A leading expert on imperial Russia's penal issues, including St. Petersburg's use and abuse of Siberia as its favorite dumping ground for undesirables, Andrew A. Gentes has given us a well-researched and trenchantly argued monograph entitled The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia, 1863–1880. This is a study of Russian deportation policies and the Tsar's treatment of an imperial minority group, the Poles (pp. viii-ix). “The mass deportation of Poles between 1863 and 1880 was perhaps the largest forced migration of Europeans prior to World War I. It resulted in thousands upon thousands of personal tragedies, a small minority of which were ever documented” (p. 79). Yet, their harrowing ordeal under Mother Russia and Little Father (batiushka) Tsar has been grossly neglected lately by English-speaking academia.
The Australian scholar proposes to remedy that and acquits himself very well. He purposefully eschews delving into much detail of the...
