«Потомственный страх» или «народное воспитание»: феномен моратория на смертную казнь в России середины XVIII века

Новое литературное обозрение. 2019. Т. 155. № 1. С. 132–152.

Марасинова Е. Н.

The article is devoted to the moratorium on the death penalty, which was secretly introduced in Russia in 1741 and strictly observed throughout the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna. The paper examines the reasons and circumstances of the Empress's decision not to use death penalty, the ritual of the theatrical political death, the conditions of keeping  convicts sentenced to capital punishment, but pardoned. The phenomenon of a 20-year moratorium on the death penalty in Russia in the mid-18th century is explored on the basis of a representative collection of published and archival sources and is included in the wide socio-cultural and political context of Europe's public life of the period, which allows us to understand its significance in the historical perspective.

Keywords: social control, общественное сознание, public consciousness, социальный контроль, смертная казнь, death penalty, political death, политическая смерть