Legislative acts and documental materials as sources for studying the history of the Polish exile (by the materials of the Baikal region)

The article characterizes legislative acts and documents as the main types of historical sources that allow recreating the features and specifics of penal servitude and settlements of Polish exiles - participants of the uprising of 1863. The authors assess the information potential of materials stored in regional archives (State Archives of the Irkutsk Region, State Archives of the Trans-Baikal Territory, and State Archives of the Republic of Buryatia).