Daniel Beer - the author of the book "Renovating Russia: the Human Sciences and the Fate of Liberal Modernity, 1880-1930" (Cornell UP, 2008).
Abstract:
The case concerns a feat of navigational exploration in 1877, the first ever voyage from the Enisei River through Kara sea and the Artic Ocean around the northern coast of Scandinanvia and via Oslo and Stockholm to St. Petersburg on a 40-foot sailing boat. One of the five crew members, Andrei Tsybulenko, was a former soldier and exile to Eniseisk gub. banned from ever returning to European Russia. By the time the crew finally arrived in St. Petersburg in November 1877, the authorities had been alerted to his presence onboard the ship and had him arrested, planning to have him deported back to Eniseisk guberniia. Yet the crew had enjoyed a rapturous welcome on their passage through Scandanavia and their story had been picked up in the Russian press in a mood of patriotic celebration (against the background of the Russo-Turkish War) even before they dropped anchor in St. Petersburg. The trip's financier, the mining magnate Ivan Sidorov, proved an adept lobbyist on behalf of Tsybulenko, firing off volleys of petitions to the Ministers of both Finance and the Interior and organising speechs in Tsybulenko's defence in the Society for the Advancement of Russian Merchant Shipping and the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Responding to the public outcry over Tsybulenko's arrest, the authorities eventually had him released into Sidorov's custody and Alexander II not only pardoned him but presented with an award for his bravery. The case reveals much about the rising influence of nationalist/patriotic public discourse in the 1870s and newfound imperial self-confidence following the defeat in the Crimea. It shows also the increasing power of the public sphere in shaping the actions of the government. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it exemplifies a major shift in the third quarter of the nineteenth century away from a public perception of Siberia as a vast "wasteland" and "open prison" to a rich colonial territory in which Russia could fulfil a noble colonial mission
