POLITICAL EXILE TO THE NORTH OF SIBERIA: MAIN DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN THE XVIII – EARLY XX CENTURY
M.V. Shilovskiy1,2
1Institute of History SB RAS, 8, Nikolaeva Str., Novosibirsk, 630090
2Novosibirsk National Research State University, 2, Pirogova Str., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
Keywords: political exiles, northern areas of Siberia, the Decembrists, the Narodniks, social democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, escapes, armed protest
Abstract
The 18th century Russia witnessed massive exile of political opponents and members of political elites to the empire’s remote areas following their power struggle and defeat in the court intrigues. In regard to the northern areas of Siberia until the early nineteenth century such exile was selective and preventative; for the majority of the repressed persons it ended in the exiles’ deaths (A.D. Menshikov, A.G. Dolgorukiy, M.G. Golovkin, K.A. Mengden et al.). The area under study had virtually never been used as a place of exile for the Decembrists and participants of the Polish uprising in 1830-1831. Since 1860s the exile to the North became relatively massive, although it had its limitations in terms of the number of exiles who were to serve the sentence. Exile was used for the Narodniks, participants of the 1863 Polish uprising, Social Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, anarchists, members of the radical ethnic organizations. In the Yakutsk Oblast deportation of “politicals” was punitive in character. The most radical means of the political exiles’ struggle against the political regime and custodial conditions were escapes and armed protests the last of which (Turukhansk revolt in late 1908 - early 1909) turned into a robbery and armed conflict. Exile to the Arctic zone was aimed at isolation of revolutionaries without burdening them with manual labor.
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