Of the questions related to the murder of Ignatii Dvernitskii, many remain unanswered. For example, what was the fate of the two perpetrators, Gerasim Iurinov and Georgii Kuimov? The temporary military tribunal sentenced them to death, commuted to katorga. Katorga was the harshest form of punishment in tsarist Russia, after the death penalty. It generally involved exile and hard labour. Eastern Siberia, particularly the areas in the relative vicinity of Irkutsk, was the main area for katorga punishment in the late-Imperial period. The picture, below, is of katorga prisoners who worked near the Amur River in the Far East, sometime between 1908-1913, and is in the public domain from wikimedia commons.
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Tag: katorga
The murder of Ignatii raises many questions, some of which were raised almost immediately by the St. Petersburg-based journal, Sibirskie voprosy (Siberian questions).
Bishop Makarii in Siberia. Photo via wikimedia commons
The murder occurred the night of May 8/9, 1909, and the suspects were arrested on the 9th. Many supporters of Ignatii, according to Sibirskie voprosy, gathered around the school, calling for a pogrom (like the 1905 pogrom in Tomsk – subject of another post!) against the students of the school. The murder investigation concluded quickly, and it was passed to a temporary session of the military district court. The court heard the case in November, 1909, and the two students were sentenced to death, commuted to katorga.