SOME DETAILS OF THE PRISON’S HISTORY—THE “TOM-CAT”—THE “SANHEDRIN’S
ROOM”—MY FIRST SIBERIAN SPRING
In conversation with those who had been imprisoned at Kara for some time
one often heard the expressions: “That was before the May days,” or,
“That happened after the 11th of May.” This mode of reckoning time had
become current among us; everybody knew the story of the “May days,”
which had been an epoch in the prison life of Kara, just as the
“February days” had been a turning-point in French history. All that lay
behind the “May days” was a sort of golden age, and after them came a
time of storm and stress, years of gloom and misery. I will briefly
narrate the story of these events.
The Kara prison for political offenders dates from the year 1880. Before
that time “politicals” were not confined in a special gaol, but in one
among a great number of such prisons in this penal district, where along
the River Kara are many gold-washing settlements, the private property
of the Tsar—or “property of His Majesty’s Cabinet,” as it is officially
termed. The “politicals,” like the ordinary prisoners, had to wash gold
for the Lord of All the Russias; but the work was not hard, and they
rather enjoyed it. It was at any rate pleasanter and more wholesome to
work for a few hours in the fresh air than to vegetate in prison. At
that time the “politicals” enjoyed the same privileges as the ordinary
convicts; _e.g._ they had better rations than were subsequently given
them, they might correspond with their relations, and at the expiration
of their appointed sentences they were allowed to settle in the “free
colony” outside the prison. The “politicals” were not dissatisfied with
this state of things; but in December, 1880, the then Minister of the
Interior, Count Loris Melikov, ordered that they should no longer be
allowed in the penal colony. Shortly after this was made known one of
the prisoners, a graduate of the Petersburg University, named
Semyanovsky, took his own life, leaving a letter to his father, in which
he declared that the idea of being permanently shut up in prison had
driven him to commit suicide.
This cruel decree came at a time when the political movement was
particularly strong, and we were believed to be on the eve of a great
upheaval; news of revolutionary doings, though much delayed, reached the
ears of the prisoners in distant Kara, and naturally made the yearning
for liberty more fervent than ever. Some of those who still had a long
term of punishment to suffer resolved on flight; but not till May, 1882,
was it found possible to execute their plans, and the work at the mines
to which they were daily led furnished them with the opportunity. It was
arranged that two men were to escape each night; and by common consent
the first to go was Myshkin,[89] a well-known revolutionist, who chose
as his companion one of the most able of his comrades, a working-man
named Nicholas Hrùstchov.[90] These two got away successfully, and to
conceal their disappearance their comrades made dummies which they laid
in their places on the bed-shelves when the roll was called.
Galkin-Vrassky, the head of the Prisons Department, was just at that
time visiting the prisons of Kara, accompanied by the Governor,
Iliashèvitch; but nothing was discovered, though the fugitives were
already well on their eastern journey, nearing the shore of the Pacific.
After a few days a second couple escaped in the same manner, and as
successfully, and then a third pair. But as the last man of a fourth
pair was making off, the sentry fired and alarmed the watch; the shot
missed, but the absence of eight prisoners was discovered. That was on
May 11th, 1882; Galkin-Vrassky and Iliashèvitch were still in Kara, and
the presence of their chiefs fired the local authorities to special
exertions in following up the fugitives; six were soon captured,[91]
only the first two remaining at large.
Footnote 89:
Sentenced in 1873 to ten years’ penal servitude, in the “Case of the
193,” for armed resistance in an attempted rescue of Tchernishevsky
from Viluisk in Yakutsk. Myshkin also received a further fifteen
years, because at the burial of a comrade, Dmohovsky, he delivered a
funeral oration in the prison chapel.
Footnote 90:
Sentenced in the Popov trial in Kiëv to fifteen years’ penal
servitude.
Footnote 91:
Moses Dihovsky, fifteen years’ penal servitude; Levtchenko, fifteen;
Andreas Balamutz, twenty; Kratzenovsky, Yurhovsky, and Minyukov, all
for life.
Reprisals were at once taken against the other political prisoners; some
were conveyed in small parties to different prisons, and treated with
terrible severity on the way; the Kara prison was rebuilt, the large
common rooms being each converted into three cells so small that one
could scarcely turn round in them; while within a special enclosure a
building was erected with narrow cells for solitary confinement, wherein
some of the revolutionists were incarcerated. All books and other
possessions were taken from the “politicals”; they were allowed no food
except that provided by the State; and were subjected to so many
hardships and privations that they unanimously resolved to put an end to
their lives by refusing to eat; and only when they were at death’s door
were some concessions made by the authorities.
Myshkin and Hrùstchov were for some time lucky in evading detection.
They got as far as Vladivostock, and were in the act of seeking safety
on board a foreign vessel when they were recognised as the long-sought
fugitives, and captured. All sacrifices had been vain, and the prisoners
of the mighty Tsar were once more secured in the Kara prison, which had
meanwhile undergone further changes. The “politicals” were separated
from the ordinary convicts, and the male and female divisions of the
political prison placed under the control of the gendarmerie. Koros, a
staff officer of gendarmes, was sent from Petersburg and installed as
commandant; and a number of inferior officers of gendarmerie were made
warders. The whole system was at the same time completely altered; the
workshops were removed, and the prisoners forced to remain idle; they
were not allowed to leave the precincts of the gaol, and correspondence
with their friends was forbidden. Moreover, as has been said elsewhere,
thirteen of their number were despatched to the Fortress of Peter and
Paul and thence to Schlüsselburg, where now (1902) only one of them
survives.
During the four years that had elapsed since the “May days” there had
been four changes of commandant. One of these gentlemen had been
superseded and sent to Yakutsk for appropriating to his own private uses
one thousand roubles of money sent to the prisoners. Each change of
commandant meant some modification of arrangements, and thus by degrees
various small improvements were made, among others the breaking down of
the partition walls in the rooms; while, in consequence of an appeal
made by a prisoner’s influential relations, the Loris Melikov order was
finally annulled, and “politicals” were once more allowed to reside in
the penal colony when their proportion of years in prison was past. The
legal regulations concerning the latter privilege were as follows: in
the fulfilment of all hard-labour (or “katorga”) sentences the first one
or two years—according to the length of the sentence—are called
“probation time”; the remaining years are called “time of alleviation,”
and in them every ten months count as a year. In this way, for example,
my thirteen years and four months became eleven years and five months;
and being sentenced on October 12th, 1884, I should finish my term in
February, 1896. The entire “probation time” and two or three years of
the “time of alleviation” must be spent in prison; but after that the
law provided that the prisoner should be allowed to reside in the
“colony,” under police supervision, instead of within the prison walls.
Such partially freed prisoners might take up their abode in some house
assigned to them, or built by themselves; but they were subject to the
rules and regulations laid down for the convicts residing there,
ordinary and political alike. It was a great matter to be no longer
cooped up day and night in a common room of the prison; the
“politicals”—people of culture and refinement—appreciated this
particularly, and the withdrawal of the privilege had been a terrible
deprivation. The greater, therefore, was the rejoicing when, two years
after the “May days,” the new commandant, Captain Burlei, who had
succeeded the thief Manayev, informed the captives in the political
prison of Kara that some time previously a resolution of the senate had
rescinded the adverse decree. The dishonest Manayev had suppressed the
document proclaiming this, that he might the more easily continue to
conceal his malpractices. Captain Burlei immediately proposed to the
governor of the district that steps should be taken forthwith for the
release from prison and internment in the “colony” of all those who had
become entitled to that right. Before this could be arranged, however,
the humane commandant was replaced by Nikolin, who would only allow the
new rules to come into force under certain restrictions. The senate had
made their decision; the law was there, and must be complied with; but
by “administrative methods” he continued to limit its operations.
Captain Nikolin was a malicious, small-minded man, always on the
look-out for ways of annoying the prisoners; and now, on the pretence
that he had not a strong enough force of gendarmes to supervise the
“colony,” he asked that instead of releasing all who were entitled to
the privilege, only fifteen persons at a time should be set free. His
excuse was groundless, for under the circumstances the same force of
gendarmes could have equally well controlled the greater or smaller
number of “colonists”; but of course the wish of the commandant was
acceded to, and it thus came about that those who should have obtained
the right of living outside the prison had often to wait years until
there was a vacancy, and even then there might be a dozen candidates for
it, from among whom Nikolin arbitrarily selected a recipient of the
favour. Of course this curtailment of their rights earned Nikolin the
ardent dislike of the prisoners; and his conduct was such as continually
to aggravate that sentiment anew.
I had an opportunity of seeing this man soon after being placed under
his charge. He often came into the prison—into the corridor, that is,
for he never entered the rooms. He might have been nearly fifty-five,
rather big, with an imposing “corporation”; his broad round face,
cunning little eyes, and bristling moustache, gave him the look of a
fat, spiteful old tom-cat, and he was always designated by that
nickname. The expression of his eyes was particularly catlike; he looked
as if just ready to pounce on a victim and stick his claws into it. He
always spoke in a low voice, this “tom-cat”; but he chattered
unceasingly, and kept smacking his lips all the time, his expression
being always peevish and discontented. When he visited the prison he
generally remained for some time standing by our _stàrosta_, who would
be busy beside his big chest; and Nikolin would talk away, quite
regardless whether his conversation were agreeable to the listener or
not. During these endless monologues he would brag and boast in the most
inflated way. Could we have accepted his own account of his exploits, he
would by this time have been at least a general. He had begun his career
during the sixties under Mouravièv, the oppressor of Vilna, and he would
recount the inestimable services he had rendered at that epoch. Yet he
was still only a captain! Possibly an excess of zeal had spoiled his
prospects; at any rate, he used to relate the following story of what
had happened to him in Kara. He had once addressed a communication to
the governor of the province, asking this highly important question:
“When the floor of a room was being scrubbed, and the prisoners were
consequently turned out into the corridor, should the warder take them
into another room or not?”
“Imagine!” the “tom-cat” would cry. “The answer I received was this:
‘Arrange the matter for yourself according to Paragraph 13 of the
instructions.’” Now the instructions only contained twelve paragraphs,
but the irony of the rejoinder never struck Nikolin, and he continued to
fuss on every occasion over any sort of trifle. He seemed, too, to think
that his position as commandant of the political prisoners did not give
him enough scope for grumbling, but poked his nose into everything that
went on in the district of Kara. Once, indeed, he did actually succeed
in discovering a series of thefts from the coffers of the State. There
was a certain Major Pohùlov, governor of the ordinary convicts’ prison
(with whom Mr. Kennan stayed during his visit to Kara). One fine day a
storehouse under his charge, supposed to contain some thousands of poods
of grain for the prisoners’ use, was burnt down. Now grain stored in
great heaps does not burn away, but simply gets roasted; yet on this
occasion there was no trace of it to be found, the gallant major having
had a little deal with the purveyor, and then, with the help of his
subordinates, having arranged that the warehouse should be burnt down in
the nick of time.
Probably this transaction would have remained in the dark, like many
others of the kind, had not our “tom-cat” taken the matter up and by his
denunciations forced the Government to appoint a commission of inquiry
on which he himself served.
He then revealed the full range of his talents, and brought to the light
of day a whole system of robbery and fraud. The “hospitable gentleman,”
as Kennan described Major Pohùlov (and indeed so he was), had had more
than one device for enriching himself at the State’s expense. For
instance, hundreds of prisoners figured on his list who had long since
either been released or had escaped, and for these “ghosts” he had
regularly charged his books with clothing and food allowances, whilst he
and the purveyor had fraternally shared the money between them. This man
was dismissed from his office, but was never brought to justice, as he
had influential friends who shielded him.
* * * * *
Although my comrades in the “nobles’ room” were most sympathetic
companions to me, I had a great wish to be transferred to the room
inhabited by my friend Stefanòvitch, and permission for this had to be
asked of the “tom-cat.” He at first refused it, on the excuse that he
must get the governor’s sanction; but I heard in a roundabout way that
he pretended to fear lest if Stefanòvitch and I got together we might
manage to escape. This was arrant nonsense, as since the gendarmes had
had charge of the prison there had been no faintest possibility of
escaping from it; but the “tom-cat” had to find some pretext or other
for tormenting us. A few weeks later he finally gave his consent, and I
became my friend’s “chum” in the “Sanhedrin room.”
The whole aspect of life in this apartment differed materially from that
in the “nobles’ room.” A good many of the inmates were artisans, and
some of the others had a turn for manual work, in consequence of which
the room had quite the look of a workshop. The possession of tools was
forbidden, but they had them notwithstanding, though nothing of the kind
was ever to be seen when an inspection took place. These inspections,
though minute, were “superficial,” as the gendarmerie expressed it; that
is, we were never personally searched, so we simply put our tools in our
pockets when the inspection began.
Some of our workmen were past masters in their craft. Hrùstchov, a hero
of the “May days,” was one of these, and another proficient was the
locksmith Bubnovsky. With scraps of iron, old nails, and such-like he
made a tiny lathe that could go into his pocket. With this little lathe
he fashioned all the parts of a clock, and, though he had never been a
watchmaker, produced a most artistic timepiece, that later found place
in a Siberian museum. Almost all kinds of handiwork were carried on in
our workshop, many of them having been learned entirely from books.
Patience and endurance—lessons taught by prison life—had fruitful
results when applied to such ends; and the theoretical studies that were
undertaken, one comrade learning from another, also profited by those
qualities. Knowledge was eagerly sought after in this room, and the
_quondam_ students helped the working-men. Yatzèvitch and Zlatopòlsky
came there every day to give instruction in mathematics and natural
science; Fomitchov occupied the chair of Russian languages, and so on.
On this account our room was sometimes called “the Academy.”
Among the workmen a certain Karl Ivanein interested me much. By birth a
Finn, but thoroughly Russified, his passion was for the finer branches
of literature, and in these he was very well read. He was an
enthusiastic adherent of Tolstoi’s teaching, and any hostile criticism
of that sage stung his proselyte to eager defence. His was a highly
gifted but eccentric character: soon after I became acquainted with him
he was released from prison and sent to live in the penal settlement,
where in a very little while he committed suicide.
Fomin and Fomitchov were noted among the other students in our room for
their determined industry. Fomin I had known in Switzerland, where he
had lived for some time as a refugee. He had been an officer of
infantry; was arrested for making propaganda among the soldiers, and
imprisoned in Vilna, but escaped by the help of a comrade. He could not
long endure to remain abroad, and returned to Russia, where he managed
to conceal himself for a time, but was arrested in 1882 in Petersburg
and condemned to twenty years’ penal servitude. While in Kara he
occupied himself with the study of natural science, particularly
mineralogy.
Of Fomitchov I had heard much, as a very active revolutionist, but had
never met him before. The son of a poor sacristan, he had studied in
Odessa, where in 1877 he was arrested, and charged before a
court-martial with making propaganda among soldiers; but even under
martial law it was found impossible to convict him, and he was set free
amid the applause of the onlookers, who gave both him and his counsel a
perfect ovation. Soon afterwards, however, he was again imprisoned, and
was condemned together with Lisogùb, Tchubàrov, and others, his sentence
being penal servitude for life. In consequence of his attempted escape
while on the journey, which I have already mentioned,[92] he was chained
to the wheelbarrow[93] for a year. He busied himself with historical
studies, more especially in Russian history, and had read a great deal
on that subject; but unfortunately our library was one-sided in this
branch, and only provided him with voluminous and rather out-of-date
works, such as those of Schlosser, Weber, Mommsen, Soloviev, and
Kostomarov. It may have been partly owing to the bias of these guides,
partly to some odd twist in his own mind, but anyhow our friend
Fomitchov—a clever and extremely painstaking student, an excellent
comrade, and a man of strong character generally—came to adopt most
extraordinary views for a political prisoner. He was not only an ardent
patriot and Russsophil; but also—which seemed especially
incomprehensible—an extreme monarchist, and a passionate upholder of the
Romanov dynasty! A political offender, a convict for life, yet a fanatic
for Russian absolutism: a strange combination, truly! If a man holding
such opinions had petitioned for pardon it would have seemed only
logical; not one of us would have seen anything dishonourable in his
taking such a step, but Fomitchov abstained from doing so. He persisted
in the curious view that it was his duty to abide his fate and wear out
his life in a Siberian prison, as expiation of his rebellion against the
Tsar, of whose wise policy for the government of his subjects Fomitchov
had now not the slightest doubt. It might have been confidently asserted
that among all the courtiers and dignitaries surrounding him, Alexander
III. had no more loyal and devoted adherent than this political convict
in Kara prison. The most unjust and cruel ukase of the Tsar’s Government
found in Fomitchov a defender who could always discover therein some
salutary principle intended to promote the welfare of the people. That
people he loved beyond everything, even to the sacrificing of his own
life, if need were; and therefore was he compelled to be for ever
attempting the theoretical reconciliation of governmental Tsarism with
the people’s good. Any attack on the Tsar incensed him to such a degree
that he would often break off all intercourse with anyone who made His
Majesty the object of hostile comment. Many of us seriously doubted if
the man could rightly be considered sane.
Footnote 92:
See note, page 189.
Footnote 93:
This punishment consists in fastening a wheelbarrow by chains to the
prisoner so that he is obliged to push it about with him wherever he
goes; and even when he wishes to sleep he must contrive to hoist it
into such a position as will render lying down possible.—_Trans._
Naturally Fomitchov stood alone in this exaggeration of royalist
enthusiasm, but as a Russophil he found many sympathisers. A certain
number among us were firmly persuaded that Russian social and domestic
conditions were far superior to those of Western Europe, and disputes
about this supposed Russian perfection were endless; they were the
occasion of many a wager, and not infrequently caused serious
estrangements between friends, or—as our double-Dutch expressed
it—“climatic disturbances.” This strange belief in the superiority of
backward Russia was a ruling craze of the time in our country. The
entire progressive press was Russophil in that sense; and the tendency
had manifested itself even in Socialist literature, in the passionate
insistence that, Russian conditions being perfectly different from those
of any other country, the revolutionary struggle must proceed on
essentially distinct lines. I must confess that I was often pained to
hear men suffering for their convictions giving vent to opinions so
strongly resembling the arguments of hardened reactionaries.
One of the most strenuous advocates of these views in our room was a man
who—strange to say—bore the reputation of being among the ablest in the
prison. Nicholas Posen had been a village school-teacher who had taken
no specially active part in the revolutionary movement, but had chanced
to participate in armed resistance to the gendarmerie at Kiëv, and had
been brought to trial in consequence, together with Maria Kovalèvskaya
and others. He had been condemned to fourteen years and ten months’
“katorga,” subsequently increased by another fourteen years, for an
attempt to escape from prison in Irkutsk. He was well educated and
intelligent, but he had no political convictions worth mentioning. He
had a passion for argument, and would discuss anything and everything by
the hour, always ready to prove any given proposition, and seizing any
pretext for a debate—a philosophical problem, or any everyday trifle.
Serious study was not his forte, and his everlasting chatter disturbed
others at their work; hardly had his eyes opened in the morning before
his tongue was set in motion, and it never rested all day long.
A favourite theme with him was speculation about the day’s food: “What
do you think we shall have for supper to-night?” he would ask,
buttonholing somebody; “I am sure they are making ‘everyone-likes-it.’”
“Perhaps; but perhaps it is mince and groats,” his interlocutor might
say, just to please him by falling in with his humour. Then Posen’s
tongue would be loosened, and he would prove his important point beyond
question, giving all his reasons; he would dilate on it for half an
hour, and would wind up with, “Will you back your opinion?”
“All right, we’ll have something on it; what shall it be?”
“Three matches!” cries Posen; everyone laughs; and he himself seems
thoroughly pleased with his joke. He had at bottom a vain and petty
spirit, and showed later that he could come to any compromise with the
authorities in order to satisfy his own small desires.
* * * * *
Deficiency and poverty of nourishment soon affected my health, although
I had all my life hitherto been thoroughly robust. After a few months I
felt a weakness in the legs, and could no longer hold myself upright;
then black and blue patches made their appearance on the skin of my
legs, my gums began to suppurate, and my teeth became loose. I betook
myself to our medical adviser, Prybylyev.
“Hullo, my friend, you have got a beautiful attack of scurvy!” said he;
“you’ve been quick about it.” He ordered me invalid diet, and I was
given a daily cutlet with plenty of garlic. I was not the only one to
suffer in this way from the insufficient feeding; next spring a number
of us were victims to the same disease, and, strangely enough, it was
always the strongest and healthiest who succumbed. Improved diet and the
skill of our good Prybylyev soon tided me over the worst; after a while
I could walk once more without crutches, my gums healed, and soon I
could dispense with invalid food. For a long time, however, I felt the
after-effects of my illness.
I have a keen recollection of my first spring in Kara. I was overcome by
an indescribable yearning and longing that made the burden of the
aimless, senseless life within prison walls lie like a leaden weight on
my spirits, in face of the new life of nature springing up so freely all
around. Even reading, almost the sole occupation I could invent for
myself outside the daily work, was impossible. The letters danced before
my eyes; no sense of what I had read remained in my mind; memory failed
me; and my fancy alone worked untiringly. In any case mental exertion
under the conditions of prison life has but little result in proportion
to the time and energy expended; the physical state of the prisoner
reacts on his mind, dulling his faculties and weakening his resolution.
But in the spring-time, when every living thing revives and asserts
itself in action, it is hardly possible to resist distraction from
merely mental labour.
Our prison lay in the trough of a valley between ranges of hills, and
from the yard these hills could be seen by us. There was very scanty
vegetation on those Siberian heights; yet in spring they appeared to us
like a distant Paradise that beckoned irresistibly. Close by we had only
the well-trodden courtyard, where not even a blade of grass peeped
forth, the black weather-stained wooden walls of the prison buildings,
and the tall posts of the stockade; our eyes dwelt on the farther
prospect, and we pictured to ourselves the delight of treading on soft
turf under the shade of trees.
We petitioned our “tom-cat” for leave to plant a garden in the yard;
there was space enough, the work would have been beneficial, and then we
might have had vegetables for our table, the deficiency in which
particular had been so detrimental to our health. The “tom-cat” roundly
refused. “We should need spades,” he said, “and they might be used to
dig a hole whereby to get away.” So, again, when one of us was sent some
flower-seeds and sowed them in a wooden box, the box was taken away by
Nikolin’s orders: the earth in it might have served to conceal some
contraband article. Such needless tyrannies embittered us still more
against the detested commandant. However peaceably we might otherwise
have been inclined, our hatred of this man might well have blazed out at
any opportunity; he himself probably guessed as much, for he became more
and more mistrustful, at last never entering our prison. He felt that he
had made enemies all round him, and sat lonely in his own house, or
squabbled with his cook, afraid to show himself outside. It may be a
matter of surprise that one of his many enemies did not find a way to
put an end to him, that being a not unusual course of events in Kara;
but finally he could endure such a life no longer, and applied to be
transferred elsewhere. In the spring of 1887 his application was
granted, and he departed, accompanied by the anathemas of the entire
population of Kara.