A Prison Without Walls?: Eastern Siberian Exile in the Last Years of Tsarism

A Prison Without Walls? presents a snapshot of daily life for exiles and their dependents in eastern Siberia during the very last years of the Tsarist regime, from the 1905 revolution to the collapse of the Tsarist regime in 1917. Siberian exile was the antithesis of Foucault’s modern prison. The State did not observe, monitor, or control its exiles closely, often not even knowing where they were. Exiles were free to govern their daily lives; free of fences, and free from close observation and supervision, but despite these freedoms, Siberian exile represented one of Russia’s most feared punishments. In this volume, Sarah Badcock seeks to humanise the individuals who made up the mass of exiles, and to give a personal, human, empathetic insight into what their punishment entailed. By unravelling the threads that constituted exilic experience, we are able to comprehend why eastern Siberia was regarded as a terrible punishment, despite its apparent freedoms.