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201 7 TheRighttoLove On October 2, 1882, the twenty-year-old Liubov Aleksandrova, former telegraph worker, appealed for separation from her husband of two years, Platon. A widower forty-four years her senior, retired soldier, and member of the hairdressers’ guild in the city of Novgorod, Platon had been chosen by Liubov’s widowed mother in a marriage arranged by the widow, a townswoman who earned her living by renting rooms to boarders. After the marriage, Platon beat and mistreated his wife and insulted her in public, Liubov alleged in her petition. Once he even declared in the presence of others that she led “an adulterous life.” So offensive to her was this statement that Liubov had sued Platon in Justice of the Peace court for public insult, an actionable offense in Russia, where a person’s public standing depended on her reputation.1 However true the allegations against Platon—and the evidence remains unclear on that score—it was the alleged misconduct of Liubov herself that proved decisive to the outcome of her appeal. In her case, as in others during the 1880s and into the early 1890s, a woman who transgressed the boundaries of sexual propriety could expect neither sympathy nor mercy, whatever she may have suffered at her husband’s hands. And the evidence that emerged in the course of investigation suggested strongly that Liubov had indeed transgressed those boundaries. A doctor who had treated Liubov for syphilis confirmed Platon’s contention that his wife had taken a cure for venereal disease. Platon also produced two letters written by Liubov’s own mother, in which she chastised Liubov for her late-night drinking bouts and pursuit of pleasure in the company of men who were not her husband and for bringing shame not only on herself and her husband but on her own mother, too: Liuba, can it be that you don’t value your reputation, letting people say such nasty things about you? Don’t you know that the whole neighborhood condemns you for your spree [kutezh] at the circus?...It’s shameful and base that you forget yourself 1. RGIA, fond 1412, op. 212, d. 103 (Aleksandrova, L., 1882), 1. 202 : : : Chapter 7 in that way, and then drag yourself home at 3 a.m....The very men who invite you for drinks at the buffet laugh at you behind your back. You should be considerate of your old mother and not stain the name of your husband.2 The chancellery’s investigator cast still more damaging aspersions on Liubov’s sexual conduct. He held that Liubov was a “secret prostitute,” that is, a woman who sold her favors without registering for the special passport that after 1843 required such women to submit to regular venereal examinations. Providing no evidence that she obtained money in exchange for her favors or had sex with more than two men, at most, he reported to the chancellery that after Liubov left her husband, she had invited one Solov'ev to spend time with her at a hotel and after that, lived with and was supported by a telegraph worker named Osipov. All this was more than sufficient to convince officials that Liubov was unworthy of the emperor’s mercy. “Although some of the evidence showed that she lived honorably in St. Petersburg, investigation revealed that she engaged in ‘secret prostitution’ and besides, cohabits with Osipov, on whose means she lives....On account of her immoral behavior, she does not deserve sympathy,” the report dated 28 October 1886 concluded, instructing the authorities to revoke Liubov’s temporary passport and deny her one thereafter.3 Once a wayward woman, always a wayward woman, insofar as officials were concerned . After Liubov’s initial, unsuccessful appeal, officials refused to consider evidence that her behavior might have changed. Having twice tried and failed to reopen her case, in mid-March 1887 Liubov convinced the chancellery to grant her another hearing. She was now resident in St. Petersburg, unemployed, and living with her stepfather . This time, Liubov accused Platon of denying her food when she returned to him after the negative chancellery decision and of demanding three hundred rubles in exchange for a passport. Composed by Liubov and rewritten by a scribe, the petition declared her to be so desperate that she was prepared to take her own life. Since leaving Platon, Liubov claimed, she had reformed completely and had not taken a drink for nearly six years, as her former employer, a Mr...

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