In the World of the Outcasts: Notes of a Former Penal Laborer, Volume I

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Anthem Press, Mar 1, 2015 - History - 306 pages
Pėtr Filippovich Iakubovich represents the many young people whose opposition to the Russian state turned to extremism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His conviction and banishment to forced labor and settlement in Siberia was an experience shared by many. But, unlike most, Iakubovich detailed his experiences in a thrilling and insightful roman ą clef. Like the better-known accounts by Dostoevskii and Chekhov, Iakubovich’s novel paints a picture of his fellow criminal inmates that is both objective and insightful. “In the World of the Outcasts” proved especially popular, appearing first in serial form between 1895 and 1898, and then as a book which ran through three editions prior to 1917. Along with other exposés of official malfeasance and corruption, it helped to focus popular resentment against the Romanovs. The book reappeared in 1964, in one of the last breaths of fresh air before Khrushchėv was supplanted by Brezhnev’s neo-Stalinism. Laying bare the facts of Russia’s penal system like Dostoevskii’s “Notes from a Dead House” before it, and Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” after it, Iakubovich’s “In the World of the Outcasts” is both a valuable historical document and a compelling work of literary fiction. This translation marks the first appearance of Iakubovich’s masterpiece in English.
 

Contents

IN THE WORLD OF THE OUTCASTS Vol
3
Shelai Mine
29
The Usual Outcome
155
In the Mining Gallery
160
The Little Eagle of Fergana
169
Solitude
185
In a New Ward Innocents and Brutes
187
Efimov A Prison Sophist and Mephistopheles
199
Escapes and First Blood
236
Among the Hills
239
The Wagger Amuses Me
242
A Massacre of Women and Innocents
247
A Curious Conversation
253
Hitting Back
257
Shelais Guests
266
Epilogue
267

Demons of Evil and Destruction
206
New Students Lunkov
211
Mare on the Road
213
Sakhalin Disturbances
222
Nikifors Romance The SendOff
229
Night
272
Notes
275
Notes
281
VOLUME II
282
Copyright

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About the author (2015)

Pėtr F. Iakubovich was a Russian dissident imprisoned in the late nineteenth century.

Andrew A. Gentes is an historian and translator who lives with his wife in New Hampshire.

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