Russia in the Far East

Abstract

Slow, but very steady, was the advance of Russia into Siberia. For centuries did the Russians move onward, gradually driving back, conquering or assimilating the Mongolian aborigines. For a very long time Siberia seemed only a vast wilderness and a happy hunting ground for the fur trader and trapper. Later, and mainly on account of its great distance from European Russia, the Siberian country was used by the Tsars for purposes of penal colonization. Thus, there grew up that sad reputation, which clung to Siberia for many generations, of a bleak land of exile, where human suffering attained its very limit. The famous book of George Kennan, Siberia and the Exile System, helped much to popularize these ideas, bringing home to the outside world the worst sides of the former autocratic régime of Russia.