History of corporal punishment in Russia and mitigation of morals

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In Russia, there were many sayings justifying the existence of corporal punishment. And beating existed both under the despotic Peter the Great and under the "Tsar-Liberator" Alexander II. Spitsruten, whips and rods have become firmly established in the life of a Russian person.

In fairness, it should be noted that corporal punishment in Russia did not always exist. For example, in the Russian Pravda of Yaroslav the Wise, imprisonment and a fine were more often applied to the guilty. They began to beat the criminals later, during the years of political fragmentation.

It is written on my forehead

In the 13th century, after the Batu invasion, this measure could already be encountered everywhere. In addition to beatings, branding appeared: the thieves were burned with the letter "B" on their faces.

Hence the well-known expression “written on the forehead” arose. In the Code of Laws of Rurikovich and the Cathedral Code of the Romanovs, corporal punishment existed for various types of violations.

In the course of the transformations of Peter the Great, cruel punishments became even more diverse. Through the "window to Europe" we were visited by pins and cats, which were used in addition to batogs and whips. The military regulations of the Petrine era are full of the most inventive punishments in relation to servicemen.

Walking on wooden stakes, cutting off ears and plucking out nostrils, flogging and whipping are just some of the list. An important point was the publicity of the punishment - for example, in the squares. This was necessary not only to humiliate the criminal, but also to intimidate the audience.

The myth of the "non-rotated generation"

An important role in the history of the abolition of executions in the Russian Empire could have been played by the "Order" of the "enlightened ruler" Catherine the Great. Punishment, according to the empress, should not frighten people - it is much more important to correct the guilty by peaceful means and return to the true path.

Therefore, emphasized Catherine II, one should choose milder measures and encourage shame and conscientiousness in the population, and respect for the law. In the "Mandate" the empress gave a hint about the abolition of corporal punishment for all classes, but quickly changed her mind. The humane document remained so only on paper. True, the privileged estates were more fortunate. Now a person could avoid being beaten by proving that he is a nobleman.

Serf landowners were still allowed to beat "severely" (from 6 to 75 blows) and "most severely" (from 75 to 150).

The punishment for counterfeit moneymakers and rioters was even worse. Participants in the Pugachev uprising had their nostrils cut out and branded. Under Paul, corporal punishment became even more popular. The captious and demanding ruler instantly suppressed even the most insignificant disobedience. Upon meeting with him, everyone pledged to leave their crews, having previously removed their outerwear. Those who did not do this received up to 50 blows with a whip.

Since the time of Alexander, the punishment system has gradually softened. Previously, official decrees did not specify a specific number of blows during executions. There were only two options - "merciless" and "cruel". The rest was at his discretion decided by the performer, who often "got a taste" and could beat the punished to a pulp. Alexander ordered to remove these words and the number of blows in each case to appoint separately.

At the same time, the so-called commercial execution, a public beating in the square, continued. There is a known case when a retired private put on an officer's uniform with orders and began to travel around the Nizhny Novgorod province, announcing to everyone that he was the illegitimate son of Catherine II. The impostor was quickly arrested and sentenced to whip, stigma and exile.

Educational process

A separate place among corporal punishment was occupied by educational measures applied to students. In 1804, after the educational reform, Alexander tried to ban them. The emperor dreamed of making all educational institutions similar to the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum (formed in 1811), where Alexander Pushkin and the Chancellor of the Russian Empire Alexander Gorchakov studied.

In the lyceum, they did not beat them for offenses, but put them on the back desks, deprived of sweets during meals, or, in extreme cases, were placed in a punishment cell. However, already in the 1820s, the prohibition on corporal punishment was lifted. Now students were beaten for poor academic performance, smoking tobacco, truancy, and disrespect for teachers.

The most common type of punishment for children was rods, in the educational power of which many believed throughout the 19th century. Even after Alexander II carried out school and university reforms that completely abolished corporal punishment, many old school teachers continued to "out of habit" threaten children not only with a bad grade, but also with beating.

Mitigation of morals

When the need arose in society to abolish inhuman punishments, the government slowly moved towards the people. In 1848, the Minister of Internal Affairs ordered that no beating should be carried out in severe frosts, and in 1851 a decree was issued that a doctor should always be next to the accused during the execution.

With the accession of Alexander II, debates unfolded regarding the abolition of corporal punishment. It was proposed to keep the whips and brands only for the exiles, since the beating “rather hardens than corrects” everyone else. On April 17, 1863, on his birthday, Alexander II forbade punishing the guilty with gauntlets, whips, cats, driving them through the ranks and stigmatizing.

After the liberation of the serfs, power over them passed to rural society and volost administration. Volost judges, elected from among the peasants, had to independently decide the issue of punishment. It seemed that now the beatings would stop, but the peasants continued to solve all the problems by flogging.

In addition, only those of them who completed the course in district schools or higher educational institutions, as well as volost foremen, judges, tax collectors and old people, were exempted from executions. Rods were punished for drunkenness, profanity, theft, failure to appear in court, beatings and damage to property. By law, flogging with rods was reserved only for men, but de facto peasant women suffered from them no less.

During the last decades of the 19th century, discussions about the complete abolition of corporal punishment were most actively conducted by zemstvo leaders.

In 1889, the Carian tragedy occurred - a mass suicide of prisoners in hard labor, associated with cruel treatment.

Finally, since 1893, all women in the Russian Empire were freed from beating, including those in exile.

In 1900, Nicholas II abolished flogging for vagrants, and after another three years, he prohibited whipping for exiled settlers.

In 1904, on the occasion of the birth of the heir, Tsarevich Alexei, the Imperial Manifesto was promulgated, granting the peasants complete liberation from the rods. Oddly enough, not everyone was happy with the order of the emperor.

The fact is that in 1912, discussions broke out about the return of rods and whips in connection with the increased incidence of hooliganism in the countryside.

Be that as it may, Nicholas II did not return to the old order. As for corporal punishment in the army and navy, even before the publication of the manifesto, on August 5, 1904, they were excluded from the consequences of being transferred to the category of penal soldiers and sailors, both in peacetime and in wartime. In the last decade of the existence of the Russian Empire, corporal punishment was practically done away with. This measure extended only to criminals who were in prisons and repeatedly violated the law.