Awards

• Winner of Joint Winner of the 2018 BASEES Women's Forum Prize, awarded by the British Association for Slavonic & East European Studies..

Overview

A Prison Without Walls? presents a snapshot of daily life for exiles and their dependents in eastern Siberia during the very last years of the Tsarist regime, from the 1905 revolution to the collapse of the Tsarist regime in 1917. This was an extraordinary period in Siberia's history as a place of punishment. There was an unprecedented rise of Siberia's penal use in this fifteen-year window, and a dramatic increase in the number of exiles punished for political offences. This work focuses on the region of Eastern Siberia, taking the regions of Irkutsk and Yakutsk in north-eastern Siberia as its focal points. Siberian exile was the antithesis of Foucault's modern prison. The State did not observe, monitor, and control its exiles closely; often not even knowing where the exiles were. Exiles were free to govern their daily lives; free of fences and free from close observation and supervision, but despite these freedoms, Siberian exile represented one of Russia's most feared punishments.In this volume, Sarah Badcock seeks to humanise the individuals who made up the mass of exiles, and the men, women, and children who followed them voluntarily into exile. A Prison Without Walls? is structured in a broad narrative arc that moves from travel to exile, life and communities in exile, work and escape, and finally illness in exile. The book gives a personal, human, empathetic insight into what exilic experience entailed, and allows us to comprehend why eastern Siberia was regarded as a terrible punishment, despite its apparent freedoms.

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9780199641550

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Reviews

A particular strength of A Prison Without Walls? is Badcock's discussion of the interplay between mobility and stasis in her analysis of the exilic experience. * Judith Pallot, Revolutionary Russia * a most worthwhile book, replete with useful information and evocative description ... as the study of all regions and periods of Siberian history attracts more investigators, they will certainly find that they have a high standard to live up to. * Paul Dukes, Journal of European Studies * a notable achievement that will be of interest to scholars of tsarist and Soviet Russia, as well as historians of crime and punishment, and migration. * Jonathan Smele, Reviews in History *

a notable achievement that will be of interest to scholars of tsarist and Soviet Russia, as well as historians of crime and punishment, and migration. * Jonathan Smele, Reviews in History *

provides a vivid snapshot of the Siberian exile system at a crucial moment in time on the eve of war and revolution, one that should find readers both academic and otherwise, for it would work well in the classroom. * Ben Eklof, American Historical Review * Badcock deserves credit for having produced an assiduous, enlightening and admirably humane piece of scholarship,one that adds greatly to our understanding of a hitherto obscure and understudied aspect of Russia's imperial experience. * Ben Phillips, Slavonic and East European Review * A particular strength of A Prison Without Walls? is Badcock's discussion of the interplay between mobility and stasis in her analysis of the exilic experience. * Judith Pallot, Revolutionary Russia * a most worthwhile book, replete with useful information and evocative description ... as the study of all regions and periods of Siberian history attracts more investigators, they will certainly find that they have a high standard to live up to. * Paul Dukes, Journal of European Studies * a notable achievement that will be of interest to scholars of tsarist and Soviet Russia, as well as historians of crime and punishment, and migration. * Jonathan Smele, Reviews in History * While Soviet historiography emphasized the cultural benefits that political exiles brought to Siberia, Badcock gives voice as well to the regional authorities and local populations, who articulated the negative impacts of exile on their communities ... Badcock has consulted archives in the Sakha Republic and the Irkutsk Oblast. We hear new kinds of voices in this study, and find descriptions that prove further that state ambitions for forced labour and the misery of prisoners and their families did not begin with the Soviet state. * Comments by the jury of the BASEES Women's Forum Prize * finely researched, elegantly written and thought-provoking

provides a vivid snapshot of the Siberian exile system at a crucial moment in time on the eve of war and revolution, one that should find readers both academic and otherwise, for it would work well in the classroom. * Ben Eklof, American Historical Review * Badcock deserves credit for having produced an assiduous, enlightening and admirably humane piece of scholarship,one that adds greatly to our understanding of a hitherto obscure and understudied aspect of Russia's imperial experience. * Ben Phillips, Slavonic and East European Review * A particular strength of A Prison Without Walls? is Badcock's discussion of the interplay between mobility and stasis in her analysis of the exilic experience. * Judith Pallot, Revolutionary Russia * a most worthwhile book, replete with useful information and evocative description ... as the study of all regions and periods of Siberian history attracts more investigators, they will certainly find that they have a high standard to live up to. * Paul Dukes, Journal of European Studies * a notable achievement that will be of interest to scholars of tsarist and Soviet Russia, as well as historians of crime and punishment, and migration. * Jonathan Smele, Reviews in History * While Soviet historiography emphasized the cultural benefits that political exiles brought to Siberia, Badcock gives voice as well to the regional authorities and local populations, who articulated the negative impacts of exile on their communities ... Badcock has consulted archives in the Sakha Republic and the Irkutsk Oblast. We hear new kinds of voices in this study, and find descriptions that prove further that state ambitions for forced labour and the misery of prisoners and their families did not begin with the Soviet state. * Comments by the jury of the BASEES Women's Forum Prize * finely researched, elegantly written and thought-provoking * English Historical Review * A Prison without Walls? will likely be considered the definitive work on katorga and exile in early twentieth-century Russia for some time to come. * Alan Barenberg, Journal of Modern History *

Author Information

Sarah Badcock was born in County Durham, and lived in the north-east of England until she moved 'south' to study history and roman civilisation at the University of Leeds, where she graduated with first class honours in 1995. She moved back up north to start her graduate studies at the University of Durham's department of Russian studies, and successfully defended her doctoral thesis there at the end of 2000. She spent 2001 studying in archives around Russia, supported by a Leverhulme study abroad fellowship. She joined the University of Nottingham at the beginning of 2002, and has been there ever since as Associate Professor in the department of History. Her research focuses on lower class experience in revolutionary Russia, comparative perspectives on penal systems and use of exile, and lived experiences of punishment.

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