Abstract
Narrative aesthetics call for a story to have a beginning and an end, a plot and a conclusion. History, in the sense of the real time unfolding of human events, has no such structure—it merely provides the raw material historians fashion into a narrative for the purpose of making it comprehensible and meaningful. The story told in this book forms part of a larger one, which in my previous book Exile to Siberia, 1590–1822 began with Siberian exile’s late sixteenth-century origins and concluded with the promulgation of Speranskii’s 1822 Reforms. This larger story will continue with a forthcoming book on the period after 1861. The book at hand, despite lacking an aesthetically gratifying beginning or conclusion, nevertheless does have a plot, by which I have tried to communicate some conclusions that will now be summarized.
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© 2010 Andrew A. Gentes
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Gentes, A.A. (2010). Conclusion: Aesthetics, Delusions, Conclusions. In: Exile, Murder and Madness in Siberia, 1823–61. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297661_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297661_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-32379-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-29766-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)