Sixteen years in Siberia

he himself uses in Western Europe; but he is called "Deuc" in the English version of Stepniak's Underground Russia, which was translated from the Italian, ret

volume of the painful and tragic events that took place in the political prisons at Kara after Mr. Kennan had left the Russian Empire was written to him by, among others, a friend resident in Kara at the time, whose letter he published in his book. In it are also to be found additional particulars concerning the earlier or

ry of the Russian revolutionary movement if I give here a rough s

English people would consider a very mild form, were not liable to persecution, and this traditional attitude of repression and coercion had the inevitable result. Even early in the eighteenth century secret societies had come into being, but these were mostly of the various religious sects or of the Freemasons. When they

age fashionable, and thus had opened a way for the importation of new philosophical, scientific, and political literature, eagerly appreciated by the developing acuteness of the Russian mind. Literary influence, even the purely romantic, has throughout ranged itself on the side of

mere literary societies of the early forties were considered seditious, and their members were punished with imprisonment and deat

Bakounin, and Tchernishevsky, whose writings were the inspiration of the party, and even influenced for a time the Tsar himself. But the emancipation of the serfs, on February 19th, 1861, bitterly disappointed those who had hoped great things of the new monarch, and who saw from the way in which this and other liberal measures were e

, were met with the savage punishments of martial law, viiiimprisonment, exile, death. In face of a new enactment, which had professed to give fair trial to all accused

e. Our author here takes up the story with his account of the Propagandist movement, which was peaceful, except in so far as it aimed at stirring up the peasants to demand reform; for, in the absence of any constitutional methods for expressing their desires, this could only be effected by organi

e-honoured policy, in the dragooning of Russia proper; the attempted Russification of Finland; and the deliberate fostering by the Government of anti-Semitism, with the covert design of counteracti

m political consciousness, are being awakened by the inevitable development of industry to a sense of their duties and their rights. A genuine labour movement has arisen, whi

rty; associated with the latter being the powerfully organised social-democratic "General Jewish Labour union of Lithuania, Poland, and Russia," usually known as the "Bund." Of these the Revolutionary Socialists alone still adhere to the practice of terrorism in a modified form, and even they have always proclaimed their intention of abandoning it directly "constitutional" methods are allowed to th

owever, became imbued with the prevailing spirit of the bureaucracy; its members shut their eyes to the official corruption everywhere prevalent, and they have since confined their attention to unearthing "political" delinquencies. The force has at least one representative in every town of any size, and it has a vaguely defined roving commission to watch and arrest all persons who appear to be suspicious characters; these may be kep

the dvornik or concierge, though paid by the inmates of the house, is appointed subject to the approval of the police, and is responsible to them. He keeps the keys, and is bound to deliver them up to the police whenever they may take it

nary occasions as a wedding or funeral, if many students or such-like "untrustworthy" people are of the party. When a town or district is under martial l

to private persons-though the latter, again, are by no means free to choose their reading, many authors being entirely prohibited within the empire; and whole columns of newspapers, including foreign ones that have come through the post, are blacked out by order of the censor. Private debating so

st everyone in Russia, outside official circles, is more or less in league against the bureaucratic government. The countenance, and even financial support, afforded to the revolutionists, not only by sympathisers in free countries, but by the general public at home, is one great source of their strength. They are willingly assisted in evading arrest and in escaping fro

reproductions of photo

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y, 1903.