Wiesław Caban
Polish landowners exiled to Siberia did not leave much information about the meals they ate back there; the vast majority of them mentioned it only perfunctorily in their diaries and letters to their families. They did not want to worry their loved ones with their difficult lack of material well-being, and they felt guilty that by conspiring or fighting in the January Uprising they had exposed them to loss of their wealth and a great deal of other suffering.
Landowners constituted 5–7 percent of all convicts exiled to Siberia in the 19th century. They were mainly young people who took part in conspiracies in the inter-uprising era or in armed conflicts during the January Uprising.
Commenting on the food consumed by exiles is only possible based on diaries and letters, but their authors, who came from the landed gentry, did not leave much information that interests us. The vast majority of them, in letters written to their families, mentioned meals consumed in Siberian exile in a cursory manner, mainly because they did not want to worry their loved ones with their difficult life situation. In addition, they had pangs of conscience that by conspiring or fighting in the January Uprising they had exposed their parents to the loss of their landed estates, and the entire Polish society to enormous suffering.
Based on fragments of notes from letters and diaries, I will try to depict the diet of landowners-exiles during their stay at so-called “stages” (places to spend the night on the way to Siberia – editor’s note), at Christmas and Easter, and at occasional meetings. However, it is not possible to describe everyday meals because I only have fragmentary information on this subject; for instance, a given landowner ate with his companions for a few rubles a month, or another dined in a restaurant, which was not an excessive expense for him because he regularly received money from his family.
The tsarist authorities paid exiles who were setting off on long marches some nonsignificant money allowance, which in Russian was called “kormowyje diengi”. With this money, the exiles bought food prepared by the Siberian wives of Russian soldiers at half-stages and stages. Leonard Mężyński, who for participating in the January Uprising was sentenced to hard labour in the silver mines in Kutmar (Zabaykalsky Krai), spent only 7 kopecks out of the 21 granted to him for daily subsistence at one of the half-stages on the route between Tobolsk and Tomsk and was fully satisfied with the meal. Mężyński did not specify what dishes he bought, but he did write that he had a choice of cabbage soup with small pieces of meat floating in it, millet or barley groats in milk, scrambled eggs fried in milk, blinis, three types of bread (wheat, rye and barley), and finally cakes and Siberian beer. He also added that at some half-stages or stages he ate only wild game, which was very cheap. Roasted wild duck cost only 6 kopecks, and wild goose cost 10. This did not mean that he had such options at every half-stage or stage. Passing through the European part of Russia, he often managed to get just a slice of stale wholemeal bread after reaching his resting place, simply because the “soldtki” were not able to prepare food for such a large number of people marching into exile at the same time. But farther along the route – from Tobolsk to the east – other surprises awaited him. In spring, the “soldtki” sold wild duck and goose eggs which already contained large embryos. Roasted wild ducks and geese were offered, but sometimes they were not gutted. But perhaps the worst thing happened at a stage to Władysław Zapałowski, a landowner from the Radom Governorate who was had been exiled to the north-western part of the Russian Empire (today, the Komi Republic) for his participation in the January Uprising. He travelled from Moscow to Vologda (about 300 km) “on dry provisions”. Having reached the Vologda stage, he wanted to taste a hot meal. After great difficulty, he managed to get a large bowl of hot cabbage soup for 6 kopecks. It seems fair to quote his experiences:
“The smell and the golden eyes of fat floating on the surface aroused my already splendid appetite. With the greed of a glutton, I broke off a piece of wholemeal bread and feverishly began to swallow the soup with a spoon. When my initial hunger was satisfied, I wanted to find something more solid at the bottom of the bowl, such as a piece of meat. I stirred the soup with the spoon, which instantly fell from my hand to the ground and a terrible torsion seized me – I thought I would give up my soul… At the bottom of the bowl, together with cabbage, I saw thousands of white grubs, centipedes, cockroaches, and bedbugs, which, just boiled, gave this fatty garnish on top”.
Landowners who had deep pockets ate much better. On the one hand, they could afford to rent carriages and travel into exile by so-called “post”. They could also afford to buy appropriate provisions. Feliks Zienkowicz, who was a landowner from Grodno region, and several of his close companions from Lithuanian-Belarusian lands received permission to continue their journey to Irkutsk by carriage in Tobolsk in 1864. With their food allowance and their own money, they prepared provisions for the route from Tobolsk to Irkutsk, which was about 3200 km; this included about 45–50 kg of bigos “such as that described by our Adam in »Pan Tadeusz«”, as Zienkowicz noted. It was supplemented by hams baked in bread, cold cuts, butter and cheeses. On the route, they supplemented their luxury meals in large urban centres such as Omsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, and they bought game and bread at rural cottages.
And what did the Christmas and Easter menus look like? In the period between the uprisings, when the number of exiles did not exceed 5,500 people and when in individual places of exile the number of convicts varied from a few to a dozen or so people, people tried to celebrate Christmas Eve together. Stanisław Szumski, a landowner from the Vilnius region, organized it in 1840 in Wiatka, where he was exiled for participating in Szymon Konarski’s conspiracy. In his diary, he does not provide a description of the dishes that were on the Christmas Eve table, but he notes that Christmas Eve was organized according to the old Polish customs. In exile, Szumski lived in a comfortable apartment and had a butler and a cook at his service. We can therefore imagine what an old Polish Christmas Eve looked like at the manor of a borderland landowner, only this time moved to Wiatka.
It was much more difficult to organize Christmas Eve if there were several dozen or even up to 200 exiles in a given location. In Usol (Irkutsk Governorate) in 1865, 200 people gathered for Christmas Eve supper. When they gathered, they were unable to sing either a carol or “Boże coś Polskę” because they were too overwhelmed with emotion due to their longing for their loved ones or their homeland, so it was decided that they would no longer meet in such a large group on this festive evening, only in small groups. It seems that Jacek Malczewski, the author of the painting “Christmas Eve in Siberia” from 1892, although he had never been beyond the Urals, correctly interpreted the atmosphere prevailing on Christmas Eve among Siberian exiles.
Christmas Eve meetings were held in smaller groups. An effort was made to have dishes reminiscent of old Polish cuisine on the table. However, during the exchange of wishes and eating, there was a mood of depression and nostalgia.
In the case of Easter, we also do not have many descriptions of the celebrations. In letters and diaries, we usually have, so to speak, only a record of the event. From the broader descriptions that I managed to find, it appears that Easter breakfast took place in an atmosphere of joy. This may not be surprising, because it is a joyful holiday.
I managed to find what is probably the only description of Easter celebrations at a stage, but it must be added that this was a special place: the stage for participants of the January Uprising who were exiled from Lithuania was located in separate rooms of a large prison in St. Petersburg. Jakub Gieysztor, who served as president of the Lithuanian Provinces Management Department during the uprising, described the atmosphere of those days in the following way: “We celebrated Easter in St. Petersburg. There has probably been no celebration so solemn and magnificent in the whole of Poland. They sent blessed eggs from Vilnius to Jeleński and me, and so much was brought from St. Petersburg that the tables were covered with cakes and meat for a whole week. It is difficult to describe the impression that came over us when we, gathered in one room together with numerous guests, began to share the blessed eggs, and the youth choir suddenly sang out ‘A happy day has come to us today’. Slowly, all the voices present merged into one song, but the loud crying of some did not allow them to finish the solemn singing of ‘Alleluia’ because they had bid farewell to their families forever or had seen the fresh graves on the way to Siberia”. At this point, I owe an explanation regarding the circumstances that made it possible to celebrate Easter so solemnly near the Tsar’s residence: it was mainly because the Petersburg governor-general in the years 1861–1866 was Aleksandr Arkadyevich Suvorov (the grandson of Field Marshal Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov, the conqueror of Warsaw in 1794) who was an opponent of Mikhail Muravyov’s policy in Lithuania after the fall of the January Uprising and at the same time showed a lot of sympathy towards the Poles. It should also be added that Aleksandr Arkadyevich Suvorov allowed representatives of the St. Petersburg aristocracy to send holiday greetings and deliver exquisite food. Could it be that the popular saying that grandchildren make up for their grandparents’ mistakes is also to be confirmed in this case?
I was unable to find any more extensive information on how the post-January exiles spent Easter. In general, in letters or diaries, I only found information that it was “blessed”, that inhabitants of Siberia shared an egg with Polish exiles during the celebration of this holiday, and that Poles did the same when Easter fell according to the Julian calendar. In the approximately 60 diaries of post-January exiles that I reviewed, I did not find any more extensive information on this subject.
It is a kind of mystery why none of the exiles from Usol mentioned how Easter looked. As I have mentioned, there were at least 200 people from various social and professional backgrounds staying there, where the conditions were clearly better for the exiles than in other places in Siberia. Could it be that the aforementioned events related to the Christmas Eve supper from 1865 had an influence on the fact that until the end of the exile it was decided to give up organizing collective holiday gatherings not only on the occasion of Christmas but also Easter? We would probably get the answer to this question if a study on the Polish colony in Usol in the 19th century were finally written. It is known, however, that there were meetings on the occasion of Easter, but they were held in much smaller circles. Feliks Zienkowicz attended such meetings at the home of Counts Wacławy and Roman Bniński from Wielkopolska, and at the home of Aleksander and Teodozja Oskierka from the Minsk governorate, who ran “open houses” in Usol for people from their circle. In 1869, Zienkowicz was delighted with the taste of the cakes, chocolate babkas, and mazurek and sękacz cakes that he tasted there, adding that “they provided a thread for conversation for three whole days, just like it used to be in our country”.
Finally, we should ask about the tableware of these landowner-exiles at occasional meetings, including name days and meetings with long-awaited guests, often priests who, albeit rarely, reached Poles scattered throughout Siberia. I will refer here to two events: name day celebrations organized by youth of nobility exiled to the Transbaikal Region for participating in the Szymon Konarski conspiracy, and a reception prepared on the occasion of Father Kowalewski’s pastoral visit to the post-January exiles in Solvychegodsk (Vologda Governorate).
A visit by a priest to a place of exile for Poles was truly rare. In accordance with the top-down recommendations of the bishop of Mogilev (because all Catholic parishes in the Russian Empire were under his control), a priest tried to visit the places where the exiles were once a year, but this was not always possible. The priest’s visit to Solwyczegodsk was unusual because of Count Zygmunt Kierdej Wielhorski, who had been exiled here after the failure of the January Uprising. After arriving in exile, Wielhorski bought a house with a garden with the money he brought with him. The house consisted of three rooms, a kitchen, a pantry and an icehouse. His family sent him 600 silver rubles a year to maintain the house. This was where the social life of those exiled to this small town (1,300 inhabitants) took place. Wielhorski always organized social gatherings for Christmas, Easter, his name day and his closest friends. He prepared these meals himself because he had culinary talent. When more people gathered, he asked fellow exiles and his servant for help. There was no shortage of delicacies prepared by him for any of the participants of these gatherings.
Wielhorski prepared the most sumptuous dishes for the arrival of Father Kowalewski, the parish priest of Vologda. During one of these visits, after the service, Count Zygmunt Kierdej invited the priest and his closest relatives for dinner, 7 people in total. The table was served with French soup à la Colbert, then mayonnaise made of a rare salmon-like fish called nelma, and sterlet tartare. Finally, there were deer tongues, grilled lamb chops, roasted hazel grouse and turkey. White cabbage served as a salad, and pineapple jam and coffee cream were served for dessert. Toasts were made with Madeira. After dinner, there was a short nap, followed by conversations on various topics, but it seems that the topic that dominated was related to the purpose of provoking an uprising. During the conversations, people enjoyed barley soup prepared in the Samogitian way. There was also pure vodka – or rather “siwucha”, which had the exquisite taste of krupnik after boiling with honey and various kinds of spices. In any case, Father Kowalewski liked it very much. At about 9 p.m. there was supper, for which about 30 people gathered: a large pot of bigos, two huge hams and 500 dumplings were served. There was a problem with the tableware (plates, forks and spoons), but even that was somehow resolved. When one of the guests decided that he had had enough food, he passed the tableware to his friend. Everyone was very happy.
Based on the above-mentioned descriptions of the celebrations of religious and secular holidays, it is of course difficult to attempt a broader reflection because the examples are fragmentary. Although the matter requires further research, it seems that we can say that wealthy landowners had certain opportunities to make their long-term Siberian exile more comfortable. It would be necessary to access archives in Moscow, Tomsk, Omsk, Tobolsk and finally Irkutsk, where there is a lot of correspondence from Polish exiles that was confiscated by the tsarist authorities. It is difficult to predict, however, when this will be possible.
Wiesław Caban, professor emeritus of the Institute of History at Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce
Translated by Katarzyna Remża