Siberian Exile and the Invention of Revolutionary Russia, 1825–1917: Exiles, Émigrés and the International Reception of Russian Radicalism

211 Pages·2021·2.897 MB·English

by  Ben Phillips

Siberian Exile and the Invention of
Revolutionary Russia, 1825–1917
Over the course of the nineteenth century Siberia developed a fearsome reputation
as a place of exile, often imagined as a vast penal colony and seen as a symbol
of the iniquities of autocratic and totalitarian Tsarist rule. This book examines
how Siberia’s reputation came about and discusses the effects of this reputation
in turning opinion, especially in Western countries, against the Tsarist regime and
in giving rise to considerable sympathy for Russian radicals and revolutionaries.
It considers the writings and propaganda of a large number of different émigré
groups, explores American and British journalists’ investigations and exposé
press articles, and charts the rise of the idea of Russian political prisoners as
revolutionary and reformist heroes. Overall, the book demonstrates how important
representations of Siberian exile were in shaping Western responses to the Russian
Revolution.
Ben Phillips is Lecturer in Russian in the Department of Modern Languages and
Cultures at the University of Exeter.
BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies
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142. Business Culture in Putin’s Russia
John Kennedy
143. The Donbas Conflict in Ukraine
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Daria Platonova
144. Siberian Exile and the Invention of Revolutionary Russia, 1825–1917
Exiles, Émigrés and the International Reception of Russian Radicalism
Ben Phillips
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Nomenklatura, Intelligentsia and Centre-Periphery Relations
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Siberian Exile and the
Invention of Revolutionary
Russia, 1825–1917
Exiles, Émigrés and the International
Reception of Russian Radicalism
Ben Phillips
First published 2022
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-22480-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-17123-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-27509-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780429275098
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Note on the text viii
Introduction 1
1 Siberian exile and Russian radical culture, 1825–1873 18
2 ‘A nihilist kurort’: Siberia in the Victorian imagination,
c. 1830–1890 53
3 The Siberian agitation, 1890–1895 81
4 ‘Apostles of the gospel of reform’: Prison, exile and the
limits of revolutionary subjectivity, 1905–1917 129
Conclusion 171
Bibliography 180
Index 197
Acknowledgements
This book has been several years in the making, and the many personal and pro-
fessional debts I have incurred in that time cannot adequately be settled in writ-
ing here. It started life as a PhD thesis written at the School of Slavonic & East
European Studies, University College London (UCL SSEES), and generously
funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, in the years 2012–2016.
AHRC funding also allowed me to spend four invaluable months doing research
at the Library of Congress, a trip that yielded much of the material for Chap-
ter 3; further research trips to Russia were funded by UCL and by the Centre for
East European Language-Based Area Studies (CEELBAS). I am grateful to these
organizations for funding my research, and to the libraries and archives in which
that research was conducted: particular thanks are due to Nina Abdulaeva and
Aleksei Trefakhin of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), and to
the staff of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), the Library
of Congress Manuscripts Division, the British Library, the International Institute
for Social History and – last but by no means least – the SSEES librarians for their
unfailing good humour and indefatigable efforts in retrieving obscure items from
the stores. Not one fine for a long-overdue book was waived in vain.
Many individuals have contributed to this book at different times and in a myr-
iad of ways. Among my colleagues in the field, I am especially grateful to Alison
Rowley, Sarah Badcock, Simon Dixon, Vera Tolz, George Gilbert, Mark Vincent,
Matt Rendle, Katya Rogatchevskaia, Bob Henderson and Mikhail Nakonechnyi
for the support (both direct and indirect) they have lent the project over time;
to Jeremy Hicks for many engaging conversations over pirozhki in the GARF
courtyard in the summer of 2019; and to Sarah Young and Wendy Bracewell for
supervising the PhD thesis on which the book builds. A further note of thanks is
due to Michael Ledger-Lomas, who some ten years ago supervised the MPhil dis-
sertation whence my initial interest in Victorian perceptions of Russia (and Sibe-
ria), and thus my PhD project, grew. My editor at Routledge, Peter Sowden, has
been a source of sound advice and good judgement in seeing the project through
from beginning to end. To my Russianist colleagues at the University of Exeter,
Katharine Hodgson, Emily Lygo, Muireann Maguire, Yuliya Kostyuk and Cathy
McAteer, I am grateful for the supportive and collegial working environment in
Acknowledgements vii
which the book was finished. It goes, of course, without saying that any remaining
errors or oversights are mine alone.
It remains here to acknowledge the kindness and support offered in recent years
by friends, most notably Sam Eddy, Luke Snell, Matthew Coldrick, Angus Mac-
Donald, Erika Blomerus, Guy Frazer-Wright, Serian Carlyle, Martin J Stephens,
David Turner, Bartley Rock, Beth Campbell-Carter and Antony Dalziel Stewart,
without whom the writing process would have been far less tolerable; by my parents
Don and Colette and brother Tom, without whose encouragement this book would
probably never have been started; and by Elizabeth Harrison, without whose com-
panionship, attentive proofreading and (not unrelatedly) infinite patience it would
certainly never have been finished. To Ellie I dedicate the finished product with love
and gratitude, in the knowledge that she is the only person happier than I to finally
see the back of it.
BGP
Exeter, April 2021
Note: A somewhat modified version of Chapter 2 previously appeared as a journal
article, ‘A Nihilist Kurort’: Siberian Exile in the Victorian Imagination, c.1830–
1890’, Slavonic and East European Review 97.3 (2019), pp. 471–500. My thanks
to the editors for granting permission to reproduce it here.
Note on the text
Until February 1918, Russia used the Julian calendar, thirteen days behind the
(Western) Gregorian calendar. Since the events described in this book took place
both in Russia and in the West, I have used both styles as appropriate: Russian
dates are given Old Style, and Western dates in the New Style. Where there is a
risk of confusion, I have given both dates simultaneously, with the New Style date
in parentheses.
I have adopted the Library of Congress transliteration system throughout, but
have made an exception for regal names, which are given (as is the convention)
in the anglicized form, for example, Tsar Nicholas II. Russian names are given as
first name/surname with the patronymic omitted: I have given initials only where
biographical information on the person in question was limited. All translations
from Russian sources are my own unless otherwise indicated.
The following abbreviations are used in the text and endnotes:
Institutions and organizations
(A)SFRF – (American) Society of Friends of Russian Freedom
FVRP – Fond volnoi russkoi pressy (Free Russian Press Fund)
LAFP – Literary Association of the Friends of Poland
MVD – Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del (Ministry of the Interior)
PLSR – Partiia levykh sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov (Party of Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries)
SR – Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov (Socialist-Revolutionary Party)
WSPU – Women’s Social and Political Union
Sources and archives
FR – Free Russia: Organ of the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom
GARF – Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi federatsii (State Archive of the
Russian Federation)
IISG – International Institute of Social History
LC MSS – Library of Congress Manuscripts Division
Note on the text ix
OVD – Obzor vazhneishikh doznanii, proizvodivshikhsia v zhandarmskikh
upravleniiakh imperii po delam o gosudarstvennykh prestupleniiakh (Sum-
mary of the Most Important Findings Proceeding from the Gendarmarie’s
Investigations of State Crimes)
(P)SS – (Polnoe) sobranie sochinenii (Collected works)
RGALI – Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i isskustva (Russian
State Archive of Literature and Art)
RGIA – Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (Russian State His-
torical Archive)
TNA – UK National Archives