Territory: Journal of Historical Research

Center versus “Peripheral” Towns: Time of Troubles in Ryazan Region

Ivan Kirpichnikov — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 17:30:41 +0300

The paper explores the confrontation in the Ryazan region during the Time of Troubles, viewed as a clash between the regional center, Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky, and the peripheral towns (prigorody) of Zaraysk, Mikhailov, Pronsk, and Ryazhsk. It reconstructs the chronology of events and proposes a periodization of the armed conflict between government and rebel forces in the Ryazan region. The study reveals that the prolonged hostilities led to significant transformations in the social and political landscape of Ryazan. The Ryazan gentry service community lost control over the district periphery, while the peripheral communities of servicemen and townsmen gained considerable autonomy and established institutions for collective decision-making. Additionally, the article analyzes various scenarios of confrontation and reconciliation between the Ryazan rebels and the government, with particular emphasis on the process of “conversion,” in which rebellious communities shifted their allegiances to the government.

Enforcement of the Decree “On the Form of the Trial” of November 5, 1723 by Regional Authorities in Russia in 1725 – early 1740s

Elena Borodina — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300

The article deals with the practice of applying the norms of procedural law in the Russian Empire in the second half of the 1720s — early 1740s. The author drew attention to the decree “On the form of the trial” of November 5, 1723, which, as is traditionally believed in historiography, abolished the investigative forms of legal proceedings in the court, establishing the adversarial nature. The analysis of legislative acts and materials of regional legal proceedings showed that in the 1720s — early 1740s, the search continued to be applied in cases of such offenses as robbery, theft, murder and several other serious crimes. The decree “On the form of the trial” contained important norms establishing the rules of judicial proceedings. In this regard, the law applied both to “courts” for private disputes and more serious legal proceedings related to official crimes, robbery and murder. All petitions initiating legal proceedings had to be drawn up in accordance with the model contained in the decree of November 5, 1723. Despite this, in the judicial practice of regional authorities, deviations from the rules of execution declared by law are often encountered. For example, notebooks with recordings of the testimony of plaintiffs and defendants are rarely found in the materials of legal proceedings. Their responses were written down sequentially, without large gaps.

Peasant Woman Goes to Court: Practices at the Volost Court in Post-Reform Russia

Ivan Popp — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300

The article attempts to answer the question of the degree of peasant women inclusion in the system of socio-economic relations in the post-reform Russian village, through appeals to the volost court. In the post-reform period, the volost court - a space in which the interests of villagers, men and women, clashed – became a platform for broad gender interaction, contributing to the formation of everyday legal consciousness and – more broadly – the development of practices of peasant self-government. The author analyzes this issue both within the framework of the general imperial positions analysis and with the involvement of local material, in particular, the consideration of women's court cases in the books of decisions of the Perm provincial presence on peasant affairs for 1878 and the Irbit district presence on peasant affairs for 1884. The article concludes that the liberation from serfdom marked the beginning of the rapid adaptation of peasant women to post-reform legal proceedings. Peasant women were not afraid to go to court even for the most insignificant claims, considering themselves to be fully equal participants in property disputes. At the same time, they could count on clear support from representatives of the volost boards.

“Blessed are you, a glorious Town Ostashkov…”: an XVIII Century Provincial Town and its Habitants

Ekaterina Kislova — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the work “Blessed are you, the glorious town of Ostashkov...”, found in a manuscript collection of songs from the second half of the 18th century (Manuscript Department of the Russian State Library, RSL, F. 199. D. 689. L. 40 ob. – 41 ob.). This piece, which glorifies the provincial town Ostashkov in Tver Province, is considered a valuable source for understanding the culture of Russian provinces during the era of Catherine II. The article examines the historical context of the poem's creation, its connection to Ostashkov's acquisition of town status, and the formation of an “emotional community” among its citizens. The main focus of praise is not on landmarks (like Lake Seliger, its islands, the abundance of fish, or the Nilovo-Stolbensky Monastery) but rather on the moral qualities of its inhabitants and the town church culture. The text reflects certain historical realities significant to this period and emerging elements of “urban identity” among Ostashkov residents, which can be traced in local history literature from the 19th century. Therefore, it can be regarded as an early example of how artistic literature reflects the self-awareness of a Russian provincial resident. Several features of the text suggest that its author may have been a member of Ostashkov's clergy, likely Semyon (Simeon) Vereshchagin, the archpriest of the Trinity Cathedral in Ostashkov, who until 1762 was a Poetry's teacher at Tver Seminary. A comparison with his sermons reveals new facets of provincial culture at the end of the 18th century.

On P. I. Pestel's Political Vocabulary

Olga Edelman — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300

The article discusses Pavel Pestel's basic conceptual political vocabulary and raises the question of what specific meaning the choice of a word from a political dictionary or a translation of a foreign concept meant to him. The work is based on the text of Pestel's «Russian Truth», with the involvement of his other writings, testimony at the investigation and Nikita Muravyov's constitutional draft. The Decembrists belonged to the strata of the Russian nobility, who spoke and wrote in French at home. They also discussed their political ideas in French, which was supposed to slow down the development of a corresponding Russian conceptual framework. However, they wrote their constitutional drafts in Russian, which allows us to raise the question of their developing a Russian political conceptual vocabulary. Pestel, influenced by the ideas of A.S. Shishkov, compiled dictionaries of "purely Russian" terms to replace foreign borrowings, but did not use them in the compilation of "Russian Truth". Avoiding gallicisms as much as possible, he used mostly well-established words that were generally understandable to the Russian public. The features of Pestel's choice of terms are traced, which concepts are important to him (people, state, citizen, freedom, elections, representative government, prosperity, etc.), which are rare (nation, citizenship, democracy), which, contrary to expectations, are absent (monarchy, republic, constitution). The use of basic concepts by Pestel and Nikita Muravyov is compared.

Leisure in Soviet Everyday Life: Formats and Practices

Igor Orlov — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300

The article that has the character of an analytical review attempts to define the subject field of an emerging research area focused on the study of such an aspect of Soviet everyday life as leisure. A new approach to the study of leisure practices, in addition to territorial division (by place of residence, remote recreation, workplace and study), provides three leisure formats for the allocation – organized, unorganized and semi-organized, combining the first two formats. At the same time the obvious dependence of these formats on leisure "geography" is highlighted. In its turn the specifics of leisure practices are researched by analyzing the factors of the formation of leisure space in the USSR.

“Loving Fatherland does not mean kissing Birches”: Why Sergei Dovlatov and Alexander Gelman rejected the Glorification of the “Russian Tree” in the late USSR

Igor Narskii, Natalya Narskaya — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300

The article is deals with the contradictory attitude of some Russian citizens towards the demonstration of love for the “Russian birch” in the mass culture of the last decades of the Soviet state. It raises the following questions. Where does the critical attitude of writers such as Sergei Dovlatov and Alexander Gelman towards the appeasement of fellow citizens at the sight of a white-trunked tree come from? How widespread were both phenomena - the love of the birch among the population of the RSFSR and the critical perception of this love by individual contemporaries? How can they be explained and described? Using mainly Soviet poetry and ego-documents, the authors outline the extent and intensity with which the veneration of the “Russian tree” was expressed in late Soviet Russian mass culture. The article proposes a theoretical toolkit that provides an adequate language to describe the love for the “Russian birch” and the concern for its popularity, and formulates a general hypothesis about the timing and motives for the final transformation of the birch into a “Russian tree”. The authors argue that the victory in the Great Patriotic War, the population's fatigue from hardships of the first half of the 20^th century, the conservative turn in state policy and the massive growth of nationalism among the political and cultural elite and the general public in the 1960s to 1980s provided the birch with a solid “Russian home” and conditioned, on the other hand, the emergence of a critical and ironic discourse concerning the process.

Historical and Cultural Heritage Protection in the RSFSR and BSSR: Administration Practices, Financing, and Boundaries of Possibilities (Second Half of the 1960s – mid-1970s)

Ekaterina Boltunova, Galina Egorova — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300

In the USSR in the second half of the 1960s the institutionalization of historical and cultural heritage protection intensified. Societies for the protection of monuments appeared in several Soviet republics, including Lithuania (1965), Kyrgyziya, Moldavia, Ukraine, Belarussia and Russia (1966). This article analyses the differences in the administrative and financial capacities of two republican structures – the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture (VOOPIiK) and the Belarusian Voluntary Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture (BDOOPIiK). The findings based on a wide range of archival documents, suggest that the network of voluntary societies for the protection of monuments established in the USSR in the post-war period was a system of resource allocation. An integral part of such structures was a mechanism aimed, in the broad sense of the word, at regulating public statement. The functionality of this mechanism exhibited significant variations from republic to republic. The pivotal factor in this regard was the socio-economic conditions in which the members of the societies found themselves. The article demonstrates that the administration of the Russian and Belarusian Societies formed a system in which the BDOOPIiK had serious advantages over the VOOPIiK in terms of promoting its agenda and ability to influence decision-making process. The BSSR had a stable system of funding for the Republican Society for the Protection of Monuments, while VOOPIiK in the central regions of the RSFSR faced a constant lack of resources.

Rev. on: Kaplan V. Historians and Historical Societies in the Public Life of Imperial Russia (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2017)

Vladislav Boyarchenkov — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300

Rev. on: Buldakov V. P. Strasti revolyutsii: Emocional'naya stihiya 1917 goda (M.: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2024)

Anton Laptev — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300

Rev. on: Priroda sovetskoy vlasti. Ekologicheskaya istoriya Arktiki (Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2024)

Pavel Filin — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300

Rev. on: Khlevnyuk, O., Gorlitskiy, Y. Sekretari. Regional'nye seti v SSSR ot Stalina do Brezhneva (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2024)

Dmitry Apal'kov — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0300