Ethnographies of Siberian Prison Life: Reevaluating Colonization and/as Punishment

• In Event: Methods and Meanings of Ethnographic Inquiry in Imperial Russia

Abstract

The Judicial Reforms of 1864 prompted the so-called “prison reforms”—an undertaking which necessitated a nuanced understanding of the Russian Empire’s penitentiary apparatus. Accordingly, statisticians, ethnographers, and historians turned to Siberia, the epicenter of exile and forced labor. In preparation for the Judicial Reforms, the Naval Department commissioned ethnographer Sergei Maksimov to conduct a comprehensive study of Siberian prisons. Intended for internal use only, it was eventually published for the general audience in 1871 under the title "Sibir’ i katorga" (Siberia and Penal Labor).
Maksimov’s work grasped the attention of historian and co-founder of Siberian Regionalism, Nikolai Iadrintsev. In his anonymous review of "Sibir’ i katorga," Iadrintsev commends the author’s vivid ethnographic and belletristic descriptions of life in Siberian prisons, but voices skepticism regarding various scientific and statistical components of the study. In 1872, Iadrintsev published his own study, titled "Russkaia obshchina v tiur’me i ssylke" (Russian Community in Prison and Exile). While Maksimov and Iadrintsev dealt with the same subject matter, their distinct methodologies produced contrasting solutions to the region’s persisting social and economic issues. This paper analyzes the descriptive, rhetorical, and affective devices employed to represent prison life and asks: How did the representational modes in Maksimov’s and Iadrintsev’s accounts influence their diverging conclusions about the future of the imperial penitentiary apparatus? Ultimately, the paper probes the efficacy of state-sponsored ethnographic studies in quelling the empire’s anxiety about simultaneously managing its vast contiguous colony and its criminal subjects.

Author

• Ani Abrahamyan, Hamilton College