The appearance of Jan Chersky in Siberia and Irkutsk: review and analysis of literary versions

The history of the appearance in Siberia and the beginning of the work of Jan Chersky in Irkutsk under the auspices of the Siberian Department of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society contains to date a number of gaps. The reasons for them are the almost complete absence of surviving records of Jan Chersky chronologically covering the period of 1863-1871, and on the other hand, the presence of biographical descriptions that appeared after his death, including a large number of documented facts. The article provides an overview of all literary references published during Chersky's lifetime about the results of activities in Irkutsk, especially in terms of the theory of the origin of Lake Baikal. An attempt has also been made to clarify inconsistencies with the time of Chersky's appearance in Irkutsk. To substantiate the time of Chersky's appearance in Irkutsk at the beginning of 1871, information contained in scientific journals published by the Siberian Department in 1872, when his first publications were published there, is used. The attempts of the historian S.F. Koval are considered separately to clarify the time of Chersky's arrival in Irkutsk according to archival documents. The fallacy of the straightforward interpretation of archival materials, which does not allow taking into account the realities of that time is shown. A special section is devoted to the “mythology” associated with the appearance in popular scientific publications of the Soviet era of ideological cliches about Chersky as a revolutionary scientist and fighter against Tsarism. It is stated that speculation is unacceptable even for literary texts, for example, about meetings of Jan Chersky on the stage to Siberia with such famous Polish exiles as Shimon Tokarzhevsky, Alexander Chekanovsky and Nikolai Vitkovsky.

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