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Administration of Justice Under Nicholas I of Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

Samuel Kutscheroff
Samuel Kutscheroff*
Affiliation:
Bar in Kiev, Russia
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Extract

Nicholas I (1825-55) gained the reputation of being the most reactionary tsar the Russian Empire ever had. The eminent historian S. M. Solov'ëv called him “the new Nebuchadnezzar.”

The ugly features of a government which oppressed the people and systematically suppressed all enlightenment and free thought became particularly evident under the autocratic “stick” of this sovereign. The overwhelming majority of the Russian people were still tied to the land, either as State and Imperial Crown peasants, or as private serfs; the latter, especially, living under the most miserable economic conditions, deprived of personal liberty, were degraded almost to the level of chattels.

Against such a background of despotism and serfdom there could develop only a system of justice representing a monstrous abuse of equity; and indeed the courts and their members at the time of Nicholas were in complete harmony with the epoch.

Type
Articles
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , April 1948 , pp. 125 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1948

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References

1 According to G. T. Robinson, the number of private serfs (registered males only) was 10,696,000 in 1858; State peasants (registered males only), 12,800,000; and the total population of the Empire (both sexes), 74,000,000. The total village population of both sexes in European Russia is calculated for the year i860 in “Materialy” of the Vysočajše Učreždennaja Kommissija as 50,358,089. Rural Russia under the Old Regime (London—New York—Toronto, 1932), pp. 63, 284 (note 46).

2 Dmitriev, F. M., Istorija sudebnykh instancij i graždansiago i apelljacionnago sudoproizvodstva ot Sudebnika do Ucreždenij o Gubernijakh (Moscow, 1859), pp. 529-30.Google Scholar

3 Gautier, Y., “Otdelenie vlasti sudebnoj ot administrativnoj,” in Sudebnaja Reforma (Moscow, 1915), I, 199 Google Scholar; hereinafter referred to as S. R.

4 On the judicial reforms of Peter I and Catherine II see Dmitriev, , op. cit., pp. 440–586.Google Scholar

5 R. I. Syromjatnikov, “O sudebnoj vlasti,” in S. R., I, 170, versus Dmitriev, op. cit., p. 541.

6 Polnoe sobranie zaktmov rossijskoj imperii (St. Petersburg, 1830), No. 3006.

7 Ibid. (1857), Vol. XV, Section 4, Art. 316.

8 Ibid., Art. 333. The provision is taken from the “Description” of Peter I, Part II, Chap. III, Arts. 12 and 13, and from the Nakaz of Catherine II, Art. 121.

9 Ibid., Art. 313.

10 N. I. Stojanovskij in Pravo, 1901, No. 2.

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15 On the influence of the court secretaries upon the issues of the case, see the very interesting memoirs of D. N. Bantyš-Kamenskij: “Šemjakin sudv XIX stoletii,” Russkaja starina, VII (1873), 735-84.

16 Quoted by Dubrovin, N., “Russkaja žizn' v načale XIX veka,” Russkaja starina, XCVIII (1899), 71.Google Scholar

17 I. S. Aksakov v ego pis'makh (Moscow, 1888), II, 321.

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19 Kolmakov, , op. cit., p. 533.Google Scholar

20 Polnoe sobranie zakonov rossijskoj imperii, Nos. 3231, 4917, 9228.

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23 Blinov, I., “Sudebnyj stroj i sudebnye porjadki pered reformoj,” in Sudebnye ustavy 20 nojabrja 1864 g. (Petrograd, 1914), I, 34–35.Google Scholar

24 Unkovskij, A., “Novye osnovanija sudoproizvodstva,” Sovremennik, I (1863), 403.Google Scholar

25 Legendary Herculean bird.

26 Quoted by Bočkarev, op. cit., p. 215.

27 Schilder, M. K., Imperator Nikolaj I. Zapiska o Ryleeve. Annex to 1,650 (St. Petersburg, 1903).Google Scholar

28 Quoted by Hessen, I. V., Sudebnaja Reforma (St. Petersburg, 1905), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

29 M. V. Dovnar-Zapolskij, Memuary Dekabristov, extracted from the papers of the Commission of Inquiry (Kiev, 1906), pp. 94-95.

30 Ščegolev, P. E., Dekabristy (Moscow, 1926), p. 208.Google Scholar

31 Schilder, , op. cit., II, 31.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., II, 676.

33 Quoted by Baron Korf, “Memuary,” Russkaja starina, X (1899), 43.

34 Ključevskij, V. O., Kurs russkoj istorii (Moscow, 1916), Part V, pp. 219-20.Google Scholar

35 I. Pogodin in Russkaja beseda, II (1860), 15-16.

36 Quoted in Istorija russkoj advokatury, I, 4.

37 Koni, op. cit., II, 268-78, passim.

38 Ibid.

39 This reminds one of the story told by Charles Dickens in Bleak House.

40 Ključevskij, V. O., Lekcii po russkoj istorii (Moscow, 1908), III, 189-94Google Scholar, passim.

41 Herzen, A., My Past and Thoughts, tr. by Garnett, C. (London, 1924), I, 323.Google Scholar

42 Polnoe sobranie zakonov rossijskoj imperii, Vol. XV, Part II, Art. 313.

43 Čubinskij, op. cit., p. 247.

44 Quoted by Kolmakov, op. cit., p. 530.

45 Ibid.

46 Special police employed by the Third Division.

47 Kolmakov, , op. cit., pp. 533-34.Google Scholar

48 The memoirs of the time are full of examples of such iniquities. Zakharin, for instance, relates that a manifest murderer was not sentenced because the testimony of the girl who was present during the murder was not a perfect evidence according to law. The man confessed his action later. ( Zakharin, I. N., “Rasskazy iz prežnej sudebnoj dejatelnosti,” Russkaja starina, IV (1874), 780.Google Scholar

49 Unkovskij, op. cit., pp. 400-401.

50 Spasovič, V. D., Zastol'nye reči (Leipzig, 1903), p. 12.Google Scholar