Lunin spent time in Finnish jails, three different prisons in Siberia, and lived on a farm under the watchful eye of the government during his life as an exile.
Known for keeping good spirits and maintaining a firm defiance of autocratic rule, Lunin was eventually imprisoned again for writing in "opposition" to the Russian government, and lived out the rest of his life in a cell.
Now, in official documents, I am referred to as: “A state criminal in exile.”... My sole weapon is my thought…[1] As an aged man he used to say that, though he had only one tooth left in his mouth, even that one was directed against Nicholas.
The father hired a series of short-tenured tutors and governors, who managed to give Mikhail the usual training of a young gentleman in history, mathematics, literature, some French and Latin, along with practical attainments such as dancing, fencing, and horseback riding.
Mikhail was a child of opulence—a private education, servants, sculpted busts of Roman emperors, a music room with piano, an orangery—and he came to expect this wealth as natural.
One of his principal tutors, Abbé Vouvillier, was not just Catholic but a devoted Jesuit, hired in 1797 during the Russian sympathy for French exiles fleeing the Revolution.
They only got as far as Paris, where they shared a tiny garret, Lunin engaged in a variety of pursuits, including taking lessons in French, English, algebra, and piano, and penning a novel about "False" Dmitri, a 17th-century pretender to the Russian throne, who may have been homosexual.
He thought Orthodox Christianity had become too diminished by the arbitrariness of man at the expense of the divine, that Protestantism subjugated faith to human reason, and that atheism was out of the question; so he settled on Catholicism, abjuring his native Orthodoxy.
This faith in the Catholic Church, whose hierarchy claimed a moral ground above secular authority, inspired his later involvement in secret societies plotting to overthrow what he viewed as an illegitimate and tyrannical tsar.
[11] After hearing that his father had died, Lunin arrived back in Russia in April 1817 to take charge of his estate, leaving Auger behind in Paris.
During his young manhood they reached a height of influence in Saint Petersburg, even to the point of royal family members joining lodges.
In contrast to the autocratic spirit that otherwise pervaded Russia, these lodges allowed free expression and often followed Enlightenment ideals of human reason leading to continuous progress.
Ultimately, his Catholic loyalty prevailed, and he left the Masons altogether, but he soon found other, more secret, societies that shared his desire for action.
However, the record of a key meeting seems to support his innocence: during the discussion of a paper on monarchic versus republican governments, he spoke for a limited monarchy under a constitutional tsar, as against a Russian republic.
[15] Nevertheless, though he sometimes denied it, Lunin maintained ties with a succession of secret political groups for years, especially after he rejoined the army and was posted in Poland after its absorption into the Russian Empire.
In December 1825, Russian army officers led about 3,000 soldiers to Senate Square in Saint Petersburg in a protest against Tsar Nicholas I's assumption of the throne, after his elder brother Constantine had removed himself from the line of succession.
The Duke was determined to defend his protege and wrote multiple letters to the Tsar, but Nicholas continued the investigation, pressuring those already arrested to give decisive evidence against Lunin.
Encouraged by this, the court brought Lunin in for direct questioning in the hope he would confess, but he consistently denied that he had ever suggested or plotted the death of Alexander.
Lunin also asserted that Russian plots against the life of the tsar were frequent in the country's history, and had often been justified as replacing an incompetent with a more capable ruler.
[25] Tsar Nicholas I planned to send the Decembrist exiles to Chita and Petrovskij Zavod camps in eastern Siberia near the Nercinck Mines.
Even in Siberia you will find sympathy.” Though most of the inhabitants knew little of the exiles or regarded them simply as rebels, the failed Decembrist cause drew sympathy from the local upper classes.
[28] Lunin remained at Sveaborg Fortress for half a year, but the government distrusted its security and easy communication between prison cells.
Alexander Bestuzhev wrote: Lunin responded with a disdainful letter: Twenty-six months after his arrival, when the barracks at Petrosvskij Zavod had been sufficiently expanded, the exiles at Chita marched the seven hundred versts westward to their new home.
[41] Thinking him the most important of the prisoners, the Siberian Buriat guides surrounded his carriage to ask about his crime, and were impressed when Lunin explained that he had tried to cut the “Great Khan’s” throat.
Lunin pressed for their thoughts on Russia's political future, on Poland and the Americas, establishing yet again his reputation for being a unique, quirky, and yet pleasant man.
Lunin also continued to stretch himself intellectually, spending time in prayer and Bible study, and building a library for himself with the help of his friend Nikita Murav’ev and his sister Urarova.
[49] His hope in effecting change even from his exile is echoed in his words: “From the sighs of those living under thatched roofs storms are born which destroy palaces.”[50] In 1841 the authorities discovered a manuscript of his “Glance at Russian Secret Societies from 1816 to 1826,” which infuriated Tsar Nicholas I.
[55] He wrote: “The architect who built the prison of Akatui must have inherited Dante’s imagination.”[56] Still Lunin maintained his happy disposition and habits of prayer, and received visits from a Catholic priest.