The issue of the Saratov Volga region settlement by the peasantry was covered in the first works on local history. The beginning of its special study was associated with the need to clarify the reasons for the tense social situation that had developed in the region by the middle of the 19th century. A. N. Minh’s monograph was the first attempt at a purposeful search and consolidation of evidence on peasant colonization. It opens a series of papers devoted to this problem and published by members of the Saratov Scientific Archive Commission.