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

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Political Exile and the Image of Siberia in Anglo-Russian Contacts Prior to 1917 1 Political Exile and the Image of Siberia in Anglo-Russian Contacts Prior to 1917 Ben Phillips UCL PhD (Russian History) September 2016 2 3 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: 4 5 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. 6 7 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 8 In memory of Anne McAvoy, 1946-2016 9 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 10 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. 11 Note on translations, transliterations and abbreviations I have translated all quotations from Russian sources, but have made a partial exception for poetry, where I have retained the Russian and included prosaic English translations in square brackets below. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. As is conventional, I have adopted the Library of Congress transliteration style throughout, but have used anglicised versions of regal names (e.g. Alexander rather than Aleksandr). Numbered citations from Russian archives adhere to the standard fond/opisʹ/delo format; other archival citations give the collection reference followed by the file or box number. Although several collections consulted herein are arranged somewhat unsystematically, I have given page numbers in archival citations wherever possible. I have used the following abbreviations in the text and footnotes: ed. – edited by FR – Free Russia: Organ of the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom GARF – Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi federatsii, Moscow IISG – International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam LC MSS – Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, Washington DC LSE – Archives of the London School of Economics PSS / SS – Polnoe sobranie sochinenii / Sobranie sochinenii RGALI – Rossiiskii
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