Participation of Irkutsk Gendarmes in the Supervision over Political Exiles (1860-1900)

This article is devoted to the study of the participation of ranks of the Irkutsk Provincial Gendarmerie Department in the supervision over political exiles. The chronological scope of the article is significant and covers the 1860s to the beginning of the 1900s, which makes it possible to fully trace the forms and types of Irkutsk gendarmes' activities on monitoring administrative exiles, settlers by a court decision and convicts who served their sentence in the province. This topic has not received a special study in Russian historiography, which confirms its relevance and timeliness. The article is mainly based on sources of legislative nature and on the previously unpublished materials of the State Archive of Irkutsk Oblast. During the work on the material, the authors used both general scientific and historical methods, for example, problem chronological, historical comparative and narrative ones. By studying a considerable amount of documentary material, the authors came to the following conclusions. The emergence of political police in Irkutsk Province was directly related to the presence of exiled members of the Uprising of 14 December 1825 in the Senate Square. During the supervision over the Decembrists, the principles of supervisory activities were developed: monitoring of the daily life of exiled revolutionaries, prohibition of unauthorized absences, control over correspondence. Gendarmerie services developed this experience in the 1860s when exiled populists began to dwell in Siberia, including in Irkutsk Province. The supervision over the life of exiled revolutionaries was regulated by a number of legislative acts, the most important of which were: the 1881 Regulations on Measures to Protect Public Order and Public Peace, the 1882 Regulations on Police Supervision Established by the Order of the Administrative Authorities, the 1882 Regulations on Secret Police Supervision, the 1886 Rules on the Procedure for the Detention of Political Prisoners. In addition, some elements of police supervision over political exiles were supplemented and specified by administrative orders of both central (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Police Department) and regional (Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, Irkutsk Province Administration) authorities. During the period under study, the forms of gendarmes' participation in the supervision over political exiles in Siberia were consistently improved and expanded. One of the forms was the transfer of exiled revolutionaries under the supervision of non-commissioned gendarme officers to the places of exile; the form was fixed in the 1867 Statute on the Corps of Gendarmes. This procedure for exiles was very successfully used in the 1900s. Despite the development of forms and methods of supervision over political exiles in the 1860s-1900s, some elements of supervision became ineffective by the end of the period under study. The main reasons for this state of affairs were the poorly considered increase in the number of exiled revolutionaries in Siberia, the lack of timely growth of the personnel of the executive bodies of supervision, including the Irkutsk Provincial Gendarmerie Department. The ineffectiveness of the supervision system was also exacerbated by the omissions in the legal framework governing the mechanism of serving political exile in Siberia.

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