Grigori Machtet

Grirori Machtet is known as a member of the “Narodnaya volya’ movement, and an author of the well-known song ‘Tormented to death by a heavy captivity’. G. Machtet lived a part of his Siberian exile in Ishym. The fate of this person was bright and original. He was born in 1825 in Lutsk. Being a supporter of Utopists, he was excluded several times from schools for his political unreliability. The future poet with his associates went to America to organize a land commune there. Soon due to financial hardships he had to become a hired man. Having returned to Russia in 1874 he got involved into a revolutionary movement. In 1876 G. Machtet was imprisoned to the Petropavloskaya fortress, and then exiled to Siberia. In Ishym Machtet got married to an exiled revolutionary Elena Medvedeva. Their life was full of hardships. G. Machtet had no possibility to get their linguistic skills realized, since the political exiles were forbidden to give private lessons or to participate in the public life. Despite this, Machtet wrote his most famous works, among which his novel ‘One warrior in the field’, a story ‘His hour has come’, a series of Siberian stories, and some articles published in the ‘Native stories’.