Дыба и кнут: политический сыск и русское общество в XVIII веке по Евгении Анисимов (review)

438 Рецензии/Reviews 1 S. Dixon. The Modernisation of Russia 1676-1825. Cambridge & New York, 1999. P. 145. 2 N. V. Golikova. Politicheskie protsessy pri Petre I: po materialam Preobrazhenskogo prikazy. M., 1957. The standard treatment of the KTRD hitherto was V. I. Veretennikov. Iz materialov Tainoi kantseliarii 1731-1762 gg. Kharkov, 1911. 195-196). При этом автор недо- статочно внимания уделил описа- нию деятельности таких людей, как, например, епископ М. Валан- чюс (1801-1875). А ведь именно введение литовского языка в като- лическое богослужение, издание популярных книг на литовском языке и создание национальных школ, а не работы, например, Ш. Даукантаса, написанные на региональном диалекте, который мало кто понимал уже в конце XIX века, обеспечили условия для создания массовой поддержки де- ятельности литовских национали- стов конца XIX- начала XX века. В результате предпосылки создания независимого литов- ского государства В. Крапаускас сводит исключительно к внешним факторам: географическому по- ложению, первой мировой войне и российской революции (р. 196). Согласятся ли с этим литовские историки? John KEEP Евгении Анисимов. Дыба и кнут: политический сыск и русское общество в XVIII веке. Москва: Новое литературное обозрение, 1999. 719 с. In his recent survey of Russian history from 1676 to 1825 Simon Dixon writes that “there is no fullscale study of any eighteenth-century court”.1 That is happily no longer the case, if we stretch the meaning of court to include a special tribunal. In The Rack and the Knout Evgenii V. Anisimov, author of several major works on the period, presents the fruit of years of research into the dealings of one of the empire’s most important institutions, namely the Secret Chancellery, or Chancellery of Secret Inquisitorial Affairs (here: KTRD), originally set up in 1718 by Peter I to prepare the case against his renegade son Alexei. Anticipated earlier in the reign by the better known Preobrazhenskii prikaz,2 and briefly suspended from 1726 to 1731, it lingered on until 1762, to be succeeded by a Secret Expedition that applied rather less sinister practices. 439 Ab Imperio, 4/2002 This massive study is based primarily on the relevant archive holdings in RGADA, supplemented by a comprehensive coverage of the numerous (but usually brief and journalistic) studies published from the 1860s onward; the total bibliography runs to over 800 items. The files on many dozens of cases are here carefully scrutinised for evidence as to what was perceived as political (anti-state) crime, the procedure for investigating delators and those unfortunates whom they denounced, and the penalties imposed . These ranged from the most excruciating forms of capital punishment , through flagellation with the knout, followed by exile with or without hard labour (katorga), to – in the case of privileged servitors – temporary relegation from court society to their estates. Torture , which inflicted gross physical mutilation, was a standard feature both of the investigation (rozysk) and the penalty. Not many suspects were acquitted; but rewards, pecuniary or otherwise, were given to those relatively few delators whose charges were found to be substantiated . This was (at least until 1762) a pre-modern, pre-rational age and the real threats to state security (in contemporary terms, threats on the life or health of the Sovereign, insurrection or treason; in bureaucratic jargon, “the first two points”) were neither assessed nor dealt with efficiently – let alone in conformity with natural justice. As Anisimov makes abundantly clear, in this preEnlightened era Russia was ruled despotically; the will of theAutocrat was the sole source of law; previous decrees were as yet uncollected, often contradictory, and largely unknown; and officials devoid of legal training were neither capable of interpreting the law nor authorised to do so. Needless to say, the whole enterprise was enshrouded in secrecy. It is thus wrong, although a scarcely avoidable error, to approach this judicial system with modern notions based on the rights of the citizen-subject or the merits of non-violent conflict resolution.At the time what mattered was adherence to bureaucratic formalities and precedents, hierarchical subordination , and above all a superstitious reverence for the person of the Sovereign , seen as a semi-divine figure embodying the highest interests and aspirations of the Orthodox community (= society). One would have relished more from the author’s pen on the psychosocial aspects of criminal justice in Petrine and post-Petrine Russia. There is scarcely a trace in these pages of late twentieth-century Western thinking about early modern penology, with its “Foucaultian” anthropological approach, which some practitioners have admittedly taken 440 Рецензии/Reviews to excess.3 Instead this work, which was evidently written during the “era of stagnation”, stands in the best traditions of the pre-revolutionary “juridical school”, and that is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Apart from the ‘failing’just mentioned , there are two other shortcomings in Anisimov’s approach. One is a reluctance to situate the “exceptional justice” dispensed by the security organs in the context of law enforcement generally, so that we are left in the...