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This article looks at the prospects and the reality of British commercial activity in Siberia in the early twentieth century, before the outbreak of World War I, and is based on contemporary comments by travelers, businessmen, and commercial agents. Contemporaries agreed that the dynamic Siberian economy opened up opportunities for British exports and trade. British firms, however, lagged behind commercial rivals, in particular in Germany, and the United States. The article explores the reasons for this and also looks at the subjects of the British Empire who went to Siberia and the conditions under which they worked. The article demonstrates the vibrancy of Siberian economic development in this period and the active participation of Western powers in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 1889 The Times carried a report detailing the killing of a group of Russian political exiles in Yakutsk, Siberia. Public outrage at this atrocity was compounded two months later with news of the flogging and suicide of female political prisoners in another Siberian penal colony. These events sparked a series of international protests, and the British reaction culminated in a march and rally in Hyde Park. This article examines the causes and timing of this outburst of militancy and draws attention to the wide range of organisations and individuals who were responsible for the growth of support within Britain for the cause of the Russian ant-tsarist opposition. Drawing on Russian and British archival documents and contemporary press reports, it throws fresh light on the Siberian events themselves as well as on the convergence in London of a range of disparate political groupings determined to show a unified front in support of their Russian brethren. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]