CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

Corporal punishment, a form of criminal punishment usually involving public torture of convicts, began in ancient times and existed in Russia until 1904. It was known in Kievan Rus, but limited to certain groups. From the late thirteenth century onward, corporal punishment was applied more widely and used against individuals of any social group without exclusion. It is believed that this broader application arose under the influence of the Tartar and Mongolian conquerors, who freely practiced corporal punishment. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as a consequence of the total enslavement of the population to the state, corporal punishment came into extensive use and peaked in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. All known methods of corporal punishment were employed and applied in full view of the public. For speaking disrespectfully of the tsar or speaking in an obscene manner in a church, the convicted offender's tongue was cut out; for attempting to kill one's master, a hand was cut off; for forgery and thievery, fingers were cut off; for brigandage, rebellion, and perjury, the nose or ears were cut off. Criminals were branded so that they could be easily identified. During the reign of Peter I, the more dangerous criminals had their nostrils slit; less dangerous criminals had their foreheads branded with the letter "V," for vor (criminal). In addition to sentences involving the mutilation of limbs, other painful punishments were meted out: flogging with the knout for the most serious crimes; beating with sticks or the lash for less serious crimes; or, in the case of soldiers, forcing the offender to run the gauntlet. Minors and adults found guilty of less serious offenses were beaten with birch rods. The number of blows began at 500 or more and sometimes extended to infinity—which for all practical purposes meant beating a person to death.

Until the beginning of the eighteenth century, corporal punishment was applied to all classes within the population equally. But in the eighteenth century, the privileged estates successfully sought the repeal of corporal punishment against them. Motivating their opposition was the growing opinion that corporal punishment was a disgrace for those on whom it was imposed. For instance, a soldier who had undergone corporal punishment was unable to become an officer. As a result of this opposition from privileged groups, members of the nobility, distinguished citizens (pochetnye grazhdane ), and merchants of the first and second guilds were exempted from corporal punishment in the imperial charters of 1785. The clergy was granted the same privilege in 1803, as later were members of other social estates—provided they had an education. However, beating with birch rods remained common until the 1860s as a form of punishment for students in elementary and secondary schools, even though children from the privileged social estates predominated in the latter.

Over time, the severity of sentences was eased, and some forms of punishment were even abolished. For instance, the use of the knout ended in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The knout was the most deadly means of corporal punishment; an experienced executioner could kill a person with three blows. The 1845 Code of Punishments established the upper limit for sentences using the lash and birch rods to 100 blows. Exceptions for the sick and the elderly were under way, as were additional measures to protect the health of individuals undergoing punishment as much as possible. For instance, sentences would not be carried out in extremely cold and windy conditions. Beginning in 1851, a physician was present at the scene of corporal punishment. From 1863 on, corporal punishment was greatly curtailed. Women were entirely exempted. Men were subject to it in only five cases stipulated by law: (1) District courts (volostnye sudy ) were permitted to sentence peasants to up to twenty blows of the lash, a sentence that earlier had been considered appropriate only for children. (2) With the permission of the governor of the province, prisoners were allowed to be punished with up to 100 blows of the birch rod for various violations of the established order. (3) Those serving sentences of hard labor in exile and those in exile as penal settlers could receive between 100 and 300 blows of the birch rod for various violations. (4) Those serving sentences of hard labor in exile who committed an additional crime could receive up to 100 blows of the lash. (5) Those serving on vessels at sea could be punished with up to five blows of the whip, and apprentices could be given between five and ten blows of the birch rod.

Not until 1903 were all forms of corporal punishment abolished for those serving sentences of exile at hard labor or sentences of exile as penal settlers. The following year, corporal punishment was officially abolished for all peasants, soldiers, sailors, and other categories of the population.

See also: legal systems

bibliography

Adams, Bruce F. (1996). The Politics of Punishment: Prison Reform in Russia, 1863–1917. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.

Kucherov, Samuel. (1953). Courts, Lawyers, and Trials under the Last Three Tsars. New York: Praeger.

Schrader, Abby M. (1997). "Containing the Spectacle of Punishment: The Russian Autocracy and the Abolition of the Knout, 1817–1845." Slavic Review 56 (4): 613–644.

Shrader, O. (1922). "Crimes and Punishments, Teutonic and Slavic." In Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings. New York: Scribners.

Vernadsky, George, tr. (1947). Medieval Russian Laws. New York: Columbia University Press.

Boris N. Mironov