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)