The House of the Dead

Posted on 14 November 2018 by Daniel Beer

It was known as the vast prison without a roof From the beginning of the nineteenth century to the Russian Revolution, the tsarist regime exiled than one million prisoners and their families beyond the Ural Mountains to Siberia.Daniel Beer s new book, The House of the Dead, brings to life both the brutal realities of an inhuman system and the tragic and inspiring fates of those who endured it This is the vividly told history of common criminals and political radicals, the victims of serfdom and village politics, the wives and children who followed husbands and fathers, and of fugitives and bounty hunters.Siberia served two masters colonisation and punishment In theory, exiles would discover the virtues of self reliance, abstinence and hard work and, in so doing, they would develop Siberia s natural riches and bind it firmly to Russia In reality, the autocracy banished an army not of hardy colonists but of half starving, desperate vagabonds The tsars also looked on Siberia as creating the ultimate political quarantine from the contagions of revolution Generations of rebels republicans, nationalists and socialists were condemned to oblivion thousands of kilometres from European Russia Over the nineteenth century, however, these political exiles transformed Siberia s mines, prisons and remote settlements into an enormous laboratory of revolution.This masterly work of original research taps a mass of almost unknown primary evidence held in Russian and Siberian archives to tell the epic story both of Russia s struggle to govern its monstrous penal colony and Siberia s ultimate, decisive impact on the political forces of the modern world. New Read The House of the Dead author Daniel Beer For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr Fearsome and meticulous study of the system of Siberian exile of the old Russian Empire, focusing on the period from the early 19th century to the empire s fall in 1917 The whole of Russia east of the Ural mountains, if it was separated and left to be its own country, would still be the largest single nation on earth As early as the 16th century, it was proposed that this vast hinterland, still populated by native tribes and a few fur trappers, would serve as a useful dumping ground for the cr Fearsome and meticulous study of the system of Siberian exile of the old Russian Empire, focusing on the period from the early 19th century to the empire s fall in 1917 The whole of Russia east of the Ural mountains, if it was separated and left to be its own country, would still be the largest single nation on earth As early as the 16th century, it was proposed that this vast hinterland, still populated by native tribes and a few fur trappers, would serve as a useful dumping ground for the criminal elements that contaminated holy Russia In theory, it would be a mixture between colonization and imprisonment, where hard labor would be a reformative agent, producing hardy settlers, farmers, loyal subjects of the empire It was not so Siberia was transformed into a vast, open air prison, either oppressively brutal or unable to control its vast populati...Woohoo I feel so accomplished for finishing this book, which took me an unusually long time 1 week to read because it was so packed with information Most of it was very interesting, but it could FEEL like a slog on occasion.I first heard about this book while reading a couple of histories about the Romanov dynasty and its end in WWI and the Russian Revolutions of 1917 This is a book about the Romanov system of internal exile to Siberia, especially from 1800 until the beginning of WW1 Beer takes his title from Dostoevsky...I think this would be a good read even if you aren t a Russian history buff like me If you are, it s amazing The author has synthesized a massive amount of historical research into an epic account of centuries of exile and suffering in the great prison without a roof Chapters that provide a broad overview alternate with chapters that focus on the moving personal stories of particular individuals or groups Some, such as the Decembrists and Dostoevsky, are famous others might have been forg I think this would be a good read even if you aren t a Russian history buff like me If you are, it s amazing The a...Simply, a masterpiece of forensic scholarship No point in regurgitating summaries posted words fail at least, my words fail Yet another case of human good intentions producing human unintended consequences, but on a tragically huge scale.well written, exhaustively researched I am a worthy judge of that Now I would like to read Dostoevsky s Notes from the House of the Dead I ve read The Idiot , a surprisingly humorous book, even if it is a grim humor, Dostoevsky is an author deserving of his accolades I ve just ordered Tolstoy s Resurrection another book frequently referred The brutality never ends this sentence by Beer paraphrased sums it up, By the end of the nineteent...A very good look at exile to Siberia under the Tsars He briefly discusses Siberia after the revolution but I did wonder if he s planning a book about it It s not as easy a subject as I imagined There was not one kind of exile and there was not one kind of person exiled Different classes often though not always got treated differently for example People were also differentiated by what part of Siberia they were sent to climate and labor being the main differentiators Were they sent as la A very good look at exile to Siberia under the Tsars He briefly discusses Siberia after the revolution but I did wonder if he s planning a book about it It s not as easy a subject as I imagined There was not one kind of exile and there was not one kind of person exiled Different classes often though not always got treated differently for example People were also differentiated ...I have never really read much about Siberia, and how the Russians used its vast expanse The sheer brutality used on offenders by the Russians is almost too much to bear, and I use offender as a generic term The powers that be could find something to make almost everyone an offender Beating and mutilating people before exiling them to Siberia was routine The penal colonies were expected to thrive and populate the area so that the rich mines could be tapped for wealth Ugh.Very well writte I have never really read...Whoops This sounds like something I wanted to read, but it was not No offense intended to Beer at all it seems very well researched and informative, if this is the kind of thing you want information about.This is an extraordinary book in many ways In documenting the colossal waste of human life and resources that the Romanov regime expended in banishing social and political undesirables to the farthest and most remote reaches of the Russian Empire, it serves in some respects as a pre revolutionary companion piece to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn s The Gulag Archipelago 1918 1956, and demon...

English
14 November 2018

Daniel Beer