BY M. RUFIN PIETROWSKI. FOLLOWED BY A NARRATIVE OF RECENT EVENTS IN POLAND. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH. LONDON: LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN. 1863....

It has not been thought advisable to give these papers to the public without a few words of explanation to those readers who see them for the first time in an English dress. It may seem that the three parts of which the book is composed have little connection with each other, but this is not the case. Along with the story of a Polish Exile in Siberia will be found two chapters on the political aspects of Poland. The first of these contains an account of those measures and events by which the dis

SIBERIA—ADVENTURES OF BENIOWSKI—MADAME FELINSKA—M. RUFIN PIOTROWSKI. There is an expression in use in Poland which surpasses all that human eloquence has ever employed to give intensity to despair; it consists of the words ‘ we never meet again :’ and thus it is that any political exile, when about to depart for Siberia, takes leave of his family and of his friends; ‘ we never meet again! ’ for the only way in which an exile could find himself once more among those whom he loves would be for him

A PASSPORT—THE JOURNEY—THE RUSSIAN FRONTIER—KAMINIEÇ—A TEACHER OF LANGUAGES—ANNOYANCES OF DISGUISE—M. ABAZA—SUSPICIONS OF THE POLICE. I had long decided to take my departure for my native land, and was only occupied by the necessary preparations for it, when I fell suddenly sick in Paris. It was in the year 1842. I was received into the hospital of La Pitié , then under the direction of Baron Lisfranc, who had formerly served with Polish troops during the wars of the Empire, and who still preser

ARREST—EXAMINATION—MAJOR POLOUTKOVSKÏ—JOURNEY TO BRAÇLAW—AN ACCIDENT—THE PRISON AT BRAÇLAW—A RUSSIAN SCENE—KIOW. On December 31st, 1843, and just at the late dawning of the day, I felt myself shaken by the arm, and I was addressed in a loud voice by my assumed name. Though awake, I was in no hurry to reply; I wished to gain time to compose myself for my part. When at last I opened my eyes, I beheld in my room the Director of Police, Colonel Grunfield; a Commissary; and Major Poloutkovskoï, of th

THE FORTRESS AT KIOW—PRINCE BIBIKOV—EXAMINATION—A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY—A BIBLE—FELLOW-PRISONERS—THE MANIAC—PREPARATIONS FOR ‘DEPORTATION’—THE SENTENCE. Carried in the arms of several soldiers, I was first deposited in the business room of the Commandant of the place. Here I was searched, registered, and inscribed on the books; while they plied me with questions, to which I know not what answers I made, for I had no knowledge either of what I was doing or of what I was saying. They set me uprigh

THE KNOUT AND THE PLÈTE —RUNNING THE GAUNTLET—GANGS OF EXILES—GRAND-DUCHESS MARIE—THE JOURNEY—RUSSIAN ALMS—A ‘POPE’—THE RUSSIAN SOLDIER—OMSK—PRINCE GORTCHAKOV—EKATERINSKI-ZAVOD. To be exempt from corporal chastisement is one of the privileges of a Russian noble; and in cases of deportation a member of the nobility should not be obliged to make the journey on foot, or in a gang of convicts. This does not prevent the torture being applied to political prisoners, even when nobles, during the progre

COMPANIONS IN EXILE—THE ‘KATORGA’—A MURDERER—THE FELONS—KANTIER—PAY AND PUNISHMENTS—THE COUNTING-HOUSE. About ten o’clock of a cold morning, for it was now the 4th of October, I saw before me the outlines of a village composed of two hundred miserable houses, all built of wood, lying near the river Irtiche, and situated in a vast plain. Further back, upon a rising ground, and in the middle of a fir wood, the buildings of a factory were visible. This was Ekaterinski-Zavod. I was introduced into t

SIBERIA—HARDSHIPS OF DEPORTATION—BREAKING THE BAN—THE ABBÉ SIEROCINSKI—HIS CONSPIRACY—HIS EXECUTION. In this way I had mounted quickly from the lowest to the highest status to which a convict can rise in this establishment of ours on the banks of the Irtiche; and by the beginning of the year 1846 I might almost have fancied myself merely as a recruit of the omnipotent bureaucracy of Russia, sadly banished to these distant realms beneath an inhospitable sky. Very different was this time from the

AN ATTEMPTED FLIGHT—MY ROUTE—MY FUNDS—MY DRESS—THE SLEDGE—A RUSSIAN THEFT—THE JOURNEY—IRBITE—ON FOOT—A NIGHT’S LODGING—DANGER—COLD AND FAMINE—PAOUDA—THE IZBOUCHKA—THE CREST OF THE OURALS—LOST IN THE FOREST—SLEEP—ALMS—VÉLIKI-OUSTIONG. There had been passed by the Emperor Nicholas, in the autumn of the year 1845, a decree, which I have already referred to, and of which the object was to aggravate the condition of the exiles in Siberia, by tightening round them the fetters which time and custom had

PILGRIMAGES—THE BOHOMOLETS—MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN VÉLIKI-OUSTIONG—ON THE DVINA—ARCHANGEL. Long, however, before reaching Véliki-Oustiong I had decided upon the part which it now behoved me to play. As I had been a commercial traveller as far as Irbite, thence through all my wanderings in the Ourals I had called myself a workman looking for employment in the foundries at Bohotole, or in the salt works at Solikamsk. But I had no sooner left the last-named town behind me than I gradually assumed th

THE MONASTERY OF SOLOVETSK—THE PRISONER OF SOLOVETSK—HETERODOXY AND ORTHODOXY—THE PROMONTORY—A FURTHER JOURNEY. I did not go as far as the monastery of Solovetsk, but I have collected a great number of details about that place of pilgrimage. In the White Sea, about 280 verstes to the westward of Archangel, there is a group of islands, and of these the largest bears the name of Solovetsk. Originally inhabited by the Fins, it was afterwards occupied by some intrepid trappers ( promylchlenniki ) of

THE MOUJIK’S PASSAGE—LITHUANIA—THE PRUSSIAN FRONTIER—KÖNIGSBERG—ARREST AND CAPTIVITY—BAIL—FLIGHT—ARRIVAL IN PARIS—THE END. A passage in the steamer from St. Petersburg to Riga does not furnish a subject replete with many features of travel, not even when the traveller is a Siberian exile, flying from the katorga . Yet I had one little adventure, for ocean certainly was hostile to me. Thanks, I suppose, to the stupefaction caused by sea-sickness, I suddenly found myself in the first-class cabin—a

The world is full of victimised races, to whose ill-fortune it becomes almost reconciled, since the marvellous discovery has been made that, at some time or another, these people may have deserved their fate; as if the strong, for their part, did not also commit faults; and as if, too, Justice went evermore hand in hand with Fortune. But whence, then, those crises of anarchy which are apparent, not only in a solitary instance, but in the most general relations? Whence those convulsions which mak

(April 1861-2.) For some years past we have witnessed one of the most affecting and instructive sights—the breaking up, if we may say so, of an order of events, where the confused and dispersed elements join again, as from some mysterious and invincible unity in themselves. That which once appeared impossible becomes a startling reality, and perspectives suddenly open themselves such as our generation would hardly have allowed itself even to think of. We have seen public right itself, or that wh