Political Exile and the Image of Siberia in Anglo-Russian Contacts Prior to 1917 Ben Phillips UCL

297 Pages·2017·1.95 MB·English

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Political Exile and the Image of Siberia in
Anglo-Russian Contacts Prior to 1917

Ben Phillips
UCL

PhD (Russian History)

September 2016
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I, Ben Phillips, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where
information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in
the thesis.

Signed:

Date:
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Abstract

From the time of Ermak’s conquest in 1582, Siberia has both served and been envisaged
as a carceral space, a land of exile and punishment. In the modern era, this image has
proliferated and endured both within Russia itself and on the international stage. For
many Russians and Westerners alike, Siberia has long provided fertile ground for
mythmaking about Russia, and has become a byword for and synecdoche of political
oppression and the evils of autocratic and totalitarian rule. In this thesis, I argue that
representations of Siberian exile played a crucial role in transnationalising the Russian
revolution during the decades prior to 1917. Throughout the nineteenth century, the
image of Siberia as a vast prison camp – and, by extension, the birthplace of
revolutionary heroes – was commonplace in the oral and literary traditions of Russia’s
radical intelligentsia and amongst Anglo-American progressives alike. In both cases,
Siberia represented an indictment of the Tsarist state and, to some extent, prefigured
Russia’s post-autocratic future. From the 1880s onwards, a succession of Russian émigrés
in Britain and the United States duly sought to capitalise on their hosts’ fascination with
Siberia by publicising dramatic tales of political exiles’ mistreatment and heroism in
captivity. Tracing the development of this discourse, I demonstrate that although it
elevated several revolutionaries to international celebrity status and succeeded in securing
considerable overseas support for their cause, it also exposed contradictions in how the
revolution was understood inside and outside Russia. As Russian socialists used the
rhetoric of punishment and protest to articulate their own ideological convictions, Britons
and Americans romanticised and projected themselves upon the mythologised figure of
the Siberian prisoner. In this sense, fin de siècle polemics over Siberian exile can be seen
to anticipate Western anxieties over Russian oppositionists prevalent in our own time.
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Contents
Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................ 9
Note on translations, transliterations and abbreviations .................................................... 11

1. Introduction: Siberia and the mythology of exile .......................................................... 13

2. Siberia and the Russian revolutionary movement, 1825-1873 ...................................... 43
2.1. Between freedom and captivity: the Decembrists in Siberia .................................. 46
2.2. ‘Here all are exiles and all are equal’ ...................................................................... 57
2.3. Mikhail Bakunin and the Amurskoe delo ................................................................ 67
2.4. Avvakum Petrovich, Nikolai Nekrasov and the sacralisation of Siberian exile ..... 77
2.5. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 94

3. Siberia and the British critique of Russia, 1806-1885 ................................................... 96
3.1. ‘The land of eternal snow’: Mme Cottin’s Elisabeth; ou, Les Exilés de Sibérie .. 100
3.2. Siberia and the Polish national cause, 1830-1863 ................................................ 106
3.3. Buried alive: Dostoevskii’s Zapiski iz mertvogo doma in English translation ..... 124
3.4. The Russian revolutionary emigration and the debate on the exile system .......... 134
3.5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 148

4. Siberian exile as transnational cause célèbre, 1885-1895 ........................................... 150
4.1. ‘Write overseas, to every Kennan’ ........................................................................ 154
4.2. Peripheral analogies: Siberia and Ireland ............................................................. 172
4.3. ‘The Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the Siberian exiles’ .................................................. 179
4.4. George Kennan and the revolutionary underground ............................................. 193
4.5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 205

5. ‘The Canada of the eastern world’, 1895-1904 ........................................................... 207

6. ‘Apostles of the gospel of reform’: The revolutionary hero in transnational perspective,
1905-1917 ........................................................................................................................ 216
6.1. The dry guillotine .................................................................................................. 220
6.2. ‘An eagle in captivity’: Egor Sozonov in prison and exile ................................... 226
6.3. Vera Figner in Britain, 1909 ................................................................................. 237
6.4. Grandmother of the revolution ............................................................................. 249
6.5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 262

7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 264

Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 275
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In memory of Anne McAvoy, 1946-2016
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Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for funding
my work, and to both the Centre for East European Language Based Area Studies
(CEELBAS) and University College London for grants that allowed me to make two trips
to Russia in the course of my PhD. I am likewise indebted to the AHRC for awarding me
a visiting fellowship at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress in
Washington DC during the autumn and winter of 2014, to the staff and fellows at the
Kluge Center for making it a most congenial environment in which to do research, and to
the staff of several other archives and libraries, notably the Russian State Archive of
Literature and Art (RGALI) in Moscow and the International Institute for Social History
(IISG) in Amsterdam. Last but not least, I should mention the indefatigable efforts and
unfailing good humour of the SSEES librarians in dealing with my innumerable bungled
store requests and occasionally waiving my fines.

Many individuals have contributed to this thesis in different ways. First and foremost, I
must thank my supervisor, Sarah Young, whose enthusiastic support from the beginning
and guidance throughout has been invaluable. Wendy Bracewell and Sarah Badcock have
been generous to a fault with their time and feedback, while Bartley Rock, Maha Atal and
Hugh More all read and commented on various chapters. My work is (I hope) better for
their input, and the remaining errors, oversights and stylistic infelicities are mine alone.
Sincere thanks are due also to Stanislav Chernyshov and Svetlana McMillin for teaching
me what I know of the Russian language, to Simon and Katia Cosgrove for their kind
hospitality in Moscow, and to Meagan Baco, Crystal Sanchez and Caitlin Hammer for
theirs in Washington. While space does not permit me to acknowledge fully the many
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kindnesses offered by friends over the past four years, special mention should be made of
Guy Frazer-Wright, Sam Eddy, David Turner and Bartley Rock, all of whom are veritable
masters of the timely distraction.

It remains only to thank my parents, Don and Colette, who have always encouraged and
supported my love of history and fascination with Russia, and Elizabeth Harrison,
without whose infinite patience and felicitous editorial skills none of it would have been
possible. This thesis is dedicated to them.