1. Forschungsprojekt: Monarch and Criminal: The Attitude of the Authorities to the Death Penalty as a Tool of Social Control (Russia of the 18th Century)
Spotlight: The project is dedicated to the attitude of the authorities to the death penalty as one of the most important mechanisms of social control and representation of the image of the monarch. The death penalty is considered in a wide context from criminal law to the ritual of execution or, conversely, pardon, on the basis of extensive documentary material of the Russian 18th century.
Description of the scientific problem, research hypothesis: The death penalty is the cruelest existential and at the same time "intimate" form of contact between the monarch and the subject. That is why the most important methodological approach to studying this phenomenon should be the analysis of the relationship between the highest authority and the criminal — two key actors and antagonists in the act of execution.
Research period: The topic will be studied on the basis of Russian history of the 18th - early 19th centuries, since this particular period is characterized by a rapid evolution of attitudes towards the death penalty and contains unique material for comparative analysis. Following the tightening of criminal law under Emperor Peter I and Empress Anna Ioannovna, a twenty-year moratorium was introduced in 1741 and strictly observed, which was confirmed in the second half of the reign of Catherine II, after the public executions of participants in the Pugachev uprising. The moratorium was introduced on the territory of the newly annexed regions by one of the first imperial decrees.
Research problems of the project:
- The sacrament of crowning the kingdom and the right of the monarch to the highest court;
- Public execution: the body of the emperor and the body of the criminal;
- Church sacraments of chrismation of the monarch and repentance of the criminal before the death penalty;
- The personality of the monarch and the death penalty.
Project was approved.
- 2024 – 2025 Fellowship von der Philipp-Schwarz-Initiative der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
Publications related to the project:
- “Publichnoye pokayaniye” v Peterburge pervoy poloviny XVIII veka: po materialam konsistorii, in: Schippan, Michael; Vehma, Manuela (ed.): Der Vorderen Reihe der Russlandhistoriker Peter Hoffmann zum 100. Geburtstag, (Berlin, 2025).
- Kazn' posle kazni: vlast' i telo prestupnika posle smerti v Rossii nachala XVIII v., in: Вивлиоѳика: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies, 12 (2024), P. 32 – 57. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21900/j.vivliofika.v12
2. Forschungsprojekt: Women's Monasteries in Russia in the Second Half of the 18th Century and the Punishment of Criminals by Repentance
Spotlight: This project is dedicated to the threats and destruction of the traditional order in the Russian convents under the influence of secularization and changes in the criminal punishment of criminals for serious crimes. Both threats came from the state and were related to the government's interest in using the economic and controlling potential of the monasteries.
Description of the scientific problem,
Changes in the criminal law were associated with a de facto moratorium on the death penalty, which was broken three times under Catherine II, and a gradual renunciation of torture during the criminal investigation. The secular state courts began to sentence criminals, especially murderers, to repentance in monasteries instead of the death penalty and corporal punishment. The fast impoverishment of monasteries and the duty of spiritual re-education of criminals imposed on them created an increased threat to the traditional order in women's monasteries, since it was difficult for the nuns of especially small and remote monasteries to keep former murderers under their control.
Research hypothesis and issues of the project:
Secularization and using of church practices to punish criminals led to a threat to the traditional order in convents, which was expressed in the following phenomena:
- There were places of detention, the so-called "monastic prisons" in the impoverished convents. Spiritual mentorship over the murderers was assigned to the most authoritative old conventual.
- The mobilization of internal disciplinary reserves of a convent was aggravated by the strengthening of external social control: the abbess of a convent had to constantly report on the spiritual correction of criminals to the state administration.
- The situation in women’s monasteries was further exacerbated by familial structures prevailing in 18th-century Russian society, where husbands could compel unwanted wives to take monastic vows.
Project was approved.
- 2022 – 2023 Teilnehmer am Forschungsprojekt. Philosophische Fakultät; Institut für Geschichtliche Landeskunde und Historische Hilfswissenschaften; Universität Tübingen. Tübingen. Thema des Kooperationsprojekts: Bedrohte Ordnungen.
Publications related to the project:
- Prostranstvo nakazaniya pokayaniyem: ot Kremlya do Solovetskogo monastyrya (delo ubiyts Zhukovykh vtoroy poloviny XVIII veka), in: Makhotina, Ekaterina (et.): Monastère et prison. Les lieux d’enfermements en Europe de l’ouest et en Russie du Moyen âge jusqu’à l’époque contemporaine, (Moscow, 2023), P. 260 – 276.
- Le rôle des monastères dans le droit pénal et religieux: la pratique de la pénitence dans la Russie du XVIIIe siècle, in: Abdela, Sophie; Bastien, Pascal (et.): Criminocorpous. Revue Hypermedia: History de la Justice, des Crimes et des Peines. Enfermements: Pratiques, expériences et parcours de détention (XVIe-XIXe siècles), 23 (2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/criminocorpus.13135
- Forced Penance in Russian Monasteries in the Second Half of the 18th Century: From Punishment of the Body to Correction of the Soul, in: Russian History, 49 : 2 – 4 (2022), P. 363 – 376. DOI: https://doi.org/10.30965/18763316-12340054
