During the first three years of my stay in Kara the number of prisoners in our prison remained practically constant; a few were allowed to settle in the penal colony, but their places were soon taken by new-comers. Besides Spandoni—left behind at Krasnoyarsk, as I have related—who rejoined us at Kara in the spring of 1886, five comrades arrived in the autumn of the same year. They had been condemned in the “Case of the Proletariat,” in Warsaw: Dulemba, a workman, to thirteen years’ “katorga”; Kohn, a student, eight years; Luri, an officer of engineers, condemned to death, but reprieved and sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude; Mankòvsky, a workman, sixteen years; Rechnyèvsky, a graduate of the College of Jurisprudence in Petersburg, fourteen years.[[95]] The year after came Pashkòvsky, who in March, 1887, was condemned, (as a participator in the attempt upon Alexander III.,) to ten years’ “katorga”; and the peasant Ozovsky, sentenced to six years. In the course of 1888 arrived Peter Yakubòvitch and Souhomlìn,[[96]] sentenced respectively to eighteen and fifteen years’ penal servitude, both in the Lopàtin case.
In the course of time participators in nearly every political trial of the period—from the famous Netshaëv case in 1871 to that of Lopàtin and Sigida in 1887—were numbered among the “politicals” in the two Kara prisons, that for men and that for women; and as, of course, the various comrades talked much of the events in which they themselves had been concerned, Kara furnished a sort of living chronicle of the revolutionary movement, and was perhaps the only place where one could study the history of Russian Socialism from the testimony of personal experience. None of us, however, ever thought of committing to paper the material that was here available; and it is much to be doubted whether there is now anyone left in a position to do so. Much that would be extremely interesting is probably destined to remain buried in oblivion.
During my term of imprisonment none of those implicated in the first-mentioned Netshaëv trial (which belonged to the “Propagandist” phase of our movement, in 1870,) were still in Kara. They had all been released from prison and sent into exile, and I saw nothing of them; but of course I had known personally many of these revolutionists of earlier days when they were still in freedom.
I shared the captivity of several who were sentenced in the various political trials towards the end of the seventies, these having been mostly concerned in deeds of violence, from armed resistance to the police to attempts on the life of the Tsar. The chief combatants in that terrorist campaign had for the most part ended their days on the scaffold, or were buried alive within the grim walls of Schlüsselburg or in the Alexei-Ravelin wing of the Fortress of Peter and Paul. I had been acquainted with most of them, both men and women, before their fate overtook them, and I could set down much that I learned from these comrades in the terrorist struggle; but my reminiscences already threaten to assume formidable dimensions, and I will only briefly mention some of the most remarkable of such incidents.
LURI, SOUHOMLIN, AND RECHNYEVSKY, IN PRISON DRESS
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Voynoràlsky and Kovàlik were two prominent actors in the Propagandist movement, both of whom had been justices of the peace. In May, 1876, when imprisoned in the examination-prison in Petersburg, assisted by comrades outside they made an attempt to escape. They succeeded in getting out of their cell and climbing down a rope-ladder from one of the corridor windows; but an official who happened to be driving past the prison, thinking they were ordinary criminals, gave the alarm, and they were caught. They were sentenced to terms of penal servitude in the “Trial of the 193”; but again an attempt was made to rescue them, a plan being made to enable them to escape while being transported to the Khàrkov prison, where the prisoners considered most dangerous were then confined. This was in July, 1878. A number of armed men, two of them mounted, stopped the prison-van in which Voynoràlsky and Kovàlik were being conveyed; one of the gendarmes guarding it was shot, and the attempt might have been successful had not the horses taken fright and stampeded, which led to the recapture of the prisoners. Voynoràlsky and Kovàlik spent many years of confinement in European Russia, and were then sent, in company with many other revolutionists, to Kara, where they finished their term of imprisonment, subsequently being exiled in Yakutsk. Most of their companions found graves in the wilds of Siberia, but Voynoràlsky and Kovàlik survived their hour of release; in the winter of 1898-1899 they returned to European Russia, where Voynoràlsky died soon afterwards in his own home.
The attempted rescue just described had further consequences. The evening after, one of the riders who had stopped the prison-van was arrested at Khàrkov station; this was Alexei Medvèdiev, also called Fomin. He managed subsequently to escape from Khàrkov gaol with a number of ordinary criminals, by burrowing under a wall. As, however, outside help failed them, there was nothing for it but to hide in a wood near by, where they were soon recaptured. The comrades then resolved to try and rescue Medvèdiev, and arranged the following plan. Two young men, Berezniàk and Rashko, disguised themselves as gendarmes, and brought to the prison a forged order that Medvèdiev should be handed over to them and taken for examination to the office of the gendarmerie. But either in consequence (as the two asserted) of treachery, or else because the prison staff saw something suspicious about the supposed gendarmes, they were arrested on the spot. Yatzevitch was arrested at the same time, he being on the watch outside, ready to assist the flight of the others; and soon afterwards Yefremov and some others involved in the affair were also captured. In the subsequent trial Yefremov was condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life, and Berezniàk had a like penalty; these two and Yatzevitch were sent at once to Kara. Medvèdiev was treated differently: he was condemned to death and the sentence modified to lifelong penal servitude; but as attempts to rescue him were dreaded he was kept closely guarded in first one, then another West Siberian prison, was then taken to the Alexei-Ravelin in Petersburg, and was only brought to Kara in 1884. He was a man of consummate bravery, who literally despised danger, and was always ready to embark on the most perilous adventure. He had been a postillion, and had only received a scanty education at an elementary school; but by his own exertions while in prison he had gained quite a respectable amount of knowledge. He was particularly clever with his fingers, and performed some really astonishing feats. While imprisoned in Petersburg he secretly modelled a statuette in bread, which, when it was eventually discovered by the gendarmes, evoked great admiration from the commandant of the fortress and other officials, so marvellously was it executed. Thanks partly to this achievement, he was afterwards granted a special order modifying his sentence of lifelong “katorga” to a term of twenty years, upon which he was sent to Kara. There he became an adept in various handicrafts; he was an excellent tailor, shoemaker, engraver, and sculptor; and afterwards, when he was living “free” in exile, he became a watchmaker and goldsmith. Unfortunately soon after he left the prison he fell a victim to alcoholism, to which he had an inherited predisposition; all attempts at reclaiming him were vain, and in a few years he was beyond hope.
Just about the time of the attempted rescue at Khàrkov the revolutionists in Petersburg were put into a state of frightful excitement by other events. A number of those condemned in the “Case of the 193” were awaiting, in the Peter and Paul fortress, their transportation to Siberia; and in consequence of the vexatious and cruel treatment to which they were subjected, they had recourse to a hunger-strike, which, as most of them had already suffered years of imprisonment while still on remand, might easily have proved fatal to their enfeebled constitutions. After the strike had lasted some days, the society Zemlyà i Vòlya (Land and Liberty) became aware of what was going on, and one of its members, Kravtchinsky,[[97]] a former lieutenant in the artillery, declared at once that he would avenge his comrades by killing General Mèzentzev, the chief of gendarmerie, the man who was chiefly responsible for the persecution of the “politicals.” This deed he wished to undertake single-handed and openly without troubling about safety for himself, like Vera Zassoùlitch, who on January 24th, 1878, had fired at General Trepòv, Governor of Petersburg.[[98]] Many of Kravtchinsky’s comrades—myself among the number—opposed his resolve. Mèzentzev was not worth such a sacrifice, and we insisted that if the attempt were made it should be in such a manner as to make possible the escape of the perpetrator. To this end General Mèzentzev’s doings were carefully observed that we might ascertain his hours of coming and going; and close to his dwelling a carriage was constantly stationed with the famous trotter Barbar, who had already saved one life—that of Prince Peter Kropotkin in his escape from the prison hospital in 1876. One day in August, 1878, Mèzentzev was stabbed in one of the busiest streets of Petersburg, and, thanks to the speed of Barbar, Kravtchinsky and his companion Barannikov got away safely. Subsequently a great number of persons were arrested on account of this deed, among others, Adrian Mihaïlov, who was accused of acting as coachman. He was sentenced to twenty years’ “katorga,” and was for some time my room-mate at Kara.