Criminal exile and its impact on indigenous population of Yakutia in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries

The article examines the history of criminal exile - one of the poorly studied pages not only in the history of Yakutia, but also throughout Siberia. In addition to state, political and religious exiles sent to Siberia, criminals were also sent there to serve their sentences. This practice has taken place since the XVII century. The purpose of moving huge masses of people who had done something wrong before the law was to rid the country of harmful or politically dangerous elements, isolate them in remote territories, populate sparsely populated vast lands, punish and correct criminals. Based on archival and previously published materials, the author analyzes the influence of exiles on local population and comes to the conclusion that it was heterogeneous. If political and religious exiles did not cause serious changes in the life of local population, then criminal ones became a “dark spot” in the history of pre-revolutionary Yakutia.