I met among the political exiles in Siberia representatives of all the classes above described, and I have tried, in the earlier chapters of this work, to convey to the reader the impressions that they made upon me in personal intercourse. I desire now to state, as briefly as I can, my conclusions with regard to their character.
1. The Liberals. — So far as I know, it is not pretended by anybody that the Russian liberals are bad men or bad citizens. The Government, it is true, keeps them under strict restraint, prohibits them from making public speeches,[1] drives them out of the universities,[2] forbids them to sit as delegates in provincial assemblies,[3] expels them from St. Petersburg,[4] suppresses the periodicals that they edit,[5] puts them under police surveillance and sends them to Siberia;[6] but, notwithstanding all this, it does not accuse them of criminality, nor even of criminal intent. It merely asserts that they are "politically untrustworthy"; that the "tendency" of their social activity is "pernicious"; or that, from an official point of view, their presence in a particular place is "prejudicial to public tranquillity." These vague assertions mean, simply, that the liberals are in the way of the officials, and prevent the latter, to some extent, from doing what they want to do with the bodies, the souls, or the property of the Russian people.
- ↑ The case of Professor Orest Miller.
- ↑ The case of Professor S. A. Múromtsef , formerly pro-rector of the Moscow university.
- ↑ The case of Mr. Ivan I. Petrunkévich, twice elected a member of the provincial assembly of Chernígof, and twice expelled and banished from the province by order of the Minister of the Interior.
- ↑ The case of the eminent essayist and critic N. K. Mikháilofski, banished from St. Petersburg the last time, only a few months ago, for the part taken by him in the ceremonies at the funeral of the publicist Shelgunóf.
- ↑ Sáltikof's Annals of the Fatherland, Kraiéfski's Gólos, Zagóskin's Sibír, Adriánof's Sibírskaya Gazéta, and many others. See Appendix B.
- ↑ See, in Appendix B, a list of the names of Russian poets, novelists, critics, editors, political economists, historians, and naturalists who have been hanged, imprisoned, or banished since the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Nicholas.
