Escapes of political and other convicts from Western Siberia are more
frequent than is generally supposed, but from Eastern Siberia, though
often attempted, they seldom succeed. Save for convicts under sentence
of penal servitude, and actually imprisoned, it is easy to elude
the vigilance of the police and get away from a convict village or
settlement, but it is almost impossible to get out of the country. The
immense distances to be traversed, the terrible climate, lack of money,
the absolute necessity of keeping to the high roads, prove, except in
very few instances, insuperable obstacles to final success. In order
to be really free, moreover, it is imperative for a fugitive not alone
to pass the frontier of European Russia, but to reach some country
where he runs no risk of falling into the clutches of the imperial
police. Even in Germany he is liable to be recaptured, and is really
safe only in England, France, or Switzerland. Hence, to make good a
flight from Eastern Siberia requires a conjuncture of so many favorable
and nearly impossible circumstances as to render a complete escape a
rare and remarkable event. But the incentives to escape are as great
as the obstacles to success. No life can be more horrible than that
of a political exile in the far east or far north of Siberia. Even at
Irkoutsk the mean temperature is fifty degrees below the freezing-point
of Réaumur; for many months of the year the sun in some parts of the
country shines but two or three hours in the twenty-four, and for days
together darkness covers the face of the land. A man untrained to
manual labor, or unacquainted with the arts of trapping and killing
wild animals and collecting peltry, turned adrift in the remoter parts
of Siberia, runs the risk of perishing of hunger and cold. A Russian
refugee, now at Geneva, tells that, during his sojourn in Eastern
Siberia, he spent the greater part of the long winter in bed, rising
only to swallow some rancid oil, the sole food he could obtain. To
escape from such a life as this a man will risk almost anything. Even
incarceration in a central prison, or the penal servitude of the mines,
can hardly be more terrible. The trouble is, that the way to freedom
lies through Western Siberia and Russia in Europe. The road south is
barred by the wild tribes that haunt the frontiers of Mongolia and
Manchuria, who either kill or give up to the Russians all the fugitives
that fall into their hands.
On the other hand, the escape of a prisoner or of a convict under
sentence of penal servitude is far more difficult than the flight of
an involuntary exile; the latter may leave when he will, the former
must either break out of prison or evade his guardians, and being soon
missed he runs great risk of being quickly recaptured. How, in one
instance at least, by boldness, address, presence of mind, and good
luck, the difficulties were overcome, the following narrative, related,
as nearly as possible, in Debagorio Mokrievitch's own words, will show.
Other fugitives, for instance Nicolas Lopatin, a gentleman now living
in Geneva, who escaped from Vercholensk in 1881, may have encountered
great hardships, but, being exiles at large, they were neither so soon
missed nor so quickly pursued. Debagorio was under sentence of penal
servitude, and the flight from Siberia of a man condemned to penal
servitude is almost unexampled. Even rarer than an escape is the true
account of one, related by the fugitive himself. Imaginary accounts
exist in plenty, but, so far as I am aware, no authentic personal
narrative of an escape from Eastern Siberia—at any rate in English or
French—has ever before been given to the world.
I first heard of Mokrievitch in May, 1881, a few days after his
arrival in Geneva, and through the kindness of Prince Krapotkine
obtained (and communicated to a London newspaper) a brief sketch of
his fellow-exile's adventures; but for certain reasons, that exist
no longer, it was not considered expedient to publish the full and
complete account which the reader will find in the following pages.