"I am convinced that the 'unfortunates' live better on Sakhalin than in any other place in Russia or even in Europe. In conjunction with this, much still remains to be done, and we are confronted with an endless road leading to their welfare."
He had visited Sakhalin five years earlier and now found significant progress surpassing all his expectations. His words of praise omitted any reference to hunger, habitual prostitution by women exiles, and terrible corpo- ral punishments, but the audience was forced to believe him. In comparison with what had transpired five years ago, the present situation was almost the beginning of a golden age.
There were illuminations during the evening. Until late at night soldiers, settlers and prisoners milled around in throngs along the streets lit with lamps and Bengal lights. The prison was open. The Duyka River, always piti- ful and dirty with its bleak and barren banks, was now decorated on both sides with multicolored lanterns and
Bengal lights, and their reflections in the water were lovely that evening, majestic and ludicrous, like a cook's daughter dressed up in the gown of a baroness. Music was being played in the general's garden, and there were singers. They even shot off the cannon, and the cannon burst.
In spite of all this gaiety, it was dull on the streets. There were no songs, no accordions, not even one drunk- ard. The people wandered around like shadows and were as silent as shadows. Convict life, even with Bengal lights, remains convict life; and music which is heard from afar by a person who will never return to his homeland only evokes deadly melancholy.
When I arrived with my writing paper to keep my appointment with the Governor-General, he gave me his opinions on penal servitude in Sakhalin and on the colony, and suggested that I record everything he said. I agreed most willingly. He suggested that I entitle my inquiry: "A Record of the Life of the Unfortunates." From our previous conversation and from his dictation I received the imprcssion that he was a magnanimous and honorable man, but that the "life of the unfortunates" was not as well known to him as he thought. Here are several sentences which he dictated to me:
"Nobody is bereft of the hope of enjoying his full rights; there is no such thing as perpetual punishment. Penal servitude for an indefinite period is limited to twenty years. Convict hard labor is not onerous. Forced labor gives no personal gain to the workers; herein lies its burden, and not in physical oppression. There are no chains, no guards, no shaved heads."
The days were beautiful with a bright sky and clear air, reminiscent of fall in Russia. The evenings were magnifi- cent. I remember the glowing western sky, the dark-blue sea and a completely white moon rising over the moun- tains. On such evenings I enjoyed driving along the valley between the post and the viUage of Novo-Mikhaylovka; the road is smooth, straight; alongside is a railway and a telegraph line. The further we drove from Alexandrovsk, the more the valley narrowed, the shadows deepened; there were giant burdocks in tropical luxuriance; dark moun- tains rose on all sides. In the distance we could see the flames from coke fires, and there were more flames from a forest fire. The moon rose. Suddenly a fantastic scene. Coming toward us along the railway was a convict, riding in a small cart, dressed in white and leaning on a pole. He stopped abruptly.
"Isn't it time to turn back?" asked my convict driver. Then he turned the horses, and glancing up at the mountains and the fires, he said:
"It is lonesome here, your worship. It is much better at home in Russia."
Following is a sample of a denunciation via telegraph: ''It is my bounden duty, according to the seven hundred and twelfth article of volume three of the criminal code, to trouble your honor to come to the defense of justice against impunity for extortion, forgery and torturc perpetrated by X."
The hopes were not unattainable. At one settlement, speaking of the fact that peasant exiles were now permitted to move to the mainland, he said, "And later you can go back to your homeland, to Russia."
III The Census - Contents of the Statistical Form - My Questions and the Answers Received ■ The Huts and Their Inhabitants - The Exiles' Opinions of the Census
in order to be able to visit all the settlements possible and to become intimately acquainted with the majority of the exiles, I devised a method which seemed the only possible one for achieving my purpose. I took a census. In the settlements I went into each hut and recorded the names of the owners, the members of their families, and who lodged with them and worked with them. I was graciously offered assistance to lighten my work and save time, but since my chief aim in taking the census was not to produce a final record but to gain impressions through the recording process itself, I used help only on the rarest occasions. All this was done by one man in three months, and cannot really be called a census. The record cannot be considered accurate and complete. However, since more competpnt data does not exist either in literature or in the Sakhalin administrative offices, it is possible that my figures may be useful.
To record the census I used forms printed for me at the printing shop of the police department. The arrange- ment was as follows. On the first line of each form I noted the name of the post or settlement. On the second line was the number of the house according to the prison list of homesteads. The third line noted the status of the person interviewed: convict, settler, peasant formerly ex- iled, free person. I recorded free persons only if they directly participated in an exile's household—for example, if they were married, legally or illegally, and generally belonged to his family, or lived in his house as workers, lodgers, etc.
Great significance is attached to status according to Sakhalin customs. A convict is unquestionably ashamed of his status. To the question "What is your status?" he answers, "I am a worker." If he had been a soldier before his imprisonment, he always adds, "A soldier, your wor- ship." Having completed, or as he himself expresses it, served his term, he becomes a forced settler. This new status is not considered lowly because the term used for a settler is not too dissimilar to the term for a peasant, but does not possess, naturally, the rights which go with being a peasant.
Asked "What are you?" a settler always answers, "A free man." After ten years, or, under favorable circum- stances provided by the laws of exile, after six years, the settler gains the status of 'peasant formerly exiled." When asked his status, the peasant answers with dignity, as if he should not be included with the others and is in some way remarkably different from them, "I am a peasant." But he does not add "formerly exiled."
I did not question the exiles on their former status since the administrative offices have sufficient information on this. They themselves, except for the soldiers, never mention their lost status, as if it were something they had already forgotten. There was not one among the lower- middle-class people, those town people, tradesmen and pricsts, who did not describe his former state as "freedom." If someone starts a conversation about his past, he always begins, "When I was free. . . ."
The fourth line contains the given name, the patro- nymic and the surname. As to names, I can only recall that it appears that I did not record even one female Tatar name correctly. In a Tatar family with many daughters and the father and mother scarcely understanding Russian, it is difficult to make sense and I had to make my records by guesswork. Tatar names are also incorrectly written in the prison records.
When I asked an Orthodox Russian peasant his name, he answered, "Karl." He was not being facetious. He was a vagrant who had borrowed his name from a German. I remember that I recorded two of those: Karl Langer and Karl Karlov. One convict was called Napoleon. There was a female vagrant Praskovya, although her real name was Maria. As to surnames, for some strange reason there were many Bogdanovs [God-given] and Bespalovs [\X!ithout Fingers] on Sakhalin. There were many curious names: Shkandyba [Limper], Zheludok [Stomach], Bezbozhny [Godless] and Zevaka [Yawner].