The Siberian letters of George Kennan the Elder, 1866-1867 (Translated into Russian by Elena Karageorgii)

George Kennan the Elder (1845-1924) was a crucial figure in the history of Russian-American relations. He was America's first Russian expert and the namesake of the Kennan Institute in Washington, DC. His career was closely linked to Siberia, as his first experience of Russia was there, during the Western Union Telegraph Expedition of 18651867, which sought to connect Europe and North America over the Bering Strait rather than by a transatlantic cable, the success of which ended the expedition to Siberia. The letters collected here are from Kennan's time in Siberia on the expedition. In 1865, he was just 20 years old and was in the process of finding himself as an adult and moving beyond the expectations and needs of his family. These letters show him engaging with the nature and people of Siberia, showing the keen observational skills that would make Tent Life in Siberia, a work based in part on these letters, a classic of nineteenth-century American travel literature. Kennan, like other Americans, had a positive image of Russia in the mid-nineteenth century. It was only as a result of his experiences in Siberian prisons, memorialized in his Siberia and the Exile System (1891), that his view changed. His experiences in Siberia, therefore, were the key to his life and work as a lecturer, author, and Russia expert.

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