold of the twentieth century.
