Siberia

Reading notes

• Advertisements and Notices §11 Siberia

  Vast Russian territory east of the Urals, at this period still primarily known in the capital press for exile and frontier commerce -- which sharpens the joke of a "guide" to its best restaurants and tailors.

• The Thief §15 send me to Siberia

  Siberia was the Russian Empire's standard destination for both criminal and political exile -- the setting of the whole story, though never named again after this remembered exchange.

• The Meeting §76 The commune's set on exiling me to Siberia

  Administrative exile to Siberia by decision of the village commune (rather than a court sentence) was a real practice under the 1861 emancipation-era peasant statutes: a commune could vote to banish a habitually troublesome or criminal member without a formal criminal trial. Kuzma's matter-of-fact report that his own commune has "already drawn up such a sentence" against him, and his shrug ("there's people living in Siberia too"), frames him as someone already effectively cast out by his community before the story's theft ever occurs.

• The Bridegroom and Papa §36 Сибирью история пахнет

  "This smells of Siberia" -- embezzlement and forgery on this scale were tried under the Imperial criminal code with katorga (penal servitude) or administrative exile to Siberia as the standard sentence, which is why Kondrashkin's mind leaps straight there.