1st Edition

Russia's Sakhalin Penal Colony, 1849–1917 Imperialism and Exile

By Andrew A. Gentes Copyright 2021
606 Pages 30 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

606 Pages 30 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

606 Pages 30 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book provides a comprehensive history of the genesis, existence, and demise of Imperial Russia’s largest penal colony, made famous by Chekhov in a book written following his visit there in 1890. Based on extensive original research in archival documents, published reports, and memoirs, the book is also a social history of the late imperial bureaucracy and of the subaltern society of... Read more

Introduction 1. The Busse Expedition, 1853–54 2. Far East Expansion, Coal, and Convicts 3. Transgressing Borders 4. The Collapse of Katorga and the Free Colonists 5. Establishing the Sakhalin Penal Colony 6. Desperate Times and the "Sakhalin" Company 7. A Contested Landscape and the GTU 8. The Volunteer Fleet 9. The 1880s 10. Political Exiles 11. Chekhov’s Island (Part 1) 12. Chekhov’s Island (Part 2) 13. Sakhalin and the Trans-Siberian Railroad 14. The Satrapy 15. The Runaway Penal Colony 16. The Ministry of Justice Takes Over 17. A Demography of the Sakhalin Penal Colony 18. The Liapunov Administration 19. The Doctors’ Fight 20. Women, Children, and the Last Political Exiles 21. Sakhalin’s Prisons 22. The Penal Colony as International Cause Célèbre 23. Denouement Conclusion

 

 

Biography

Andrew A. Gentes earned his doctorate in history from Brown University and works as an independent scholar.