The death penalty was alien to the legal worldview of the Russian people
Execution of conspirators in Russia. V.V. Vereshchagin
Blood feud and God's judgment
In Ancient Rus' there was no death penalty, but there was an ancient custom of blood feud, which was expressed in the principle “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” The community had to punish the criminal. At that time, not punishing the criminal, not restoring justice, not taking revenge was considered a shame, dishonor for the victim, his family and clan. Execution could be replaced by exile, which was a very severe punishment; the “outcast” was not protected by clan or tribe, and in fact had no rights.
Used in Rus', etc. God's judgment. When all ordinary means were exhausted, the parties could appeal from the human court to the divine court. The forms of such a trial were different: lots were practiced, rota (oath, oath), ordeals (tests through fire and water) and judicial combat. Murder suits primarily used the fire and water test.
The test by fire consisted of holding one's hand on fire while crossing a lit fire in one shirt, and holding a hot iron with one's hands. The water test was carried out with either boiling or cold water. When testing with boiling water, a ring was placed at the bottom of a vessel with boiling water, which the accused had to remove without harm to himself. When testing with cold water, the accused, tied with a rope, was thrown into the water, and if he sank to the bottom, he was considered innocent, but if he remained on the surface of the water, he was found guilty. This test is explained by pagan views of water as a pure element that does not accept anything unclean.
"God's Judgment" Author: Ivan Goryushkin-Sorokopudov. 1910s
From Russian Pravda to Code of Laws of Ivan the Terrible
With the development of state institutions, repressive functions are gradually transferred to a special state apparatus. The death penalty becomes public and receives the status of a criminal punishment executed on behalf of the state.
Sources report attempts by Greek bishops to introduce the death penalty for robbery in Rus'. Individual cases of the use of this measure are known, but as a general practice the death penalty did not take root at that time. Russian Truth (a collection of legal norms of Rus' under Prince Yaroslav the Wise) did not provide for the death penalty. They were punished with a vira (monetary fine), the highest measure, including for murder in robbery, was “flow and plunder” - confiscation of property and extradition of the criminal (along with his family) “by the head”, that is, into slavery.
But traces of traditional law were also preserved in Russian Pravda - blood feud was preserved, but the circle of possible avengers was limited.
“If a husband kills his husband, then he will take revenge on his brother’s brother, or on his father’s son, or on his son’s father, or on his brother’s brother, or on his son’s sister; If someone doesn’t take revenge, then 40 hryvnia for your head.”
The final abolition of blood feud already occurred in the edition of the Russian Pravda under the sons of Yaroslav (“The Truth of the Yaroslavichs” by Izyaslav, Svyatoslav, Vsevolod, from 1072). Blood feud was finally replaced by a monetary fine. The death penalty in Rus' was henceforth applied only for exceptional crimes, during extraordinary events - for treason, rebellion, crimes against the Church.
The historian of Russian law N.P. Zagoskin noted that the death penalty was alien
“to the legal worldview of the Russian people, how alien to them is a harsh attitude towards a criminal in general.”
Grand Duke Vladimir Monomakh (creator of the “Charter”) also said:
“Do not kill and do not order to kill, even if someone is responsible for someone’s death.”
The most cruel and severe measures came to us from Western Europe after the adoption of Christianity. Only after the adoption of Christianity by the supreme power and its gradual spread to the population (the process was not instantaneous and bloodless and took more than one century), after long recommendations and pressure from Christian hierarchs, the Russian state adopted the Roman system of punishments (including the murder of a criminal). Subsequently, the institution of the death penalty in Rus' began to expand.
For the first time, the death penalty was legally enshrined in the Charter of Dvina in 1397. It was allowed to be used against malicious repeat offenders - for theft committed for the third time. The Pskov Judgment Charter of 1467 further expanded the list of crimes for which the death penalty was imposed. Capital punishment began to be applied for high treason (“perevet”), theft in the church, theft of church property, horse theft, arson (a terrible crime in conditions when most of the buildings in the settlement were wooden), theft committed in the settlement for the third time, robbery.
The trend towards expanding the use of the death penalty was continued in the Code of Laws of 1497. This set of laws of the Russian state provided for the death penalty for: treason, other state crimes, religious crimes (in particular, sacrilege), slander, for the murder of one’s master and other types of murder, robbery and repeated theft.
According to the Code of Law of 1550, people were executed for the first theft and repeated fraud. They could have been executed for almost any “daring deed.” At the same time, it should be noted that in peacetime the crime rate in Rus' was low. Thus, during the entire long reign of Ivan IV the Terrible, according to historians, about 4 thousand people were executed. At the same time, in the West, and then in Russia, the myth of “bloody Grozny” was created (Who created the “black” myth about the “bloody tyrant” Ivan the Terrible; How Grozny was turned into "the most terrible Russian tyrant").
In medieval England, France, Spain and other countries of Western Europe, executions were carried out much more often and for more minor sins. And during extraordinary events, riots, uprisings, etc., they were massacred, in the thousands, tens of thousands.
"Reading the Russian Truth to the people in the presence of Grand Duke Yaroslav." A. Kivshenko
First Romanovs
In the 1649th century, the death penalty began to be applied to tobacco smokers. A new step to expand punitive measures was taken in the Council Code of 54. The death penalty became the main type of criminal punishment, which punished from 60 to XNUMX crimes. Various types of death penalties were also approved: simple - hanging, and qualified - beheading, quartering, burning (for religious matters and in relation to arsonists), as well as pouring hot metal down the throat for counterfeiting.
The decree of 1653 changed the laws that had been in force since the time of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich (Code of Code of 1550 and additional decrees), and according to the Council Code of 1649.
All robbers and thieves awaiting death penalty were released from it, they were ordered to “give belly" Capital punishment was replaced by punishment with a whip, cutting off a finger of the left hand and exile to Volga, Ukrainian cities or Siberia. The death penalty remained in force only for repeat offenders.
However, this decree did not last long. Soon the punishment was tightened again. Already in 1659, a decree was issued that reinstated hanging for robbers detained in the lower cities (Middle and Lower Volga region). In 1663, a decree was issued in Russia, which established that robbers and thieves, “who will face the death penalty", it is necessary to cut off both legs and left arms.
Russian empire
The use of the death penalty reached its peak under Tsar Peter I. During the investigation of the Streletsky riot of 1698 alone, about 2 thousand people were executed. The military regulations of 1716 impose the death penalty in 122 cases. But in most cases, the death penalty was replaced with other punishments.
After the era of Peter the punitive wave began to decline, and various attempts at reform began with the goal of abolishing or limiting the death penalty. As a result, under Elizaveta Petrovna, a radical change is taking place in this area. In 1744, the empress issued an order that suspended the execution of death sentences. By a decree of 1754, the “natural death penalty” was replaced by “political” death and exile to hard labor in Siberia. Previously, the criminal was subjected to corporal punishment - beaten with a whip, his nostrils were pulled out, or he was branded. All cases in which the death penalty could be applied were subject to transfer to the Senate and were considered by the empress herself.
This order was preserved under subsequent sovereigns. An exception was made only during the suppression of riots, insurrections, when military courts operated, and due to individual cases of grave crimes and special state circumstances. For example, exceptions were in 1771 - the execution of the murderers of Archbishop Ambrose, in 1775 - the uprising of Emelyan Pugachev and his associates (Russian riot), in 1826 – the cause of the Decembrists.
In general, the Russian tsars were quite humane people in comparison with Western rulers. Death sentences were already handed down quite rarely; for example, during the reign of Alexander I, 84 people were executed.
Suspended by the decrees of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the death penalty was restored by legislative acts of the 1812th century: the Field Code of 20, the law of October 1832, 1832 on quarantine crimes and the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire of XNUMX.
The Code of Laws established the death penalty for: 1) serious types of political crimes, but only if the perpetrators were brought before the Supreme Criminal Court; 2) some quarantine crimes (that is, crimes that were committed during epidemics and were associated with violence against quarantine guards or quarantine institutions); 3) military crimes. The use of the death penalty is limited to these same types according to the Penal Code of 1845 (provided for the approval of the sentence only after its highest consideration). Usually, under extenuating circumstances, the death penalty was replaced by indefinite hard labor or hard labor for a period of 15-20 years.
According to the laws of the Russian Empire of the late 1th century, in addition to military and quarantine crimes, people who committed the most important state crimes were also subject to the death penalty: 2) malicious intent on the supreme rights, life, health, honor and freedom of the sovereign and members of the imperial family; 3) rebellion and XNUMX) serious types of treason.
The law of April 17, 1863 allows in some cases the death penalty for murder, robbery, assault weapons on defenseless people, arson and violence against a woman. The provision on enhanced security 4 September 1881 of the year transferred to the jurisdiction of the military court for condemnation under the laws of wartime cases of armed resistance to the authorities and attack on officials, if these crimes were aggravated by murder, attempted murder, infliction of wounds, injuries, severe beatings, arson . The main types of death penalty were shooting and hanging.
There were also special cases. Thus, since 1893, it was allowed to apply the death penalty to military courts for the murder of railway employees and train passengers who committed “natives in the Caucasus region and Stavropol province" However, in general, the use of the death penalty in the XNUMXth century was rare, an exception.
The situation changed with the growing wave of revolutionary terror at the beginning of the 1905th century. To bring down the revolutionary wave of 1907-XNUMX, military courts began to operate throughout the country, executing not only professional revolutionaries, but also looters and other “troublemakers” (it was then that the expression “Stolypin tie” appeared). The death penalty could be applied by decision of the governors.
On June 19, 1906, during a meeting of the First State Duma, a draft law on the abolition of the death penalty in Russia was discussed. All cases of the death penalty were planned to be replaced directly with the next most severe punishment. But the bill was not supported by the State Council. The same bill on the abolition of the death penalty was raised and approved by the Second State Duma, but the State Council again did not support it.
At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, the Russian public, prominent criminologists and scientists more than once raised the issue of the complete abolition of the death penalty.
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