Photo, Print, Drawing Sof'i︠a︡ "Zolotai︠a︡ ruchka". Софья "Золотая ручка".
About this Item
Title
- Sof'i︠a︡ "Zolotai︠a︡ ruchka".
Other Title
- Софья "Золотая ручка".
Translated Title
- Sof'ia "Golden Hand".
Summary
- This photograph is from a collection consisting of an album and individual photographs preserved in the Aleksandrovsk Municipal History and Literature Museum "A.P. Chekhov and Sakhalin" in Alekandrovsk-Sakhalinskiy, Sakhalin Island (off Russia's southeast coast). The photographs were taken on Sakhalin Island during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and provide rare glimpses of the island's settlements, prisons, and inhabitants. Sakhalin Island was used by imperial Russia as a penal colony and place of exile for criminals and political prisoners. Between 1869 and 1906, more than 30,000 inmates and exiles endured the difficult conditions of the forced-labor colony on the island. Most of the photographs in the collection were taken by Sakhalin artist Ivan Nikolaevich Krasnov, although some are unattributed. The collection depicts public life and institutions in the town of Aleksandrovsk Post, convicts working under harsh conditions or in chains, and political prisoners. The photographs also show the daily life both of the Nivkh people, indigenous to the northern part of the island, and the Russian settler population. The predecessor of the Aleksandrovsk Municipal History and Literature Museum "A.P. Chekhov and Sakhalin" appears in the album's photographs. The museum's name refers to a trip taken to Sakhalin Island by the Russian writer and medical doctor Anton Chekhov in 1890, during which Chekhov researched the plight of island's prisoners and native populations. The publication of his Sakhalin Island in 1895 highlighted the depravity of the situation in this remote corner of Russia and led to public protests that helped bring about the closure of the penal colony. The collection was digitized for the Meeting of Frontiers digital library project in the early 2000s. World Digital Library.
Names
- Krasnov, Ivan Nikolaevich , photographer.
Created / Published
- Sakhalin, post Aleksandrovskiĭ : [publisher not identified], konet︠s︡ XIX-nachalo XX vv.
Headings
- - katorga
- - katorzhane
- - nadzirateli
- - okhrana
- - ti︠u︡r'ma
- - barak
- - kuznet︠s︡y
- - kandaly
- - nakoval'ni︠a︡
- - odezhda
- - oruzhie
- - Blacksmithing
- - Blacksmiths
- - Convict labor
- - Criminals
- - Prison guards
- - Prisoners
- - Russian Far East
- - Shackles
- - Siberia
- - Women
- - Russian Federation
- - Sakhalin Oblast
- - Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinskiy
- - каторга
- - каторжане
- - надзиратели
- - охрана
- - тюрьма
- - барак
- - кузнецы
- - кандалы
- - наковальня
- - одежда
- - оружие
Notes
- - Sofia Bliuvshtein (1846-1902), born Sheindlia-Sura Leibovna Solomoniak and best known as Son'ka Zolotaia Ruchka (Sof'ia Golden Hand), was a criminal and con artist whose elaborate scams and theft operations made her a legendary figure in the Russian criminal world. Born near Warsaw, then in the Russian Empire, she carried out crimes in large cities of Russia and Europe throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Many details of her biography are not precisely known. Sofia was married several times and on multiple occasions stole all of a man's money before abandoning him. She was first sentenced to exile in Siberia in 1880 and was resettled to a village near Irkutsk. Having escaped from exile, she was again arrested in 1885, though she succeeded in escaping from prison in Smolensk in 1886 by seducing a guard. Shortly after this escape, however, she was again captured and sentenced to penal labor on Sakhalin Island, where she arrived in 1888. After multiple attempts to escape from Sakhalin, Sofia was shackled. She died on Sakhalin in 1902.
- - Son'ku "zolotui︠u︡ ruchku" zakovyvai︠u︡t v kandaly posle poslednego ograblenii︠a︡ banka v gorode Blagoveshchenske.
- - Original image at: Aleksandrovsk Municipal History and Literature Museum "A.P. Chekhov and Sakhalin"
- - From the photo album "Виды острова Сахалина."
- - Соньку "золотую ручку" заковывают в кандалы после последнего ограбления банка в городе Благовещенске.
Medium
- 1 photograph : black and white ; 17 x 22.5 cm.
Source Collection
- Ivan Nikolaevich Krasnov's Views of Sakhalin Island
Digital Id
Library of Congress Control Number
- 2018684054
Online Format
- image