sarah missett. siberia 77% of russia’s territory 25% of population most common climate:...
TRANSCRIPT
EXILE IN SIBERIA AND
DOSTOEVSKY
Sarah Missett
Siberia 77% of Russia’s Territory 25% of population Most common climate: continental
subarctic Rich in minerals
Exile in Siberia 19th Century: 1.2 million
exiled
Prisoners from Western Russia and Poland
Petty criminals to political opposition
Travel on foot- 3 years
High mortality rate
Exile in Siberia Cont. Hard labor: mined gold, silver, lead, salt, or worked on Trans-
Siberian Railway
“In summer, intolerable closeness; in winter, unendurable cold. All the floors were rotten. Filth on the floors an inch thick; one could slip and fall... We were packed like herrings in a barrel...”-Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky & Exile mock execution1849 Sentence commuted to 4 years hard labor in
Siberia Sent to prison camp
in Omsk “shut up in a coffin” Released to Siberian
Regiment in 1854
& served 5 years
Dostoevsky after Exile Embraced Rustic Russia More religious Rejected: Western-European Philosophy, Nihilism,
Socialism, Supported conservatism &
Pochvyennichyestvo movement
Dostoevsky’s Work After Exile Suffering, despair, humility,
submission House of the Dead No Western Style Works: dark, complex,
brooding/tortured characters Existential Themes
Crime and Punishment Siberia :pg.296, 391, 407, 416, 420 “…a criminal charge, involving an element of fantastic and
homicidal brutality for which he might well have been sentenced to Siberia...”(296)
Andrey Semyonovitch (Lebeziatnikov)
-Utopia is unrealistic
Claustrophobia
“The heat in the streets was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle, and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him…”(2)
Sonia-religious
-story of Lazarus“suffer and expiate your sin by it, that’s what you must do”(416)