In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Appendix: Newspaper Account of the Kroneberg Trial From The Voice (Golos), January 24–29, 1876 119 January 24, 1876 Court Chronicle Session of the First Department of the St. Petersburg District Court, with the participation of a jury, held on January 23 The case of the banker Kronenberg [sic], accused of the torture of his seven-year-old daughter Judge Lopukhin presided; the prosecution was led by Prosecutor Kolokolov; the defense was led by Defense Attorney Spasovich. The substance of the case is the following [some preliminary technical information has been omitted]: On July 28, 1875, the peasant woman Ul’iana Bibina, who was living at the dacha of Mukhanov in Lesnoi Korpus [suburb of St. Petersburg, named for the Forestry Institute located there], attested to the forest district police superintendent of the Petersburg suburban police that the nobleman Stanislav Kronenberg, who was renting the Mukhanov dacha, would often and cruelly beat his small daughter who was living with him, and on the last occasion had Xogged her horribly on July 25. Bibina’s testimony was conWrmed by an inquest, and therefore on July 28 the case was transferred to a judicial investigator. A preliminary investigation revealed that Kronenberg had moved to the Mukhanov dacha about the middle of June and lived there with his lover, the French national Adelina Gesing, and with his legitimized seven-year-old daughter Mariia. The circumstances of this case, discovered by the preliminary investigation, are as follows: The peasant woman Bibina testiWed: On June 17, Kronenberg, the lady, and the girl moved to the dacha of Mukhanov. Soon afterward, the witness began to notice that the little girl’s underwear and handkerchiefs were often bloodied, her face beaten, and her nose bloody. Bibina could not ask the girl herself about the reason for these phenomena, because the child did not speak Russian, but Kronenberg’s cook explained to the witness that it was because the master beat the young lady so badly. Soon afterward, in the evenings, about 11:00, the witness began to hear the terrible screams and moans of the little girl, in which one could clearly hear the words: “Papa! Papa!” At Wrst this wasn’t repeated very often, but as time went on it happened more and more often. Judging by the little girl’s screams, the witness believes that the beating continued for about a quarter of an hour, and sometimes even longer. Once, on an evening in July, Kronenberg again began to beat the little girl and this time beat her so long, and she screamed so terribly, that the witness became frightened and, fearing that the girl would be beaten to death, jumped out of bed, and just as she was in her nightgown, ran up to Kronenberg’s window and began to shout for him to stop beating or she would send for the police; then the beating and the screams ceased. For about three days after this everything was quiet, but, after a certain interval of time, for three days straight Kronenberg tortured the girl so much that the witness decided to tell the police about everything. Before going to report to the police, Bibina and Kronenberg’s cook examined the girl, and it turned out that the entire lower part of the child’s body was a dark-blue and purple color and was furrowed with welts from the switch; on her arms there were also traces of the blows of the switch; both her cheeks were covered with dark-blue and purple spots. While being examined the girl cried bitterly and kept saying, “Papa, Papa!” At this time, Kronenberg’s cook gave the witness a switch that she had found on the Xoor in the girl’s room. The switch presented by the witness Bibina consisted of nine thick rowanberry branches bound together, with the ends broken off and dishevelled from use. Kronenberg’s maid, Agrafena Alekseevna Titova, conWrmed Bibina’s testimony in all its details, and added that while in the city Kronenberg treated the little girl rather well: sometimes it would happen that he would shout at her, and once, in the presence of the witness, he struck her on the face; but he didn’t beat her with a switch and the girl was not beat up. But when they moved to the dacha, Kronenberg started to treat the girl cruelly: he beat her repeatedly on the face, so that she had dark-blue spots on both cheeks, and one...

Share