Sybirak

The Polish term sybirak (plural: sybiracy) is synonymous to the Russian counterpart (a dweller of Siberia). It generally refers to all people resettled to Siberia, but more specifically it refers to Poles who have been imprisoned or exiled to Siberia and even to those sent to Arctic Russia and Kazakhstan in the 1940s.

Russian and Soviet authorities exiled many Poles to Siberia, starting with the 18th-century opponents of the Russian Empire's increasing influence in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (most notably the members of the Bar Confederation of 1768-1772).Maurice, Count de Benyovszky was deported and emigrated to Madagascar.

After Russian penal law changed in 1847, exile and penal labor (katorga) became common penalties for participants in national uprisings within the Russian Empire. This led to sending an increasing number of Poles to Siberia for katorga, they became known as Sybiraks. Some of them remained there, forming a Polish minority in Siberia. Most of them came from the participants and supporters of the November Uprising of 1830-1831 and of the January Uprising of 1863-1864, from the participants of the 1905-1907 unrest and from the hundreds of thousands of people deported in the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.

Around the late 19th century a limited number of Polish voluntary settlers moved to Siberia, attracted by the economic development of the region. Polish migrants and exiles, many of whom were forbidden to move away from the region even after finishing serving their sentence, formed a vibrant Polish minority there. Hundreds of Poles took part in the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Notable Polish scholars studied Siberia, such as Aleksander Czekanowski, Jan Czerski, Benedykt Dybowski, Wiktor Godlewski, Sergiusz Jastrzebski, Edward Piekarski (1858-1934), Bronisław Piłsudski, Wacław Sieroszewski, Mikołaj Witkowski and others.

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