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Table of Contents

The fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul—Political prisoners confined within its walls from an early date—Used by Peter the Great—The imprisonment of the author, Chernyshevski—Dmitri Pisarev—The Trubetzkoi Bastion—Kropotkin’s account of the prison—Leo Deutsch’s experiences there—The sad case of Netchaiev—Probability that he was flogged to death—Severity of the régime of the Alexis Ravelin—The fate of prisoners confined in Schlüsselburg unknown—The prison of Kiev—Leo Deutsch confined there—Succeeds in making his escape—Other escapes—Prison of Moscow—General depot for exiles about to embark for Siberia—Account of the journey to Siberia by train—Kindliness shown by the peasants—Food and gifts of clothing brought to the train for the exiles—The Red Cross League—The exiles’ begging song—Treatment of the “politicals”—Dastievich and the governor—Women revolutionists.

The government of the Czar was not slow to avail itself of the coercive means afforded by cellular confinement, and to use them especially against political offenders. At first these prisoners were distributed among the common criminal prisons such as that of Kharkov, and located, where the accommodation existed, in “secret” or solitary confinement cells. According to George Kennan, the secret cells in Siberian prisons were intended for persons accused of murder and other capital crimes. They had neither beds nor sleeping platforms and contained no furniture. Their occupants slept without pillows or bed clothing on the cold cement or stone floor, and during the day they had either to sit or lie on this floor, or to stand.

The politicals at Kara in Eastern Siberia lived under “dungeon conditions,” absolutely apart, breathing foul air continually, starving on bad and insufficient food and completely deprived of exercise. The need for separate prisons nearer home led presently to the adaptation of existing fortresses in or close to St. Petersburg, such as the St. Peter and St. Paul on the banks of the Neva, and the Schlüsselburg or “Castle of Stone-bags” on an island in Lake Ladoga, whose waters lap the base of its walls. The records of these formidable places of durance are made up of human suffering.

The first named, the “Petropaolovskaya,” is never mentioned by Russians without a shudder. It is stained indelibly with the imprint of appalling cruelty and savage ill-treatment. Its grim, gray bastions crouch low, flush with the water’s edge, opposite the imperial palace, and in full view of the great city. Within its extensive perimeter are included several fine buildings; the mint, the cathedral, the burial place of the reigning dynasty, military barracks and well filled arsenals, while the ordinary street traffic passes through it in the day time.

From its earliest days this fortress was the scene of murderous and cruel atrocities. Peter the Great used it recklessly when imposing his will upon the enslaved people; torture, the lash, horrible mutilations and death were continually inflicted within its gloomy walls. Peter is said to have executed his only son Alexis in this fortress. Defeated conspirators against autocracy constantly languished in its deep sunken dungeons or were thrown into the Neva from its battlements. Generations of unsuccessful revolutionists, during reign after reign, have eaten out their hearts here in lifelong imprisonment. Many of the “Dekabrists,” mostly nobles who rose against the Czar Nicholas in 1826, lingered in one of its cells for twelve years. Since then, numbers of hapless people, defeated in their vain efforts to compass freedom and liberal institutions for their country, have been imprisoned, neglected and forgotten in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul.

The fortifications of St. Peter and St. Paul cover an extent of three hundred acres. It is a five-sided or pentagonal work, constructed on the old-fashioned plan of Vauban, having six conventional bastions and two salient ravelins, one on the eastern and the other on the western front. To the northward, on the far side of the Neva, leading away from the city and partly overlooking the zoological gardens, is a crown work or hornwork of red brick built by Nicholas I. Various parts of the fortress have been appropriated for prison purposes. One of the most famous was the so-called “Courtine” of Catherine, connecting the south and west bastions, facing the Neva; the bastion on the west being known as the Trubetzkoi. This also became a famous prison, for when completed and opened, being newer, more spacious and safer, it largely replaced the Courtine, now no more than a place of detention for officers under arrest for breaches of discipline.

The Fortress of Peter and Paul,

The famous fortress of “Peter and Paul” is stained indelibly with the imprint of appalling cruelty and savage ill-treatment. Its grim, gray walls rise opposite the Imperial Palace in St. Petersburg. Within the enclosure are several fine buildings, including the burial place of the Czars. In the daytime ordinary street traffic passes through it. Peter the Great is said to have executed his only son, Alexis, in this fortress, after torture. Many noted conspirators against the government of the Czar have languished in its deep sunken dungeons or have been thrown into the river Neva from its battlements.

Some notable prisoners have been lodged in the Courtine of Catherine. Chernyshevski wrote his novel “What is to be done?” in one of its cells—a book which had potent, widespread influence over the youth of Russia, and which greatly developed the usefulness of women in the revolutionary propaganda by raising their status. He is the gifted writer who inspired the chivalrous attempt of the student Myshkin to effect his release, as already described. Another inmate of prominent literary attainments was Dmitri Pisarev, who devoted himself while imprisoned to writing his remarkable analysis of Darwin’s “Origin of Species.” He was confined without even the form of trial, and was held a close prisoner until his mental powers waned. Soliviov was the last “political” immured in the Courtine, but individuals have been sent there from the Trubetzkoi Bastion when special isolation was deemed necessary. One, Saburev, was removed to one of its cells, where he was stupefied with drugs so that he might be photographed while insensible.

The best account of the Trubetzkoi Bastion and its prison is to be found in Count Kropotkin’s book, “In Russian and French Prisons.” He spent more than two years there after 1873. The prison was in the reduit, an inner building of vaulted casements conforming to the five sides of the main bastion and constructed within to serve as a second line of defence. One side was taken up by the quarters of the governor of the fortress, and two sides were occupied by cells on two stories. These cells were spacious enough for a gun of large calibre; they were not light, for the windows opened upon the interior enclosure, and the high wall of the outer bastion faced the windows at a distance of fifteen or twenty feet. In St. Petersburg the sky is often overcast, but Kropotkin was able to write his book on the Glacial period in his cell, and to prepare his maps and plans on especially bright days. A lining of felt covered the cell walls, at a distance of five inches, intended to prevent communication by knocking, which nevertheless frequently took place.

The cells in this prison were heated from the corridor outside by large stoves, and the temperature was kept high to prevent the exudation of moisture on the walls. It was necessary to close the stove doors very soon and while the coal was blazing, with the result that asphyxiating gases were generated and the inmates ran the risk of being suffocated. An idea prevailed that the authorities purposely caused these mephitic gases to enter the cells so that the prisoners might be poisoned, but this was an exaggeration with no foundation in fact. The food at one time was good, but Kropotkin says that it deteriorated, and no provisions were permitted to be brought in from outside except the Christmas and Eastertide doles of white bread, charitably given by compassionate merchants. Books, if approved, might be received from relatives, and there was a small prison library. Out-of-door exercise was allowed daily from half an hour to forty minutes, but in the short daylight of the northern winter it was limited to twenty minutes twice a week.

On the whole, detention in the Trubetzkoi Bastion was not, according to Kropotkin, “exceedingly bad, although always hard.” One of its worst features was the unduly prolonged solitary confinement, which was extended to two or three years, far beyond the limit ordinarily prescribed in modern civilised countries. Another terrible infliction was the dead silence compelled. “Not a word is heard,” wrote Leo Deutsch, “the silence is intense. No one could imagine that men live here year after year. Only the chimes of the clock upon the ear, sound out every quarter of an hour the national hymn, ‘How glorious is our Lord in Zion.’ ” As to this, Kropotkin says, “The cacophony of the discordant bells is horrible during rapid changes of temperature, and I do not wonder that nervous people consider these bells as one of the plagues of the fortress.” The same writer bears witness to the taciturnity of the officials. “If you address a word to the warder who brings you your clothes for walking in the yard, if you ask him what the weather is, he never answers. The only human being with whom I exchanged a few words every morning was the colonel (governor) who came to write down what I wanted to buy: tobacco or paper. But he never dared to enter into conversation, as he himself was always watched by some of the warders.”

The fortress contained other prisons far worse than that of the bastion. There was the Trubetzkoi Ravelin to the west of it, the cells in which are so dark that candles are burned in them for twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four. Their walls were literally dripping with moisture and there were pools of water on the floor. An account of the sufferings of some who were concerned in the “Trial of the Sixteen,” whose death sentences had been commuted to imprisonment in the ravelin, was published in the Narodnaya Volya. “Not only books were prohibited, but everything that might help to occupy the attention. Zubkovski made geometrical figures with his bread to practise geometry, and they were immediately removed by the gaoler, who said that hard-labour prisoners were not permitted to amuse themselves.” Of those whose sentences were commuted one became consumptive and another was attacked with scurvy and brought to death’s door. Two of the five condemned to hard labour in the same fortress went mad, and one attempted to commit suicide.

One of a party transferred to the Moscow prison was so helpless from scorbutic wounds that he was carried out of the cellular wagon in a hand-barrow. Two fainted as soon as they were taken into the open air. Tatiana Lebedieva had been sentenced to twenty years’ hard labour. “But,” says the medical report, “she cannot live so long. Scurvy has destroyed all her gums; the jaws are visible beneath; she is moreover in an advanced stage of consumption.” Another, a mother, was nursing her eighteen months’ old baby, and every minute it seemed the child must die in her arms. As for herself, she did not suffer much, either physically or morally.

Regarding the Alexis Ravelin on the eastern front, no very authentic details are forthcoming, but it is said to contain underground cells as bad as any oubliettes in the dark ages. The only proof of their existence is to be found in the fact that a number of soldiers of the garrison were tried by court-martial for having conducted a clandestine correspondence for some of the prisoners, carrying out letters for them and smuggling in newspapers, money and other prohibited articles. The prisoners concerned were nameless. The inevitable fate of those committed to the Alexis Ravelin was to lose their identity; they were forgotten and became mere numbers, only distinguished by the numerals of the oubliettes they occupied. This happened to one, Netchaiev, who killed a spy at Moscow and fled to Switzerland, from where he was extradited by the authorities of a free country, but on condition that he should be tried as a common-law prisoner. Netchaiev absolutely disappeared after he was tried at Moscow and sentenced to hard labour. There is no record of his incarceration in any central prison or of his departure for Siberia. It is nearly certain that he was lost to all knowledge in some hidden depth of the Schlüsselburg fortress.

Netchaiev was treated with great inhumanity. Overtures had been made to him by General Potapov to turn informer, and so insultingly that the prisoner struck the general in the face. For this he was flogged terribly, chained hand and foot and riveted to the cell wall. He managed to appeal direct to the Czar, Alexander II, in a letter written with his own finger nail and in his own blood; a modest letter stating the facts of his imprisonment, and asking if they were really known to the emperor and met with his sanction. This letter was entrusted to some one working under his window, but it was intercepted and the ultimate fate of the prisoner was never positively known. It was said that he had died of a second flogging, and posthumous letters attributed to him were published in the year 1883.

The régime of the Alexis Ravelin was brutally severe. Exercise was forbidden, the windows of the cells were boarded up, and the hot-air openings of the stove were closed, so that consumption rapidly developed in the feeble frames of the prisoners. It was fatal to one young man, Shirayev, whose crime was too free comment upon the state of affairs. He had dared to prophesy a time when the Czar would no more govern, and power would be held by popular representatives. Another, Shevich, an officer of the military academy, went mad in the Alexis Ravelin, to which he was committed for having left the ranks and improperly addressing Alexander III on the occasion of an imperial parade.

Despite the elaborate precautions taken, and the strict rules prescribed, the secrecy of the Alexis Ravelin could not be kept inviolate. The government hoped that the silence of the grave might close over its captives. But too many travelled the sad road, and news came back from some. Letters penetrated the thick walls; the inmates found sympathy with their gaolers, who would not remain invariably mute. Some more effectual tomb for the living must be devised, and a large sum (150,000 rubles) was forthwith expended upon the enlargement and improvement, from a disciplinary point of view, of the ancient castle of Schlüsselburg, once the favourite prison of Paul I.

This new prison became available in 1884, and was to be the receptacle for the most dangerous and influential politicals. It was freely admitted by the authorities that the very harshest régime would prevail there: close confinement, scanty diet and entire absence of all that makes life endurable—books, correspondence, the visits of relatives and friends. Above all, when the gates closed on a new arrival in the Schlüsselburg, hope died within him. Lifelong imprisonment was before him; there was no release this side of the grave. Few who enter the prison are ever set free again. The inmates are buried alive, suffering perpetual martyrdom.

It was here that the “humane” Peter the Great imprisoned his first wife, the unhappy Evdokia. He had forced her to enter a convent as he had become tired of her. Young and beautiful, she rebelled against the life of a working nun, and when, a few years later, a young army officer was detailed to inspect the convent, they fell in love with each other. When Peter heard of this, he had the officer impaled on a stake, and at the instigation of his new wife, the empress Catherine, Evdokia was thrust into the Schlüsselburg. The stone tower which she occupied and where she died is still known as the “Czarina’s Bower.”

In a cell underneath this stone tower, the great Polish patriot Valerian Lukasinski spent the greater part of the thirty-seven years of his imprisonment in the fortress. He had previously been immured in a Polish prison for nine years, so that he endured a continuous imprisonment of forty-six years, and died in the Schlüsselburg at the age of eighty-two.

The castle of Schlüsselburg figured in the war with Charles XII when Peter the Great took it from the Swedes in 1702. It stands just where the Neva issues from Lake Ladoga, a bare fortress on a lonely island. A small, desolate town surrounds it, whose sparse inhabitants are easily kept under surveillance, and access to the castle is impossible for any but those authorised or permitted by the police.

The political prison was emptied in 1905; the prisoners were freed, and the building was thrown open to the public for inspection. It was supposed this would end the gruesome history of the fortress as a prison, but just one year later, after the triumph of the reactionists, it was again put to use as a place of durance, and instead of the few veteran politicals who were liberated in 1905, three hundred revolutionists were crowded into the prison under fearful conditions.

A French publicist, M. Eugene Petit, a member of the bar, seems to have visited the prison, and his report appeared in the Revue Penitentiare of July, 1906.

The government has always chosen to send whom it pleases to this state prison and to subject them to such treatment as it pleases, usually of the most arbitrary and rigorous kind. The leading idea is absolute isolation in cells of limited dimensions, nine feet by seven feet. The furniture is of the conventional kind; an iron flap, fastened to the wall when not in use, supplies the bed, but cannot be let down except between eight o’clock in the evening and six in the morning, and at other times rest can only be obtained by lying on the floor. A petroleum lamp lights the cells while darkness lasts, which in winter is for eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and this has a very injurious effect on the eyesight besides vitiating the air; the windows are high and glazed with opaque glass. The prisoner is kept constantly under observation through the “judas” or inspection plate in the door, and a warder in slippered feet comes to look through every five minutes. The dietary is characterised as detestable and quite insufficient. The early morning meal consists of cabbage soup, shchi, and kasha, a kind of porridge, with black bread often full of worms.

To complete isolation is added deadly silence and unbroken idleness. Not a word is uttered anywhere in the neighbourhood of a prisoner; the warders never speak to them, but issue orders by signs and gestures. Books are withheld until after a long period of confinement and when the mind is failing, and then only devotional works are allowed. Brief exercise in the open air is conceded after about the same lapse of time, first for a quarter of an hour, then half an hour, and when over, a warder carefully brushes away the footsteps lest it might be imagined they had been made by a friend. Employment is also given as a great favour—permission to remove a little sand from a heap, which the next prisoner shovels back to the old place.

All communication from without or within is peremptorily forbidden. No news of the day comes in; no report of the condition of prisoners filters out. Konachevich’s father died after years of fruitless inquiry, without hearing where his son was or whether he was still alive. A prisoner, Polivanov, left the prison in 1902 to hear that his father had died thirteen years before. It was not until 1896, that a prisoner, when he died in hospital, was allowed to have a single friend or comrade at his bedside. He was quite alone. Every sort of humiliation was inflicted upon him. He was never permitted to use the familiar address “thou” to his warders, although they spoke to him in that way in the second person and he must not resent it.

A retired military officer named Lagovskoi was shut up in Schlüsselburg in 1885 by “administrative process,” without trial, and sentenced for five years, which was prolonged for another five years, still without trial. For having dared to address the governor with the familiar “thou,” he was confined in a strait-jacket and his legs were tied together; then they gagged him, and holding him just a yard above the ground dropped him repeatedly till his head was cut open. The same treatment was administered to another prisoner, Popov, who was also gagged and his head banged upon the floor.

The effect of the imprisonment was seen in its results. In the six years after 1891, just forty-eight persons were removed into Schlüsselburg from the Alexis Ravelin, all of them young and in sound health at the time. At the end of these six years, five had committed suicide or had been shot, three were still retained but were out of their minds, three had died insane, nine others had died, the majority of them carried off by consumption. Twenty out of forty-eight was a large proportion, and the fact is authenticated by M. Petit, who can give the names and exact dates.

After the year 1896, the rigours of the régime were in some measure slackened. Books were allowed, such as scientific manuals, grammars and dictionaries for the study of languages, and historical books of a date previous to the eighteenth century, but no works of a purely literary character and no periodicals, reviews or newspapers. Writing materials were issued, a few sheets during the daytime, which, with whatever was written thereon, were withdrawn in the evening. By degrees the dietary was slightly improved, the period of exercise was prolonged and the prisoners were occasionally allowed to work in the garden or in the carpenter’s shop. Still better, association with a fellow prisoner for a brief space was conceded twice a week when at exercise. Later, extracts from the letters of relatives were read out to the prisoner once yearly, communicating a brief message such as, “We are alive and well and living at such and such a place.” By and by the prisoners were permitted to reply no less briefly, but never to state where they were confined.

Two provincial prisons were much concerned with political prisoners, those of Kiev and Moscow. The former was the scene of many tragic episodes, and fierce conflicts between the revolutionists and the authorities. Some remarkable escapes were made from them. The university of Kiev was a hot-bed of political unrest, and its students were active and determined conspirators. An independent spirit was always present in the prison, the product of past resistance. It was from Kiev that the well-known Leo Deutsch escaped with two others in 1878, through the courageous assistance of a comrade Frolenko, who managed as a free man to get a false passport and obtain employment as a warder in the prison. He took the name of Michael and was in due course appointed to take charge of the corridor in which his friends Deutsch, Stefanovich and Bohanovsky were located. They had pretended to protest against his coming to their ward so as to disarm suspicion.

Frolenko set to work without loss of time. He provided disguises, two suits of private clothes and a warder’s uniform, which the prisoners put on, and he then released them from their cells. As they were stumbling along the passage, one of them tripped against a rope which he caught at and pulled frantically. It proved to be the alarm bell of the prison and caused a deafening noise. The false “Michael” at once explained to the authorities what he had done unwittingly, and the disturbance passed off without further discovery. Again the fugitives, who had hidden themselves in the first corners they found, started on their journey and got out of the prison, where a confederate met the party and led them to the river and to a boat stored with provisions which awaited them. They voyaged along the Dnieper for a whole week, concealing themselves when necessary in the long rushes, and at last reached Krementchug, where they were furnished with passports and money and successfully passed the frontier. “Michael” went with them, and it was long supposed by the officials that he had been made away with by the prison breakers.

Beverley, a young man of English extraction, met death when escaping from the Kiev prison. He had been arrested for living under a false passport and being active in the revolutionary propaganda with a comrade Isbitski. He had driven a tunnel from their cell to a point beyond the prison walls. The authorities had discovered the tunnel and had posted a party of soldiers at the exit, where the fugitives must emerge into the upper air. As soon as they appeared they were shot down. Beverley was mortally wounded, and as he lay on the ground he was despatched by repeated bayonet stabs. Isbitski was also struck down, but was carried back alive after a severe beating.

Leo Deutsch gives other cases of escape that proved more successful. A student Ivanov was helped to freedom by the officer commanding the guard, Tihonov, who was a member of the Narodnaya Volya society, or the “Will of the People.” Another prisoner disappeared under the most mysterious circumstances which were never explained. But the most important escape was in August, 1902, when eleven noted prisoners, arrested a short time before, broke prison in a body. They exercised every evening in the prison yard which was bounded on one side by an outer wall overlooking fields and which was unguarded on the outside. The prisoners got into the field, taking with them an iron anchor weighing twenty pounds, and a rope ladder. At a given moment some of them had fallen upon their warder, overpowered him, gagged and bound him. Two others, climbing on each other’s shoulders, reached the top of the wall, where they pulled up the anchor, made it fast, and then secured the rope ladder, which served for the ascent of the prisoners on one side and their descent on the other. So much sympathy was felt for them in the town that they were effectually concealed when at large and provided with the necessary funds for leaving the country. Throughout the whole affair no blood was shed and no one was hurt. Many more escaped from Kiev in a different fashion, passing out of its walls to the scaffold.

The great central prison of Moscow, locally known as the “Butirki,” served as a general depot for ordinary criminals on the point of departure as exiles about to be transported to Siberia. It is a vast establishment with accommodation for thousands; a mighty stone building which looks like a gigantic well. A great wall with a tower at each of the four corners encloses it, and the various classes of politicals were confined in these towers. In the north tower were the “administrative” exiles; in the “chapel” tower were those still under examination, and in another the female prisoners were kept. All the male political prisoners in Moscow wore chains and the convict dress. It was a degrading costume, made the more humiliating by the method of shaving the right side of the head and leaving the left side with the hair cut close.

To Leo Deutsch, who was subjected to the prison barber before leaving Kiev, the ordeal was extremely painful. He says: “When I saw my own face in the glass a cold shudder ran down my spine and I experienced a sensation of personal degradation to something less than human. I thought of the days—in Russia, not so long ago—when criminals were branded with hot irons.

“A convict was waiting ready to fasten on my fetters. I was placed on a stool and had to put my foot on an anvil. The blacksmith fitted an iron ring round each ankle, and welded it together. Every stroke of the hammer made my heart sink, as I realised that a new existence was beginning for me.

“The mental depression into which I now fell was soon accompanied by physical discomfort. The fetters at first caused me intolerable pain in walking, and even disturbed my sleep. It also requires considerable practice before one can easily manage to dress and undress. The heavy chains—about thirteen pounds in weight—are not only an encumbrance, but are very painful, as they chafe the skin round the ankles; and the leather lining is but little protection to those unaccustomed to these adornments. Another great torment is the continual clinking of the chains. It is indescribably irritating to the nervous, and reminds the prisoner at every turn that he is a pariah among his kind, ‘deprived of all rights.’

“The transformation is completed by the peculiar convict dress, consisting of a grey gown, made of special material, and a pair of trousers. Prisoners condemned to hard labour wear a square piece of yellow cloth sewn on their gowns. The feet are clad in leather slippers nicknamed ‘cats.’ All these articles of clothing are inconvenient, heavy and ill-fitting.

“I hardly knew myself when I looked in the glass and beheld a fully attired convict. The thought possessed me, ‘For long years you will have to go about in that hideous disguise.’ Even the gendarme regarded me with compassion. ‘What won’t they do to a man?’ he said. And I could only try to comfort myself by thinking how many unpleasant things one gets used to, and that time might perhaps accustom me even to this.”

A later episode in the experience of Deutsch is rather amusing. Many of the ordinary prisoners were in the habit of ridding themselves of their chains, at first at night and afterward during the day. The trick was winked at by the warders. Deutsch called for a nail and a hammer and openly broke the rivets in the presence of his warders. “Go and tell the governor what I have done,” he said, and the offender was haled into the presence of the great man who indignantly protested, saying that it was a serious business. “Not at all,” replied Deutsch, “it should prove to you that I have no intention of attempting to escape. And you see I still keep them on tied up with string.” Nothing more was said for the moment; nor was the barbarous practice insisted upon when the politicals stoutly refused to submit to it.

The immunity continued until the time of departure arrived, when the officer who was to command the convoy insisted upon the strict observance of the regulations. Deutsch and his comrades still refused to comply. They were determined to resist till the last, and kept together lest they might be overcome singly. Just as they were to be marched off, they were told that if they chose to be examined by the prison doctor, he would excuse them from travelling on foot. When taken into his presence, a strong posse of warders fell upon them and overpowered them by sheer force. One by one they were dragged into a corner and held forcibly down on a bench while the barber shaved half their heads and the blacksmith firmly riveted the chains.

Dostoyevski, whose “Reminiscences of the Dead House,” recording his personal experiences of convict life, are quoted, says that long afterward he shuddered at the mere thought of the head shaving: “The prison barbers lathered our skulls with cold water and scraped us afterward with their sawlike razors.” Fortunately it was possible to evade the torture by payment. A fellow convict for one kopeck would shave anyone with a private razor. This man was never to be seen without a strop in his hand on which, night and day, he sharpened his razor, which was always in admirable condition. “He was really quite happy when his services were in request, and he had a very light hand, a hand of velvet.” He was always known as “the Major,” no doubt a survival of the old institution of the barber-surgeon, as military doctors often bear the rank of major.

There were some compensations for the politicals. One was the unvarying sympathy they evoked from the population on the rare occasions when they came in contact with them. Kindly folk, when they could, forced charitable gifts upon them. When Deutsch and his party took the train at Moscow for Nizhni-Novgorod, the platform was crowded with well-wishers, and they started for Siberia amid the tears and sobs of friends and relatives, shouting affectionate farewells and joining in the plaintive melody struck up by the prisoners, many of whom sang beautifully. At the first station peasants and workmen came to the carriage windows unhindered, with humble offerings. One old woman pressed a kopeck, the smallest copper coin, upon Deutsch, crying, “Here! Take it in the Virgin’s name. Take it, take it, my dear.” She insisted when he protested he did not need it as much as many others. But he accepted it, and kept it as a remembrance of the warm-hearted old creature.

It was the same all along the road. Everywhere, as they passed, groups of people waved their hands with expressive gestures. It was the custom of the country to show compassion thus for “the children of misfortune,” the kindly designation of the poorer classes for all prisoners. Deutsch, with his shaven head, convict garb and clanking chains, won especial interest. Many sought to serve him and begged him to write down any special article he was in need of and it should be sent after him.

There were societies formed to assist prisoners with presents of small useful articles when starting for their dreary exile. Long before the party left Moscow, Deutsch and his companions were begged to make out a list of their requirements, and as they were fifty in number, and were to be half a year on the road, the demands on the kindness of their benefactors were not few. But at any cost and with much personal inconvenience, all that was asked for was given. These same friendly societies came under the officious attentions of the police, for a list of the members was once seized at a search of houses, and as they were supposed to belong to some secret associations with evil aims, they were immediately classed as a branch of the Red Cross League of the “People’s Will” organisation. The most criminal action of the society was that of seeking to provide political prisoners with old clothes. Yet a number of arrests of members followed, and many of these perfectly harmless, well-meaning people were detained for some time in gaol.

The kindly custom prevails throughout Russia of sending gifts of food to the prisoners at festival seasons. The “Easter table” is generally the rule in Russian cities, when the master keeps open house and any visitor may enter to be hospitably entertained with food and drink. The principle is even carried further and helps to soften the hardships of the prisoners. At Moscow all manner of good things were sent in, Deutsch tells us: “Easter cakes, eggs, hams, poultry, and all that is customary, including several bottles of light wine and beer, so that our Easter table was a magnificent sight. Under the superintendence of the old governor and his staff,” he continues, “we spent the evening and half the night in a merry fashion not often witnessed in a prison. Songs were sung, there were jokes and laughter; finally a harmonica appeared, and the young people began to dance. Yet, despite so much hearty and unfeigned cheerfulness, not one of us could forget our real condition; indeed, the very sight of gaiety brought to the minds of many of us remembrance of home, where our dear ones were at this moment celebrating the feast-day, though with many sad thoughts of the absent.”

It was the same in far-off Siberia. At Omsk, where Dostoyevski was confined for four years, gifts were sent to the prison at Christmastide in enormous quantities—loaves of white bread, scones, rusks, pancakes and pastry of various kinds. There was not a shopkeeper in the whole town who did not send something to the “unfortunates.” Among these gifts were some magnificent ones, including many cakes of the finest flour, and also some very poor ones, rolls worth no more than a couple of kopecks, the offerings of the poor to the poor, on which a last kopeck had been spent. These delicacies were divided in equal portions among the occupants of the various prison barracks, and caused neither protest or annoyance, as every one was satisfied.

There were good Samaritans in Siberia who spent their lives in giving charitable assistance to the “unfortunates.” Dostoyevski very rightly calls their compassion, which is quite disinterested, “something sacred.” There was a lady in the town of Omsk who laboured unceasingly to assist all exiles and especially the convicts in the prison. It was conjectured that some dear one in her family had gone through a like punishment, and, in any case, she spared no effort to offer help and sympathy. The most she could do was but little, for she was very poor; “but,” says the author, “we convicts felt when we were shut up in the prison that outside we had a devoted friend.” He made her acquaintance when leaving the town, and with some of his comrades spent an entire evening at her house. “She was neither old nor young, neither pretty nor ugly. It was not easy to guess whether she was intelligent or high-bred. But in her actions could be seen infinite compassion, and an irresistible desire to please, to solace, to be in some way agreeable. All this could be read in the sweetness of her smile.”

When her visitors left she gave each of them a cardboard cigar box of her own making. It was all but valueless, but the gift was inestimable as a proof of her desire to be remembered. Dostoyevski here analyses the theory that a great love for one’s neighbour is only a form of selfishness, and asks very pertinently what selfishness could animate such a nature as this.

But for the charity of the Siberian peasantry, the terrible journey of many thousands into exile could never be accomplished. The government issues a beggarly allowance in cash, a sum varying between five and twelve kopecks per head, according to the locality, out of which the exiles provide their own food. The prices also vary with the season and the harvests. This money hardly suffices for the commonest ration; it will buy at most bread, a few vegetables and a little tea. Gambling is, however, such an ingrained vice that many waste all of their substance daily, and the spendthrifts would starve but for begging by the road. When a party passes a village, permission is sought from the convoy officer to raise the miloserdnaya or “exiles’ begging song,” and selected convicts go from door to door, cap in hand, soliciting alms.

This song is inconceivably pathetic. George Kennan, who often heard it, declares that it resembles nothing with which he was acquainted. It is not singing nor chanting, nor like wailing for the dead, but a strange blending of all three. “It suggests vaguely the confused and commingled sobs, moans and entreaties of human beings who were being subjected to torture, but whose sufferings were not acute enough to seek expression in shrieks or high pitched cries. … No attempt was made by the singers to pitch their voices in harmony or pronounce the words in unison. There were no pauses or rests at the ends of the lines, no distinctly marked rhythm. The singers seemed to be constantly breaking in upon one another with slightly modulated variation of the same slow, melancholy air, and the effect produced was that of a rude fugue of a funeral chant.” The following is an extract from the words sung:—

“Have pity on us, O our fathers!

Do not forget the unwilling travellers,

Do not forget the long imprisoned.

Feed us, O our fathers—help us!

Feed and help the poor and needy!

Have compassion, O our fathers,

Have compassion, O our mothers,

For the sake of Christ, have mercy

On the prisoners.”

“If you can imagine these words, half sung, half chanted slowly, in broken time and in a low key, by hundreds of voices, to an accompaniment made by the jingling and clashing of chains, you will have a faint idea of the song. Rude, artless and inharmonious as the appeal for pity was, I never in my life heard anything so mournful and depressing. It seemed to be the half articulate expression of all the griefs, the misery and the despair that had been felt by generations of human beings in the étapes, the forwarding prisons and the mines.”

The collections made both in cash and kind were taken on to the next halting place, when they were divided with scrupulous exactitude under the watchful control of the artel, or prisoners’ association, which rules in every prison with an iron hand.

An advantage enjoyed by the political prisoners in Russian prisons is the affable demeanour of the official staff towards them. Every prison official as a rule treats them with a certain amount of courtesy and respect. This is due to an unwritten law arising from the long established belief that these “politicals” belonged to the educated and cultured classes, and that their offences, so-called, have been committed with high motives, in obedience to the dictates of reason and conscience, in the hope of improving the condition of the people and winning a greater measure of liberty and independence for their down-trodden nation. Superior officers were, as a rule, polite in their address, and subordinates spoke civilly and treated them with marked consideration. The prisoners watched jealously the attitude of their masters toward them, and fiercely resented any failure of respect, or anything that tended to lower their personal dignity.

Leo Deutsch tells a story of the sharp lesson in manners taught to a great functionary, the chief personage and head of the prison department, M. Galkin Vrasski. The incident occurred at Moscow when he was making a tour of inspection through the provincial prisons. The politicals had heard that, conscious of his power and self-importance, he was in the habit of entering cells, when visiting them, with his hat on. The first he reached was occupied by one Dashkievich, who had been a theological student—“a man of very calm but unyielding temperament, and permeated to an uncommon degree with the instinct of justice and fairness.” The great chief entered with much ceremony, escorted by the governor and a brilliant staff, and asked Dashkievich pompously whether he had any complaint to make. “Pardon me,” interrupted the prisoner quietly, “it is very impolite of you, sir, to enter my apartment without removing your hat.” Vrasski reddened to the roots of his hair, turned on his heel and walked out, followed by his entire entourage.

He was at pains to ask the name of the man who had dared to reprove him thus openly. He had learned his lesson, for he appeared at all the other cells hat in hand. But the offence rankled, and as Deutsch avers, he took his revenge later. Dashkievich had been sentenced to “banishment to the less distant provinces of Siberia;” this was altered by Vrasski’s order, and he was sent eventually to Tunka in the furthest wilds, on the border of Mongolia.

In this matter of removing the head-dress, the politicals were very punctilious. Once, on arrival at the Krasnoyarsk prison, which was chiefly cellular, a party of politicals had a serious conflict of opinion with the governor, who ordered that they should be placed in separate cells singly, instead of in association. They resented and positively refused to abide by this order, and demanded to be lodged as heretofore along the road, in company with one another. Pending a change of decision, they remained in the corridor with their baggage, and would not budge a step. The governor of the prison insisted upon compliance with the regulations, and he was backed up by the chief of police, a very blustering and overbearing person. The prisoners would not yield and the matter was referred to higher authority, first to the colonel of gendarmerie, then to the public prosecutor, and lastly to the governor of the district. Nothing could be decided that night, and the prisoners, still obdurate, camped out in the passage, being permitted to have their own way until the district governor had been heard from.

As they sat at dinner the next day, the chief of police brought the answer. He was in full parade uniform and wore his helmet. “Gentlemen,” he began ceremoniously, “I am to inform you”—He was abruptly interrupted by the request to first remove his helmet. The officer protested that when in parade uniform he was forbidden to do so. “Then we shall not listen to you,” said the prisoner Lazarev. “We have nothing to do with your uniform. It is a mere question of manners.” “But I really cannot, I will not,” replied the officer. “Then you may take your message back to the governor, we shall not listen to it,” was the answer of the politicals, and their firmness won the day. The result was a concession to their demands. “I wonder how many officials,” remarks Deutsch, “have had to learn this elementary lesson in politeness from us.”

The women revolutionists also showed the highest spirit and were always ready to fight for their own rights. A police ispravnik had insulted a political, mistaking him for another with whom he had a difference. It came to the knowledge of the wife of the political, who was a clever resolute woman, and she went straight to the police office and boxed the officer’s ears. The harshness with which one police officer, the chief at Irkutsk, had treated a number of women politicals brought down on him a severe rebuke. The officer accompanied a high official during a visit to the prison of that city. The moment he appeared he was addressed by the leading political prisoner in these words: “We are astonished at your impudence in daring to appear before us, after having by your treatment forced our women comrades into a terrible hunger strike.” The room was hurriedly emptied of all officials, the chief and his suite, and the odious policeman was followed by a chorus of uncomplimentary epithets.