Editing Sakha Republic (section)

===Russian Empire===
In an administrative reform of 1782, [[Irkutsk Governorate]] was created. In 1805, [[Yakutsk Oblast]] was split from Irkutsk Governorate.<ref>{{Cite EB1911|wstitle= Yakutsk (province) | volume= 28 |last1= Kropotkin |first1= Peter Alexeivitch |author1-link=Peter Kropotkin|last2= Bealby |first2=John Thomas|pages = 898&ndash;899 |short= 1}}</ref>
[[File:Kate Marsden leaving Yakutsk.jpg|left|thumb|British explorer and missionary [[Kate Marsden]] in [[Yakutsk]], 1891]]
Yakutsk Oblast in the early 19th century marked the easternmost territory of the Russian Empire, including such [[Russian Far East|Far Eastern]] (Pacific) territories as were acquired, known as Okhotsk Okrug within Yakutsk Oblast. With the formation of [[Primorskaya Oblast]] in 1856, the Russian territories of the Pacific were detached from Sakha.

[[File:Члены Сибирской областной Думы 1917.jpeg|thumb|right|Members of the Siberian Regional Duma from Yakutsk, 1917]]
The Russians established agriculture in the [[Lena River]] basin. The members of religious groups who were exiled to Sakha in the second half of the 19th century began to grow [[wheat]], [[oat]]s, and [[potato]]es. The [[fur trade]] established a cash economy. Industry and transport began to develop at the end of the 19th century and in the beginning of the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] period. This was also the beginning of [[geological]] prospecting, [[mining]], and local [[lead]] production. The first steam-powered ships and barges arrived.

Sakha's remoteness, compared to the rest of Siberia, made it a place of exile of choice for both Tsarist and Communist governments of Russia. Among the famous Tsarist-era exiles were the democratic writer [[Nikolay Chernyshevsky]]; [[Doukhobor]]s, [[conscientious objector]]s whose story was told to [[Leo Tolstoy]] by [[Vasily Nikolaevich Pozdnyakov|Vasily Pozdnyakov]]; the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]] member and writer [[Vladimir Zenzinov]], who left an account of his Arctic experiences; and Polish socialist activist [[Wacław Sieroszewski]], who pioneered in ethnographic research on the Sakha people.

A Sakha national movement first emerged during the [[1905 Revolution]]. A Yakut Union was formed under the leadership of a Sakha lawyer and city councilor by the name of Vasily Nikiforov, which criticized the policies and effects of Russian colonialism, and demanded representation in the [[State Duma (Russian Empire)|State Duma]]. The Yakut Union acted to make the city council of Yakutsk stand down and was joined by thousands of Sakha from the countryside, but the leaders were arrested and the movement fizzled out by April 1906. Their demand for a Sakha representative in the Duma, however, was granted.<ref>{{cite book |last=Forsyth |first=James |date=1992 |title=A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=167–168 |isbn=978-0521477710}}</ref>