The Polish Myth of Siberia

Grzegorz Zackiewicz

Siberia was not widely known to the citizens of the kingdom of Poland even in the 1850s. Back then it was most certainly not associated with “a giant, roofless prison”. Suffice it to say, in a famous work by priest Benedykt Chmielowski Nowe Ateny (New Athens), published in 1745-1746 and imagined as a compendium of knowledge from different fields, it was practically pointless to search for any accurate information about Siberia. Even the name of this land fails to appear there. The only information to be uncovered from its reading revealed that the tribes of the far North bear no resemblance to Europeans and that during winter they have the habit of hibernating. 

First mass deportations

 

 

 

The breakthrough in the Polish perception of Siberia came with the first mass deportations, which occurred in connection with The Bar Confederation. The shock caused by this situation was deepened when thousands more people were sent off into the depths of Russia after the fall of the Kościuszko Uprising. It would seem that the formation of the myth of Sybir, which can be traced back to around the end of the 18th century, was served by a specific combination of two fundamental factors: the trauma caused by the brutal repressions carried out by Russia, a country long despised but rather underestimated by much of the Polish elite,  along with a profound ignorance regarding the nature of Siberia.

Sybir – an exceptionally enduring myth

With the passage of time, Siberia as a geographical term came to be identified more and more often in Polish consciousness as a “land of exile”. This latter term, in the common understanding, included not only the lands situated to the east of the Urals, but also Arkhangelsk, Orenburg Krai, the steppes of Kirgistan and even Caucasus, sometimes referred to as “the hot Sybir“. The ultimate formulation of the Polish myth of Sybir took shape between the two uprisings, and here it is difficult not to recognize the significant influence of leading Polish poets, with Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki at the forefront. As Jan Trynkowski, an expert in this matter accurately noted, a mythologization of the images of the Siberian reality was to no small extent down to the exiles themselves. It was completed far from the epicenter of those events, being the work of people who had never even set foot there. It does not change the fact that the myth itself, which was even strengthened after 1863, turned out to be an exceptionally enduring one. A not insignificant contribution in this was made by writers and painters, even if we only mention the names of Artur Grottgera or Jacek Malczewski. Even if over time, additional information undermining this Siberian myth was to become available, it did not significantly affect the perception of this issue among Poles. The literary scholar Zofia Trojanowiczowa even wrote, rightly so, that “Polish Sybir is an area where romanticism defended itself the longest and most effectively”.

An exile in chains?

Created in the era of romanticism, the myth of Sybir merged two threads: a martyrological and heroic one. From this perspective the exiles were presented as people persecuted by the Russians, being mostly forced labourers, shackled or exposed to harsh weather conditions in the realities of a distant, gloomy and frozen land. At the same time, they were supposed to display an extraordinary grittiness, standing unbendingly by the virtues drawn from their country, unwilling to reject their faith or homeland.

A historian has to consider such an image as being far removed from the reality of that time. Sending thousands of people from the Polish lands to be shackled and forced to work in mines was a consequence met with by none of the exiles from the 19th century. Research by Wiktoria Śliwowska shows that from 1833 to 1855, 250 people were sentenced to hard labour in mines or fortresses. In the majority of cases the adjudicated punishments were never carried out. The same researcher discovered that even in the wake of the January Uprising, when the repressions occurred on a previously unheard of scale, those people sentenced to hard labour were definitely in the minority and most of the sentences were never served.

Similar conclusions can be drawn from studies conducted by Franciszek Nowiński about East Siberia in the period between the uprisings. Seemingly it was the norm that the relatively few Polish forced labourers of this time were released from hard labour after a short period of time, or were directed to different kinds of work in spite of their sentence. The hardest labour, especially that done underground was, as a rule, performed by criminals who hailed mostly from lands long since part of the Russian Empire, and not by political exiles such as members of the Polish national uprisings. The latter, if forced into doing physical labour, were mostly put to work in distilleries, mills or shipyards, not in mines. More often than not, they found themselves in administrative offices or were hired privately. Contrary to entrenched stereotypes, the majority of Poles sent beyond the Urals during the reign of tsar Nicholas I (1825 – 1855) were drafted into military service. For many it was a terrifying prospect, in no way better than a sentence of hard labour. Shortly after the January Uprising the well-known independence activist and exile Agaton Giller wrote: “Military service is so burdensome, restrictive and humiliating that everyone prefers hard labour than the army and that is why our political exiles sentenced to work in the mines take pity on their comrades forced into military service, as they must endure a harsher captivity, more poverty and greater misery.”

Mock hard labour

Polish experience of forced residence in Siberia during the partition era of Poland is also – contrary to the martyrological stereotype – a significant contribution to the development of culture, science and education. In part, this can be perceived as a phenomenon arising from the attitude of particular, extraordinary individuals, who tried to remain active in those fields, despite the unfavourable conditions prevailing at the time. However, the issue was certainly far more complicated. During the period in question, the aforementioned inconsistency between the letter of the Russian law and the manner of its execution was clear. In the remote areas of the Russian Empire, where a lack of ‘qualified personnel’ was particularly acute, educated people were highly valued and due to this the Russians, making use of their knowledge and skills, granted them some amount of freedom. A particularly telling, and by no means isolated example of this was the case of Leopold Niemirowski, born in 1810 in Volhynia. In 1838 he was handed the death penalty, a sentence later commuted to twenty years of hard labour for his illegal independence-related activism. In the autumn of 1839 he arrived behind the Urals. His sentence was to be served in Usolye near Irkutsk at a salt works. In reality, as an artistically inclined man, Niemirowski quickly became an art teacher for the children of a local administrator, to whom he taught drawing. When Wilhelm Rubert, general-governor of the Eastern Siberia, soon came to learn about this, the Polish exile was “transferred” to Irkutsk, to teach drawing to children of the Russian dignitary. The aforementioned Śliwowska wrote that “only during ‘inspections’ from Saint Petersburg was Niemirowski “sent back to Usolye”. He had been formally released from hard labour by the  autumn of 1843. Niemirowski was reassigned to live in the village Oknino in Irkutsk oblast. This also turned out to be a fiction. He continued his stay in Irkutsk, acting as private tutor to the governor’s children. Soon he received an unexpected offer to take part in an expedition to Kamchatka organized by Russian Academy of Sciences. His task was to document through drawings “landscapes, clothing and human types” encountered. These sketches were later presented “at the court of the tsar” and they received – although this information is unconfirmed – positive reviews.

Not merely a funereal shroud…

Polish exiles, who in the 19th century found themselves in the roles of teachers, doctors or clerks, were a wider phenomenon, difficult to perceive as existing merely on the whim of random Russian administrators. It is worth bringing attention to an exaggerated but very characteristic opinion of a high ranking tsarist official, who in 1857 was to say that the recently proclaimed amnesty had brought negative consequences and “with the release of Poles, Siberia has lost a great deal, as there will be no one left to teach the children”. Among the ranks of Polish exiles in Siberia were people such as Mikołaj Witkowski, who in 1879 was offered the position of curator in the Natural History Museum in Irkutsk, or prominent explorers, such as Jan Czerski and Benedykt Dybowski, who carried out their research at lake Baikal. The latter, after his release and return to Poland, decided after a short time to leave for the Urals again, this time voluntarily, to conduct faunal and zoological research in Kamchatka.

To cite the words of Antoni Kuczyński, “Polish presence in Siberia constituted not only a funereal shroud but also culture-creation and economic input into its development”. This is borne out by the varied careers of Polish exiles who ran pharmacies, stores, bakeries, restaurants, who founded dairies, shoemaking and tailoring workshops or even, as in the case of one former insurgent, a brewery. It is also worth noting that thousands of peasants, mostly from the eastern part of the Kingdom of Poland and the so-called “taken lands”, settled in Siberia voluntarily at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, having moved there in search of a better life.

Sybir – A crucible of moral rebirth

While reflecting on the reasons which caused the myth of Sybir to be maintained in a heroic-martyrological convention which was so difficult to question, and which endured in its essential form into the 20th century, a few factors can be referenced. It is worthy of note that for many centuries in the Polish perception Russia, and before that Moscow, had functioned as a barbaric and “schismatic” country, ruled despotically, and based on slave labour. At the same time, elites of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were assured that they represented a form of higher culture and that their country was not only a bastion of freedom, but also as antemurale christianitatis – a bulwark of Christianity. Set in the context of increasing Russian domination over Poland, which slowly came into reality in the 18th century leading ultimately to the partitions, this was an unusually traumatic experience, being difficult for Poles to mentally process. Regardless, attempts were made to deal with such trauma,  and with some success. As has been well documented, in the romantic vision of Polish messianism, suffering, even humiliation was interpreted as functioning as some form of historic trial for Poles. And from such a trial, it was suggested that they would ultimately emerge victorious. It is then, hardly surprising that for leading Romantics, chiefly Mickiewicz, the ordeal of Siberian exile served as a key metaphor for the national fate.

Exile was explicitly associated with persecution and suffering which nevertheless were loaded with a deeper meaning which it was believed, would one day bear fruit. Sybir was viewed as some form of living hell, but also as a place where the Polish nation underwent a moral rebirth. Such a perspective helped Poles to retain their sense of civilizational supremacy over Russians, whose essentially barbaric and Asiatic methods would have no success in conquering the Polish spirit. Come the end of the 19th century the fight for social justice became for many an additional element of the myth of Sybir, being obviously connected to the exile period of left-wing activists. Such individuals, fighting against autocratic tsarist rule, were another group of people (though not as numerous as commonly believed) whose suffering in the name of the righteous cause, could not be in vain. It should be highlighted that this theme was incorporated into the independence tradition, albeit only in the case of the patriotic wing of the Polish left.

Regardless, internationalist forces, by casting figures from their own circles as heroes of the fight against tsarism, bolstered the image of Russia as a despotic and barbaric country.

Six thousand blows to the back

Somewhat specific and dramatic, though uncommon cases of extreme brutality by Russian authorities towards Polish deportees have undoubtedly contributed to the persistence of the myth of Sybir. For example, there is the now well-known case of Piotr Wysocki, who was sentenced to a thousand blows by stick, soon after his arrival there in 1834, for his daring attempts at mass escape. The hero of the November Night thankfully survived the ordeal, in all probability because most of the soldiers made a conscious decision to spare him. Following a lengthy stay in hospital, he was sent to the notorious ore mine in Akatuia, where he was shackled while working, with some sources even claiming that he was initially chained to a wheelbarrow. Jan Henryk Sierociński, a veteran of the 1830-1831 uprising and leader of the so-called Omsk plot was similarly treated to a very specific ordeal. In 1837 he was sentenced to be lashed, in this case in the form of six thousand blows with sticks on the back. The sentence was carried out and the condemned man did not survive it. In 1866 the Russians sentenced to death seven leaders of the Baikal Insurrection, ultimately carrying out the sentences in the case of four of them. Therefore, the stereotypical image of exiles being murdered, brutally tortured or forced into inhuman labour by the Russians was far from the reality of the 19th century, but it did however undoubtedly contain a grain of truth.

Sybir – from Tsar to Soviet

The lasting of the myth of Sybir after 1918 in some ways stems from the fact that the majority of the Polish public harboured anti-Russian sentiments. Independence being regained was viewed as proof that the long-standing fight against the eternal enemy from the east – and the suffering that went along with it – had finally paid off. The traumatic events of 1920 also had a huge impact. It should also not be forgotten that the Second Polish Republic received consistent information, though not easily verifiable,  about the nature of the Soviet system of rule, of the repressions organized there. It is not surprising that such accounts triggered specific associations in the minds of many people. So while it is fair to admit the point made by Wiktoria Śliwowska, who wrote that to call 19th century Siberia “a tsarist Gulag is a misrepresentation”, at the same time it is understandable that the impact of deeply embedded cultural stereotypes was very difficult to shake off.

And when recalling the four mass deportations in the years 1940-1941 along with subsequent decades when Poland found itself in the Soviet sphere of influence, when facts were distorted or subject to censorship, it becomes somewhat easier to appreciate why today even, Polish perceptions of Siberian exile are often significantly at odds with the historical realities of our country. Granted, this is a complex, multi-faceted issue deserving of more detailed elaboration – though perhaps on another occasion.

Grzegorz Zackiewicz – a historian,  author of, among other titles, “Polska myśl polityczna wobec systemu radzieckiego 1918-1939” ‘Polish Political Thought in Relation to the Soviet System, 1918–1939, Cracow 2004 and ” W krainie zesłań. Losy Polaków na Syberii do 1914 roku”, ‘In the land of exile. The fate of Poles in Sybir until 1914” Białystok 2019. A professor of the University in Białystok.

Translated by Agnieszka Glińska.

Subheadings come from the editors.