The Death Penalty Moratorium in 18th-Century Russia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2019.4.426Keywords:
death penalty; political death; social control; social consciousness; 18th-century RussiaAbstract
This article examines the twenty-year moratorium on the death penalty in 18th-century Russia during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna. The paper analyses the most important reasons for the unofficial abolition of capital punishment and the correlation between the decision of the empress and the events of the palace coup of 1741. The moratorium on the death penalty raised the urgent issue of “pardoned convicts”, whose conditions of detention on Rågervik Island are also described in the article. Such a harsh and peremptory humanisation of criminal penalties undertaken solely on the internal motives of the empress aroused the displeasure of the Senate and affected the preparation of the draft of the New Law Code. Only the death of Elizabeth prevented the impending conflict of the throne with the court elite. The moratorium on the death penalty considerably influenced not only the internal political climate of subsequent reigns, but also the foreign perception of the Russian Empire. Three years after the death of Elizabeth in 1764, the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria published his famous treatise On Crimes and Punishments, in which he proved the inconsistency of the death penalty, both in terms of the concept of a social contract and in terms of the effectiveness in the prevention of serious crimes. Beccaria used the ‘Great Example of the Russian Empress’ as an important argument not only in his famous treatise, but also in discussions with Leopold I, duke of Tuscany, who was the first to abolish the death penalty in Europe in 1786 under the influence of the philosopher’s arguments.
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