Ichim en Sibérie : la rencontre entre Alexandre Dumas et Jules Verne

Ichim in Siberia : the meeting between Alexandre Dumas and Jules Verne This article shows that Jules Verne in chapter 12 (“Une provocation”) of Michel Strogoff (1876) took his inspiration from an anecdote reported by Alexandre Dumas in chapter 34 (“L’empereur Nicolas”) of his Voyage en Russie (1858). In Verne’s version, unlike in Dumas’, the hero of the tale does not take advantage of the safeconduct (podorozhnaia) granted to him by the tsar himself to commandeer the only horses available. This is part of the narrative, but it also suggests that the Russian regime is going through a relative liberalization, as expressed by the tsar himself in the book : “Siberia is and will be a country from which one comes back”.