"Crime and punishment": Sakhalin penal servitude in the perception of criminal offenders (mid-XIX–early XX Century)

Levandovskii Andrei Nikitich Postgraduate student, the department of Source Studies, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University 119192, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Lomonosovskii Prospekt, 27 korp 4 andre-levandowski@rambler.ru Other publications by this author

Consideration of any historical phenomenon through the prism of personal perception of representatives of a particular social group has long been not new in Russian historiography, every year there are many works devoted to this issue. This approach to the study of Sakhalin and its penitentiary institutions of the mid – XIX - early XX century is popular .

In Soviet historiography, in such works, the main emphasis was placed on such sources, in which the tsarist government was denounced and all the vices of the Sakhalin penal servitude were shown. First of all, special attention was paid to the works of A.P. Chekhov and V.M. Doroshevich, ^{[22, 24, 25]}. In the post-Soviet period, the development of this problem continued ^{[1, 2, 9, 21]}. As an example, let's give a study by Professor M.S. Vysokov, released for the 150th anniversary of A.P. Chekhov. The author noted in the introduction that his main task was "to make the text of Chekhov's Sakhalin more accessible to the modern reader. In this regard, short articles were prepared about almost all the real people and literary heroes mentioned on the pages of A.P. Chekhov's book, atlases and maps, newspapers and magazines, scientific works and literary works, oceans and seas, straits and bays, rivers and lakes, islands and peninsulas, mountains and valleys, capes and rocks, peoples and countries, provinces and regions, districts and military posts, villages and cities, plants and animals, laws and institutions, societies and companies, religious denominations and educational institutions, gambling and money, ranks and titles, executions and corporal punishment, clothing and tools, buildings and furniture, mountain rocks and ships, food and beverages, diseases and medicines ^{[2, p. 11]}. The images of Sakhalin captured by A.P. Chekhov and V.M. Doroshevich were, until a certain time, perhaps the main source for the formation of the image of Sakhalin reality by modern researchers.

In the latest historiography, works began to appear in which already known plots are covered from new sides, relying on sources whose authors were foreign travelers C.G. Howes, B. Howard, G. de Windt, P. Labbe, etc. ^{[12, 13, 14]}. Often these publications were accompanied by publications of relevant sources, which expanded the research capabilities of the latter. So, in 2003, travel essays by the famous English anthropologist, ethnographer C.G. Howes, entitled by the author "On the eastern outskirts", were published in the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk publishing house. Which largely complement the information that we can find from A.P. Chekhov and V. Doroshevich.

It is well known that at the end of the XIX century many well-known officials visited Sakhalin with a check, among whom one can recall the heads of the Main Prison Department M.N. Galkin-Vrasky and A.P. Salomon, legal adviser D.A. Drill, an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs A.A. Panov, etc., whose memoirs and notes modern researchers attract for expansion ideas about the "island of exile" ^{[3, 5, 11]}.

The study of historiography devoted to the Sakhalin penal servitude suggests that there are practically no works in the arsenal of researchers based on the perception of the island and the life on it of eyewitnesses serving their sentences there. The only exceptions are the sources involved in the works about the life of political prisoners ^{[10, 13, 20]}. The fate of "criminals", persons who have committed serious crimes, in our opinion, deserve no less attention. It was they who made up the "backbone" of penal servitude, on the basis of which the administration planned to turn Sakhalin into a prosperous colony, the implementation of these plans largely depended on their position. This circumstance determines the importance of referring in the article to sources that reveal the attitudes of criminal offenders to their new position, to their work duties and the opportunity to atone for their sins before society.

Working with sources allows us to distinguish two categories: those that contain "primary" information reported directly by the prisoners themselves, who are the authors of texts about penal servitude, and those that contain materials of interviews with prisoners that can be attributed to the field of "oral history", broadcast by outside observers of the Sakhalin penal servitude. These include writers and officials who had more opportunities to publish and convey their observations and impressions to the reader than criminals. Almost every one of those who visited Sakhalin and left some notes, somehow communicated with local prisoners and formed some opinion about them. Moreover, it can be diametrically opposite for different authors. If A.P. Chekhov ^[28], V.M. Doroshevich ^[8] and some officials ^[19] present the inhabitants of the Sakhalin penal servitude, for the most part, as victims of a cruel system that breaks human lives and destinies, then another part of the bureaucracy ^[15] and foreign travelers

^{[7, 26, 27 the attitude towards criminal offenders is much more skeptical, they are sure that many of the prisoners fully deserve such a fate, and for some of them the "rope" is crying. Separately in this group I would like to highlight the works of Sakhalin doctor N.S. Lobas. In their content, they are very different from other works on this topic, since the author tried to approach the analysis of the behavior of criminals from a scientific point of view and set out to understand what pushes them to the path of crime. N.S. Lobas was a supporter of the theory of Cesare Lombroso, which claimed that social conditions and hereditary signs they have a huge impact on the formation of a human personality. He decided to test this statement by the example of the biographies of 80 of the most notorious Sakhalin criminals, and he wrote down many of the information from the words of the criminals themselves or used their notes [16, p. 112]}. N.S. Lobas supplemented his thoughts with direct quoting of convicts, by which we can understand their character and worldview ^{[16, p. 116-118]}. Such an approach, as well as the very fact of N.S. Lobas' direct work and stay on Sakhalin, makes this source the most important for the undertaken research.

Of the works written directly by criminal criminals, it is worth mentioning the memoirs of Fyodor Shirokolobov, created by him at the request of an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs N. Novombergsky ^[17]. To get to know the author of these memoirs better, here is a card that was compiled by the above-mentioned doctor N.S. Lobas: "Fedor Shirokolobov, 35 years old, a peasant. I didn't do anything. Several murders for the purpose of robbery. The family lived richly. The physique is athletic. The right very big head. Wide duck nose, strongly developed zygomatic processes. Thick lips. The heart tones are clear. Pulse 80 is very weak filling. Skin sensitivity is sharply reduced. Reflexes are normal. My father was healthy. The mother died of paralysis. My father drank vodka heavily. Grandfather, too. He started his sexual life at the age of 14" ^{[16, p. 179]}. This characteristic fully explains the conclusions of N. Novombergsky, who believed that all attempts to organize colonies on Sakhalin, relying on people like Fedor, whose life consisted of a series of the bloodiest crimes and who did not want to exist by honest labor, were futile ^{[17, p. 176]}.

However, it should be noted that the information that the prisoners left to their interviewers should be treated with some caution. According to researchers, convicts were characterized by "bravado", they often "painted" in order to increase their authority in prison ^{[8, p. 225; 16, p. 126; 17, p. 177]}. However, these stories convey the general mood, as they reproduce the atmosphere in which the penal servitude lived. Therefore, we consider it possible to use these materials as a source of information about the perception of Sakhalin by convicts as a historical and cultural space. An equally significant question, the answer to which sources can give, is the problem of reliability in the expressed judgments of the creators of the sources in relation to criminals convicted under criminal articles.

How did the convicts perceive their isolation on the island? Did they accept their imprisonment as an opportunity to atone for their sins and start life from scratch, and did they understand colonization as a state task, as well as the idea of their forced, but socially significant service? There can be no definite answer. But it is known that the first prisoner of Sakhalin, the parricide Ivan Lapshin, himself asked him to be sent to the island in order to "cleanse himself of the crime he committed" with his labor ^{[17, p. 13]}. Such an example was an exception to the rule rather than a pattern. Seasoned criminals treated their imprisonment stoically. Their position was demonstrated in his memoirs by the recidivist murderer Fyodor Shirokolobov. He wrote that he realized why he was sent to hard labor, understands that it was not for nothing and that his life path led to him being behind bars ^{[17, p. 250]}. F. Shirokolobov did not seek redemption for his guilt or sins, but simply existed on Sakhalin, although in his memoirs they noted that he regretted the pleasures that he could have received at liberty, had he not been on the "island of exile". Nevertheless, F. Shirokolobov realized that in case of a successful escape, he would hardly have changed his habits and would have continued to rob and kill. This, in turn, would have led him back to hard labor or to the grave. He categorically did not want this. The desire to live, even in hard labor, was stronger than the dream of freedom and the pleasures granted to her. He managed to occupy quite high positions in the prison hierarchy. The title of "Ivan", that is, an authoritative criminal, provided him with a tolerable life, which he was not going to risk for the sake of vague prospects. Dr. N.S. Lobas cited the arguments of another criminal whom he interviewed: "What do we need? They give us food to drink, dress us, and shoe us ^{[16, p. 119]}." This position was typical for many prisoners, because, due to their physical condition, many of them could not lead a criminal lifestyle, and they could no longer ensure their existence in the wild by other, legal means. There were exceptions among the prisoners, some of them hated life on the island and tried to escape at every opportunity. But this was not related to the Sakhalin penal servitude, but concerned the entire penitentiary system, which restricted the freedom they so desired. V.M. Doroshevich testified that after interviewing prisoners, it can be concluded that almost everyone in penal servitude seeks to change their fate and get out. The means to achieve the goal were secondary in nature, criminals did not care how this goal would be achieved, how they would gain the will ^{[8, p. 232]}. The greatest suffering from their imprisonment, as a rule, was experienced by "random" criminals who were at the very bottom of the prison hierarchy ^{[8, p. 233]}. They did not have such an experience of hard labor as experienced "Ivanov", escape because of its complexity and illegality was impossible for them, they had no choice but to serve their sentence, which was very difficult. Any unfortunate combination of circumstances sucked their "quagmire" deeper and deeper. So, V.M. Doroshevich narrated the story of a certain philistine Nikolai Glovatsky, who, as the investigation believed, killed his wife in a state of passion. For weakness in work, he was beaten with rods, and also accused of murdering another prisoner, who, as it turned out later, simply escaped from custody. This finally undermined his poor health, and at the age of 47 N. Glovatsky became a crippled old man living out his days in a prison infirmary ^{[8, p. 165]}. With such an attitude of convicts to their imprisonment, when only a few of the criminal and political criminals considered Sakhalin as a place to atone for their guilt, and not as a cage holding them, it is difficult to imagine that they could be a support in the difficult matter of colonization of the island, which the authorities so counted on.

The second important aspect of the information that can be obtained from sources concerns the question of how criminal convicts treated their work duties assigned to them by the State. There was also no uniformity in this matter. Among the prisoners there were real workers who treated work as a way to atone for their sins or as an opportunity to improve their situation. Such people included the above-mentioned Ivan Lapshin, whose example strengthened the administration in the possibility of implementing the idea of creating a colony on the island ^{[17, p. 13]} or Egor from A.P. Chekhov's Sakhalin Island, who simply could not be without work ^{[28, p. 97-98]}. But these are only isolated examples. Many of those who went to hard labor were not accustomed to work. This is partly why they ended up on the "convict island", being unable to honestly get money to meet their needs. One of the patients of Dr. N.S. Lobas wrote: "I, like others, was looking for happiness, i.e. money, which, as I believed, constitutes happiness. Yes, I was looking for money. My whole life has been spent searching for them, sacrificing everything for them; I was ready to torment everyone, I was ready for the most desperate feat just to get money. My father left me an inheritance, but it all went to burning through life, and without pleasure, like without air, I could not exist. It was necessary to die without money, and I decided to live, which was equivalent to a crime, without which there was nothing left to do in this life" ^{[16, p. 115]}. It is clear that not all prisoners had such an almost physical intolerance to work, but almost all "Ivans", the authorities of penal servitude, possessed it. They despised "people taken from the plough" and this contempt was passed on to the rest of the convicts, who still hesitated in choosing their own strategy of behavior in prison.

We should add that due to the multinational composition of the Russian Empire, Sakhalin was visited by residents of Central Asia and the Caucasus ^{[4, p. 222]}, that is, representatives of those peoples whose way of life in principle differed from the Great Russian population. Representatives of the "foreigners" were not capable of the work that was required of them in hard labor, which could not but affect the development of the island's infrastructure. All this caused irreparable harm to colonization plans, which required selfless work to implement them.

As can be seen from all of the above, a significant part of the criminal offenders had neither the inclination nor the desire to work and perceived hard labor as a cage that interferes with their "free" life. Did the Sakhalin penitentiary system have the opportunity to correct a person and force him to change the trajectory of his life? Unfortunately, the analysis of sources allows us to state the utopian nature of this assumption. Penal servitude rather corrupted exiles and turned "taken from the plough for a while" into real "Ivanovs". A striking example is the story of a Sakhalin prisoner, Georgian Bashinashvili, who, after being sent to hard labor, became a real bandit, robbing and killing local residents for 8 months ^{[16, p. 122]}. In fairness, it should be noted that there have been cases when hard labor contributed to correction, the criminal went off his criminal path, but this usually happened not because of the transformation of views, but because of objective factors, for example, the physical inability of a person to lead a criminal life. Fedor Shirokolobov, after an unsuccessful escape, during which he was shot through the legs, refused further attempts to leave the island, since in his condition it was almost impossible ^{[17, p. 250]}. But even if the murderer sincerely wanted to reform and repented of his crimes, he could not find sympathy for his impulses in hard labor. In order to maintain his authority, he had to pose as a cold-blooded criminal. V.M. Doroshevich quoted the words of a certain convicted criminal Negel. The killer shared with the publicist the hope of finding forgiveness and atoning for his guilt. However, at the end of the conversation, he asked not to pass on the contents of the conversation to anyone: "You just don't tell anyone about 'this'! – he asked me at parting, - otherwise they will find out in hard labor, they will laugh...!" ^{[8, p. 224]}.

At all times, there are different people in the criminal environment. Someone is looking for redemption, someone is alien to repentance. The Sakhalin penal servitude was no exception. But it was so established in the criminal environment that the authority was enjoyed by "Ivans", experienced convicts who adapted more easily to such circumstances and generally settled much better in prison than people who got to Sakhalin due to mistakes or unfortunate circumstances. And for many of them, the only way to survive was to copy the behavior of the "Ivanovs", which only dragged them deeper and deeper into hard labor. Most likely, it is for this reason that the assessment of the situation and moral qualities of criminal criminals varies so much in the sources. A.P. Chekhov, V.M. Doroshevich, L.V. Poddubsky, despite the different goals they set before going to the island, tried to point out the rottenness of the system itself, which not only did not correct criminals, but and corrupted the innocent, including the administration of penal servitude. A.P. Chekhov wrote that "not only prisoners, but also those who punish and are present at the punishment become rude and hardened from corporal punishment" ^{[20, p. 262]}. Therefore, they pitied the criminals rather than condemned them. So, V. Doroshevich wrote about one of the prisoners: "This was a man in whom everything was destroyed... his body was tortured and spit on his soul" ^{[8, p. 336]}. In the above-mentioned sources, there is a softer attitude towards exiles. But there are also those who considered life in hard labor and expressed their attitude to it, based on the facts, not wanting to condescend to criminals. For example, the French ethnologist Paul Labbe was robbed by his own guard ^{[29, pp. 36-37]}, and the researcher Henry Hawes was robbed by one of them ^{[27, p. 120]}.

The prisoners themselves, in their memoirs and interviews, are rather closer to the point of view of A.P. Chekhov, blaming the unhealthy social atmosphere that they embarked on the path of crime. Here 's how one of the criminals writes about it in verse:

We must tell the truth:

In my bitter share

Sinful drunkard-mother

God will judge her ^{[16, p. 129]}.

The desire of criminals to shift responsibility for their actions to insurmountable circumstances is obvious. But not everyone did this. For example, Fedora Shirokolobov was more honest and admitted his guilt in the crimes committed by him ^{[17, p. 250]}. But in any case, most of the criminals did not see an opportunity or did not want to correct the situation, for example, by their hard work for the benefit of the colonization of the island. A.P. Chekhov was right when he wrote: "... hard labor kills a person's moral strength, corrupts and destroys the soul" ^{[20, p. 303]}.

In many ways, this explains why the development of Sakhalin by convicts proceeded at a slow pace. It is known that proposals have been made to remove "Ivanovs" and vagrants from penal servitude due to the negative effect they have on other exiles ^{[18, p. 239]}. This proposal seems very fair, because regardless of whether we consider criminal criminals to be victims of the system or dangerous bandits, we must admit that both in interviews ^{[16, p. 134]} and in memoirs ^{[17, p. 249]}, most of them were incapable of honest work, and the assumption one of the authors of the island development projects, that colonization would give scope to the activities of each of the exiled convicts who decided to start a new working life" ^{[23, p. 220]}, was not confirmed. Having at its core such a noticeable flaw in the face of the criminal contingent, the Sakhalin project could not be implemented and did not achieve the results that its creators hoped for.