“Land der Tr nen”: Sibirien als narrativer Raum in der Verbannungs- und Gulagliteratur

This article highlights the historical and literary aspects of exile and punishment as a formative element in the spatial concept of Russian and Soviet empire-building. Using Siberia as a landscape of suffering, it em-pirically discusses the Foucaultian discourse on power and discipline of the modern state. It shows the continuity of the significance of punishment in Russian history in the decisive period of state formation in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Moreover, the attempt of the Russian state to modernize itself with violent measures provoked intellectual, especially literary dissension with a lasting impact on Russian historical memory. Prisons and Gulag labor camps in remote Siberia impose critical reflections on the development of a civil society.