Abstract
This chapter hinges on the most famous exile revolt during the imperial era. In the summer of 1866, 700 Poles assigned to build a road along Lake Baikal’s southern shoreline staged a brief uprising that was soon crushed by government troops. This chapter debunks traditional Soviet historiography that approvingly portrays the revolt as having been hatched by a political conspiracy. Contemporaneous sources show instead the laborers suffering from treacherous living and working conditions, and rebelling out of sheer desperation. This chapter also discusses far lesser instances of prisoner resistance both before and after the Circle-Road Revolt. Class pride, ethnic hatred, and working conditions led prisoners to resist. Escape was also a form of resistance, and several instances are detailed here.
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Gentes, A.A. (2017). Resistance and the Baikal Circle-Road Revolt. In: The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia, 1863-1880. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60958-4_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60958-4_8
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