Siberia and the Exile System

An American journalist's unflinching account, published in two volumes in 1891, of Russia's brutal penal system in Siberia.

George Kennan (Author)

9781108048224, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 April 2012

432 pages, 92 b/w illus. 3 maps
21.6 x 14 x 2.4 cm, 0.54 kg

The American journalist George Kennan (1854–1924) spent many years travelling in and writing about Russia. After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, Kennan wanted to go to Siberia to examine the penal system and the punishment of political exiles. In this unflinching account, published in two volumes in 1891, Kennan gives vivid descriptions, accompanied by extensive illustrations of the prisons and labour camps and the harsh lives of the people forced to live there. This journey also led to a personal transformation for Kennan himself - he started out as a supporter of the tsarist government but when he returned to the United States, he had become an advocate of political revolution in Russia. In Volume 1, he inspects the overcrowded holding prison of Tyumen, where everyone banished to Siberia was forced to stay before redeployment, and he later speaks to some political exiles.

Preface
1. From St Petersburg to Perm
2. Across the Siberian frontier
3. The flowery plains of Tobólsk
4. The Tiumén forwarding prison
5. A Siberian convict barge
6. First impressions of post travel
7. The great Kírghis steppe
8. Our first meeting with political exiles
9. Bridle paths of the Altái
10. Two colonies of political exiles
11. Exile by administrative process
12. The Province and the City of Tomsk
13. The Tomsk forwarding prison
14. The life of political exiles
15. The great Siberian road
16. Deportation by étape.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]