Life in a Penal Battalion of the Imperial Russian Army: The Tolstoyan N. T. Iziumchenko's Story by P. s> Brock J. L. H. Keep (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 155 Indeed, much material on Petrine anniversariesremains unexplored, but it seems churlishto complain when thisbrilliantbook offersso much else. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies LINDSEY HUGHES University College London Brock,P., and Keep, J. L. H. (eds).LifeinaPenalBattalion oftheImperial Russian Army:7The Tolstoyan N. T.Iziumchenko's Stogy. Ebor Press/William Sessions, York,2001. Xiv+ 63 pp. C6.oo(paperback). THIS is a translation of a memoir firstpublished by emigrant Tolstoyans in I905. Its unassumingbut observantauthorwas one of those conscriptswhose pacifism, even under the post-Alexander II military regulations, could only bring them into deep trouble. Iziumchenko at the time of his induction was not even a full-blooded pacifist. He did not mind rifle drill and was only vaguely againstwar.Afterhe startedservicehis convictionsstrengthenedand, because he rejectedthe militarylife afterentry, he was classifiedas a deserter, not objector.Butthisdistinctionwas soon blurredwhen he settledinto a penal battalion populated by both deserters and objectors, and various other malefactorsbesides. This bookdoes not containanygreatrevelations,butprovidesan interesting account of daily life in a late nineteenth-centurypenal battalion. Conditions of service do not appear to be vastly differentfrom those that might be found in one of the worstline regiments;therewere cushybilletsand therewere hellholes in which head-bashing was the norm. Most, but not all, officerswere unable to resist the temptations that their power offered, and the worst of them presented a mixture of loud piety and arbitrarycruelty. Sometimes the food was quite good, at other times it was diminished by the swarm of men who had contrived to get jobs in the kitchen. Anti-semitismwas of a routine kindthat was not necessarilyill-natured. Flogging remained a way of life in the penal battalions, could end fatally, and was inflicted for the slightest, sometimes imagined, lack of respect; the authordetailsthe formalitiesof thisceremony. Men looked forwardto the one day of the week reservedfor labour service,when disciplinewas subordinated to practical considerations and life seemed to have a purpose. The general inspection was also a time when for a few days a certain kind of tension brought a certain kind of relaxation. The well-meant prescription of hours devoted to education and to religion offeredonly question-and-answerrotes, based respectivelyon Army Regulations and the Bible. If the chaplain failed to turn up for the Religious Education session the sergeant-major,freshfrom supervisinga goryflogging,would takehis place. The book covers just the author's years in the penal battalion, but the editors' introduction extends the background. Iziumchenko had been sentenced to two yearsin the penal battalionand then three yearsexile. If it were not for the fact that on expiry of his sentence he was exiled for a furtherfive years, it might be arguedthathe got offlightly. If he had remained dutifullyin the ranksof his firstregiment, he might not have met Leo Tolstoy, not have 156 SEER, 8o, I, 2002 become an author, and not have escaped reservist'scall-up for the RussoJapanese War.He lived long enough to survivethe Russianrevolutions,trying to reconcile revolutionaryaspirationswith Christianpacifism. Centrefor Russian andEastEuropean Studies J. N. WESTWOOD University ofBirmingham Noack, Christian. Muslimischer JNationalismus imRussischen Reich.Nationsbildung undNationalbewegung bei Tataren undBaschkiren i86I-I9I-7. Quellen und StudienzurGeschichtedesostlichenEuropa,56. FranzSteiner,Stuttgart, 2000, 6I4 pp. Glossary.Tables. Notes. Bibliography.DM I96.00. THE Volga-Ural region, running eastwards from Moscow to encompass Kazan, Perm and Ufa, and southwards to Orenburg and the Caspian, has constituted a distinct social and ethnic region within modern Russia. In contrast to the Muslim areas of Central Asia and the Caucasus, which were incorporatedinto the Tsaristempire in the nineteenth century, the Tatarand Bashkirpeoples of this region fell under Russian rule in I552 with the fall of the Khanate of Kazan. By the end of the nineteenth centurythe population of this region was predominantlyRussian, the three million Muslimsaccounting forjustunder I4 percent of thetotal.The populationencompassedmerchants, clergy,teachersandprofessionalsin themajorcities,but above alla substantial peasantry. This book analyses both the process of nation formation and the development of a nationalistmovement amongstthe Tatarsand Bashkirsin theperiod from I86I to I9I7. The history of nationalist and reform movements in this region goes backbefore I86I, with the emergence of a Muslimpressand book publishing, and with the firstdebates on the reformof Muslim education. But itwas after i 86 , in responsein partto changes in thebroaderRussiancontext and...