HSE Publishing House

The new volume in the “New sources on the history of  Russia. Rossica  Inedita” series introduces the “Notes from Siberia” by Ippolit Kanarsky, a memoir about the author’s service in the Irkutsk province in 1811–1813 written as a literary work  in the sentimentalist genre. The memoir includes both valuable details from the life of provincial officialdom and quasi-ethnographic descriptions of various groups Kanarsky encountered in Siberia. Real episodes from the biography the author — a mid-level bureaucrat with Masonic connections — are narrated here side by side with the fictional ones, giving the “Notes from Siberia” the appearance of a literary hoax.
This book is intended for scholars working in the fields of history and cultural studies, as well as for all readers interested in history.