Prince Roman — Joseph Conrad

Prince Roman is a Pole who gives up his comfortable position in the aristocracy to fight as a (virtually) unknown soldier resisting Russian oppression. When captured, he has every opportunity to escape punishment, but declares himself unequivocally committed to Polish liberation. As a result he suffers a quarter of a century in the nineenth century Tsarist equivalent of the GULAG - the Siberian mines - before returning to live in humble circumstances on what should have been his own estate before devoting his life to helping other people.