The Prayer of an Empress and the 18th Century Death Penalty Moratorium in Russia

Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture. 2017. Vol. 3. No. 2. P. 36–55.

Марасинова Е. Н.

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of a twenty-year moratorium on the death penalty in Russia of the 18th century, during the reign of Elizaveta Petrovna. The paper analyzes the most important reasons for the unofficial abolition of capital punishment and the correlation between this decision of the Empress and the events of the palace coup of 1741. Refusal from the death penalty in the conditions of a deep political conflict actualized the use of such a form of theatricalization of execution as “political death”. The ritual of such punishments is considered in the article as one of the important channels of social control and the influence of power on the consciousness of subjects. The moratorium on the death penalty raised the urgent issue of the fate of “pardoned man of convicts”, whose conditions of detention on Rogervik Island are also described in the article. Such a harsh and peremptory humanization of criminal penalties, undertaken solely on the internal motives of the empress, aroused the displeasure of the Senate and affected the preparation of the draft of the New Law Code. Only the death of Elizabeth Petrovna prevented the impending conflict of the throne with the court elite. The moratorium on the death penalty had profound consequences influenced not only the internal political climate of the subsequent reigns, but also the foreign perception of the Russian Empire.

Keywords: social control, общественное сознание, социальный контроль, смертная казнь, death penalty, political death, политическая смерть, social consciousness, Russian society in the 18th century, русское общество в 18 веке