Where Is Poland? | Deportation

Chapter 4

Deportation

Many Poles were also deported from the country. In Tsarist Russia, a common punishment for dissident political activity was exile to Siberia, which was then called the 'world's largest prison'. Throughout the period of partitions, subsequentgenerations of rebels and conspirators experienced Siberian exile.

Jacek Malczewski, Sunday in a Mine, 1882. Source: Wikicommons

A long way to prison

Banishment for rebelling against the authorities had been a well-known punishment at least since the Assyrian Empire and Babylonia, which exiled members of their elites, as well as entire nations.

Such deportations to distant eastern regions of the country were also commonly used in Tsarist Russia – both in criminal and political cases. In Russian-held Poland, deportation was a typical punishment for inciting political upheaval, such as national uprisings, but also for involvement in conspiracies or any sort of secret society. A person could be exiled both by a court verdict or by an administrative decision.

Serving such punishment began with a long journey. Poles being marched (or transported) to Siberia had to cover a total of 12,000-16,000 kilometres. In the nineteenth century, there were way-stations situated every 30 kilometres, the daily march distance. Such a journey could last even as long as two years. After the journey – as it was said – 'the labour camp came as a relief'. Brandes:

The journey on foot is one of the most painful portions of the period of punishment. From Kiev to Tobolsk it takes a year; to the Nerchinsk mines in the department of Irkutsk more than two years.

When they arrived, depending on their sentence, the exiles served a punishment consisting in resettlement with their families, enforced residence, imprisonment, conscription into the army of the Russian Empire, or – in the worst case – the punishment of katorga: hard, forced labour, for example in a mine. The severity of the sentences of such convicts varied – from several years up to life sentences – but they usually did not serve their full sentence, instead being released under an amnesty. Still, they rarely regained full freedom – most often they were ordered to live in a designated place.

Russia in Asia, a British map printed in London, post 1855. Photo: Polona.pl

Where is Siberia?

Siberia is the Asian portion of the Russian Empire, stretching between the Ural Mountains, the Pacific Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, and the Altai Mountains. At an early stage in the formation of the Russian state, this huge and diverse geographic area, inhabited by various indigenous peoples (e.g. Buryats, Ostyaks, Samoyeds, Yakuts, Chukchi), became a place of forced deportation for captives, criminals and eventually political prisoners. At the same time, the Russian authorities were interested in the colonisation of Siberia – which is why whole groups of Russian peasants were also resettled to the Far East in the nineteenth century.

In Polish, however, the word 'Sybir' came to have a meaning more symbolic than geographic – it denoted any place of exile to the east, not just Siberia proper, and so it could refer to the northern districts of European Russia, to the Ural Mountain area, to Kazakhstan, and even to the Caucasus region.

As one of the exiles, Bronisław Piłsudski, wrote:

The name of Siberia, which the occupying government continuously used to frighten the disobedient, has become a common threat understandable to every Pole. It has entered Polish poetry, taking the place of the ancient Tartarus, or of Dante's hell from the Middle Ages.

It is this role – that of Golgotha, of a Polish hell – that Siberia plays in the Polish literature of the Romantic period: it appears as such in Mickiewicz's Dziady [Forefathers’ Eve] Part III and Słowacki's Anhelli – as well as in nineteenth century painting (Malczewski, Sochaczewski, Grottger). Słowacki wrote in his Kordian:

Like a compas turns to the north, Poland looks to frosty Siberia

At the same time – somewhat contrary to Siberia’s sinister reputation – many exiles were able to use their gloomy time of banishment to become distinguished researchers, travellers, scientists, and entrepreneurs. Thereby, the Poles contributed to the development of civilisation in Siberia. After their release, some of them even decided to stay there to live, conduct scientific activity or to do business. For them, Siberia became an adopted homeland.

Jacek Malczewski, Deportation of Students, 1904. Source: Wikicommons

200 years of katorga

The first Poles – about 4500 of them – were exiled to Siberia in 1621. In 1768-1769, most of the exiles were members of the 'Confederacy of Bar', an armed union established to defend Poland’s independence and the Catholic faith. One of them, Maurycy Beniowski, became famous for his daring escape by sea, all the way to France.

Siberia was likewise the place of exile for many participants of the successive Polish independence uprisings – the Kościuszko Insurrection (1794), Napoleon's Russian Campaign (1812), the November Uprising (1830), as well as all other patriotic conspiracies. The Poles continued the conspiratorial and insurrectionist tradition even in exile. After the November Uprising, Polish exiles in Siberia established the Omsk Conspiracy (1833), and in 1866 they led the Baikal Insurrection – both movements they were brutally pacified.

But the greatest number of Poles were exiled to Siberia as a part of the repressions in the wake of the January Uprising (1863). Researchers estimate that in 1863-1865, some 18,000 to 20,000 people were banished there, with about four thousand of them being sentenced to katorga (hard, forced labour). Among those only some returned to the country.

Still Poland, as Brandes observed, was brimming with former deportees:

The next evening in a not very large room, more than two hundred years of Siberia were collected. There were not a few men who had spent from 1861-1883 there.

Another large wave of deportations came as a result of the turmoil after the Revolution of 1905 – about 10,000 people were then exiled, one-quarter of them members of the Polish Socialist Party. The number of exiles increased significantly for the last time just before World War I, in 1911-1912.

It is estimated that on the eve of the outbreak of World War I there were about 150,000 Poles in Siberia, both free settlers and exiles.