Safe Return Doubtful

This story, of an American explorer in nineteenth century Siberia, ranks among the great adventure stories, and from Wallace’s pen it is a thrilling tale of a harrowing journey, bringing to the world’s attention some of the most despicable human rights abuses.

So fascinated he was by travel and wild places, he had subconciously decided from an early age to dedicate his life to them. I can certainly identify with that.

1885 wasn’t the first time George Kennan had adventured into Siberia. In 1865 at the age of just 20, he had undertaken a punishing journey there and to the Caucasus, as a telegraph scout on a doomed Western Union expedition, and then on an expedition of his own design. On return to the US he wrote a book and gave a lecture tour. It turned out that he was an excellent writer and charismatic speaker, which would serve him well in later life.

Off the back of this, in 1885 he was commissioned by Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine to investigate Siberia’s prisons, labour mines, and settlements where numerous political exiles lived under surveillance. The practice of sending prisoners to Siberia had been in use for centuries, but the emergence of revolutionary resistance to the autocratic leaders of the 19th century had caused the network to grow considerably with new detainees.

Wallance, whose writng background is in the field of law and human rights, draws heavily on Kennan’s own books (Tent Life in Siberia and Siberia and the Exile System), and provides background detail from modern historical sources.

In Kennan, Wallace has brought deserved attention to a relatiively unkown hero of the golden age of exploration. Dostoevsky’s experiences, which he wrote about in [book:Notes from a Dead House|22474925] had influenced Kennan greatly, and in turn he was to provide inspiration for Chekov and Tolstoy. He had been particularly impressed by Catherine Breshkovsky, the populist ‘little grandmother of the Russian Revolution.’ She had bidden him farewell in the small Transbaikal village to which she was confined by saying, ‘We may die in exile and our grand children may die in exile, but something will come of it at last.’ They were however, destined to meet one more time.

When Kennan returned to the U.S. he published the results of his investigation in Century Illustrated, and for much of the rest of his life, despite illness,he gave lectures to packed out theatres throughout North America and Europe. As a result public opinion shifted, particularly in the US; the relationship between the two countries changed forever.

In his latter years he retired to upstate New York where he built a cabin in a wilderness area, and thought nothing of taking a camping trip to fish or watch wildlife right up until his death in 1924.

This is an immaculately researched story, beautifully told, of an incredible man and an episode in history that would change Russian–American relations forever.

From Kennan’s unpublished autobiography..

“I happened to be born with a thirst for adventurous experiences.” At age five he sailed a fleet of ships, which he and his father had carved from wooden blocks, across the dining room carpet to “the arctic regions in the spare bedroom.” From the “antipodes under the dining room table” he ventured on to the South Seas where he evaded “piratical craft whose wicked purpose it was to intercept and capture my argosies.”

And this quote to aptly finish on..

Just months before his death, Kennan wrote to a friend that “I face the end without an atom of fear. The Power that brought me here will know what to do with me when I leave here … With my own life I am content regardless of the mysteries that surround it. I don’t have to explain them, nor do I ask that they be explained to me. I have lived, loved, suffered and enjoyed, with love and enjoyment overwhelmingly preponderant, and that’s enough.”