What was the meaning of Catherine's order. Catherine's order ii

Labor of the era of "enlightened monarchy".

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✪ Catherine II: the Russian model of "enlightened absolutism"

✪ Domestic policy in 1762 - 1796 Catherine II

✪ Domestic policy of Catherine II

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Reasons for creating "Order"

Despite the huge number of normative legal acts that were created in previous years, the situation in the legal sphere was difficult. Contradictory decrees, statutes and manifestos operated on the territory of the Russian Empire. Moreover, apart from the Cathedral Code, there was no single code of laws in Russia.

Catherine II, realizing the need for legislative activity, not only announced the convening of the commission, but also wrote her "Order" for this Commission. It laid out modern, progressive principles of politics and the legal system. With this "Order" the Empress directed the activities of the deputies in the right direction and, in addition, declaratively emphasized her adherence to the ideas of Diderot, Montesquieu, D'Alembert and other educators.

Sources of the "Order"

A significant part of the text (about 350 articles) is borrowed from the treatises of Charles Montesquieu "On the spirit of the laws" and Cesare Beccaria "On crimes and punishments".
The rest of the articles are a compilation of publications by Denis Diderot and Jean d'Alembert from the famous Encyclopedia.

Thus, Catherine the Great just used the already available material, which, however, does not detract from the significance of her work.

The text of the "Order" consisted of 22 chapters and 655 articles.

Ch. I-V (Art. 1-38) - General principles state structure.
Ch. VI-VII (Art. 39-79) - "On laws in general" and "On laws in detail": the foundations of the legislative policy of the state.
Ch. VIII-IX (art. 80-141) - Criminal law and legal proceedings.
Ch. X (Articles 142-250) - The concept of criminal law from the point of view of Cesare Beccaria.
Ch. XI-XVIII (Art. 251-438) - The estate organization of society.
Ch. XIX-XX (Art. 439-521) - Questions of legal technology.

Finance and budget

In the Addendum to the "Instruction" of 1768, the financial management system was analyzed, and the main goals of the state in this area were listed. The finances were to provide for the "common good" and the "splendor of the throne." To solve these problems, the correct organization of the state budget was required.

Criminal law

Concerning criminal law, Catherine noted that it is much better to prevent a crime than to punish a criminal.

The Mandate noted that there is no need to punish naked intent that did not cause real harm to society. For the first time in Russian legislation, the idea of \u200b\u200b1785, the Charter of the Deanery of 1782 was voiced.

The Commission did not create a new Code: the wars waged by Russia in the 1980s and the Pugachev rebellion affected. The inconsistency in the actions of representatives of different classes also played a negative role: the manifestation of corporate, class interests made it difficult for joint codification work.

However, the "Order" was not only an instruction for the deputies. It was a carefully developed philosophical work of a person who thoroughly knows history and all the achievements of modern legal thought.

In the "Order", a legal technique was developed that was previously unknown to Russian law, new ideas about the system of legislation were developed:

Laws are absolutely necessary littleand they should stay unchanged... This largely makes the life of society more stable.
Laws should be simple and clear in their wording. All subjects must understand the language of legislators for the successful execution of prescriptions.
There is a hierarchy of regulations. Decrees are by-laws, therefore, they may have a limited duration and be canceled depending on the changed situation.

Quotes

Christian law teaches us to do each other good, as much as possible.
Russia is a European power.
A vast state presupposes autocratic power in the person who rules it. It is imperative that speed in resolving cases sent from distant countries should reward the slowness caused by the remoteness of places. Any other rule would not only be harmful to Russia, but completely ruinous.
The equality of all citizens is that all are subject to the same laws.
Love for the fatherland, shame and fear of reproach are taming means and capable of abstaining from many crimes.
A person should not and can never be forgotten.
Every man has more concern for his own than for that which belongs to another; and does not make any effort about what he may fear that the other will take away from him.

"Order" of the Legislated Commission - the document was developed by Catherine II during 1765-1767, and is a collection of ideas of such Western enlighteners as D'Alembert, Diderot, Montesquieu and Beccaria, which the empress herself did not hide. As a concept enlightened absolutism in the understanding of Catherine II, the "Order" consisted of 506 articles and was supposed to serve as the direction of activity of the deputies of the Legislative Commission.

The meetings of the Legislative Commission, announced by the manifesto of December 14, 1766, were called upon to develop a new code of laws, replacing the outdated Cathedral Code of 1649.

Value

The activities of the Legislative Commission were not crowned with success - the nobles did not want to give up their rights, the merchants tried to expand their privileges, and no one took the requests of the peasant deputies seriously. However, the authorship of such a significant document and his loud statements about the need for fair governance, favorably emphasized Catherine II as a supporter of enlightenment and a caring ruler.

The contradictions between the deputies were eloquent proof that the society of the Russian Empire was not ready for a peaceful change in its internal order. The subsequent revolt of Emelyan Pugachev of 1773-1775 showed how tense the relations between the estates were.

Exactly based on the "Order", were developed and issued such documents as the Charter of the Deanery of 1782, the Charter to the Nobility and the Charter to the Cities of 1785. Catherine II herself called the last two documents the pinnacle of her lawmaking.

Key points:

Autocracy is the best and only form of government for the Russian Empire
Society is divided “naturally” into those who rule (emperor + nobles) and those who rule (everyone else).
The law must prevail in the state and equally apply to all its citizens. There should not be many laws, they should be unchanging and easy to understand.
Freedom is the right to do whatever is not prohibited by law. The absolute power of the monarch does not take away freedom from people, but only directs them to achieve the common good.
The sovereign is obliged to take care of his subjects - to raise their education, to promote the development of medicine, arts and science.

Despite the seeming loftiness of the described proposals, in fact, most of the future reforms not only did not affect the peasantry (making up about 90% of the population of the Russian Empire), but even complicated its position. Some of the transformations were of a populist nature, they served to present the Empress in the most benevolent way for foreign monarchs and leaders.

Catherine II with the Order of the Legislated Commission

The laws, however, operated exclusively in favor of the nobles, and most of the elective and administrative positions were occupied by the noble class.

One of the most striking manifestations of "enlightened absolutism" during the reign of Catherine II was the convening of the Commission to draw up a new code. The government explained this measure by the need to codify the signs, since the current "Cathedral Code" of 1649 by this time was completely outdated.

In its activities, the Commission was to be guided by a special instruction - "Order", written by Catherine II. This "Mandate" was replete with fashionable liberal phrases borrowed from the works of Western European educators, justifying the need to preserve the autocracy, estates and serfdom. When compiling it, Catherine, by her own admission, “robbed” Montesquieu, who was developing the idea of \u200b\u200bseparation of powers in the state, and his other followers. Her policy of enlightened absolutism assumed the rule of a "wise man on the throne." "Mandate" is a compilation based on several works of the educational direction of that period. Chief among them are Montesquieu's books "On the Spirit of Laws" and the work of the Italian criminalist Beccaria "On Crimes and Punishments."

Montesquieu's book was called by Catherine the prayer book of sovereigns with common sense. The "Mandate" consisted of twenty chapters, to which two more were then added. The chapters are divided into 655 articles, of which 294 were borrowed from Montesquieu. The "order" began with a discussion of the nature of the laws, which should take into account the historical characteristics of the people. The peculiarity of the Russian people is their belonging to European nations. Russia needs autocratic rule, due to the vastness of the Empire and the diversity of its parts. The goal of autocratic rule is not "to take away their natural freedom from people, but to direct their actions towards obtaining the greatest of all good." 88 V.V. Malkov, Manual on the history of the USSR, M., Higher school, 1985 That is, the goal of autocracy is the good of all subjects. The autocrat relies in his rule on laws, the observance of which is monitored by the Senate.

In the Empress's Instruction, quotations from the writings of the enlighteners were used to substantiate serfdom and strong autocratic power, although certain concessions were made to the developing bourgeois relations. Separate chapters are devoted to the "middle kind of people." Catherine realized that such an estate in Russia has neither political nor social power, while in European countries it not only possesses it, but also creates the economic basis for the country's well-being.

Catherine also made extensive use of Beccaria's treatise, directed against the remnants of the medieval criminal process, with its torture, a New Look on the sanity of the crime and the expediency of punishment. Punishing a criminal, in her opinion, is dishonor. His task is not torture or intimidation, but for education, and is aimed at repentance. The punishment must be proportionate to the crime, otherwise the meaning is lost. Here are other provisions on the structure of the court: a person has the right to a defense lawyer, an investigation should be carried out before sentencing. It is fashionable to consider a person as a criminal from the moment of sentencing. The death penalty in a stable state is completely optional, only if the perpetrator threatens the very foundation of the state.

VO Klyuchevsky, assessing Ekaterina's "Order", wrote: "Free from political convictions, she replaced them with tactical methods of politics. Without letting go of a single thread of autocracy, she allowed the indirect and even direct participation of society in government ... Autocratic power, in her opinion, was getting a new look, becoming something like personal constitutional absolutism. In a society that has lost its sense of law, even such an accident as the lucky personality of the monarch could pass for a legal guarantee. " 99 V.O.Klyuchevsky, Course of Russian history, vol. 5, Moscow, Mysl, 1989.

The elections of the Commission's deputies were of a class-limited nature and ensured the full advantage of the nobles. The noblemen (landowners) elected a deputy from each district, the townspeople elected one deputy from each city, in addition, the Commission included one deputy from the Synod, the Senate, and from each collegium. The instruction also provided for the election of deputies from the Cossacks, from non-Russian peoples (one deputy from each province). There were also deputies from the state peasants, for whom an increased age limit and three degrees of election were established. Landowners and possessory peasants did not receive the right to elect deputies to the Commission. According to V.O. Klyuchevsky's calculations, the social composition of the Commission looked as follows: out of 564 deputies, 5% were in government institutions, from cities - 39%, nobility - 30%, rural inhabitants - 14%. Cossacks, nonresidents and other classes accounted for only 12%. 110 Klyuchevsky, Course of Russian history, v.5, 0 Each deputy brought with him one or more orders that reflected class interests.

The laid down commission began meetings in the Pomegranate Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin in the summer of 1767. After reading the mandates, the Commission began to discuss the rights of the "noble", that is, nobles, and then the rights of the urban population. The expansion of both noble and merchant privileges meant an infringement of the most numerous class of direct producers - the peasantry. Therefore, the peasant question, although it was not included in the agenda of the Commission's work, was central. The landowners complained about the mass flight and "disobedience" of the peasants and demanded that appropriate measures be taken. But some of the noble deputies, for example, the deputy G.S. Korobin. criticized the brutality of the serf system. He stated that the reason for the flight of the peasants was "for the most part landowners who burdened only a lot of them with their rule" 111 Zutis 1. Korobyin considered it necessary to accurately determine the amount of peasant obligations in favor of the landowner and to give the peasants the right to own real estate.

But even these moderate proposals, which only softened rather than eliminated serfdom, met with the most resolute rebuff from the overwhelming majority of the noble deputies. The nobility demanded the exclusive right to own the peasants, lands and mineral resources, a monopoly of industrial activity, and sought to create their own estate political organization with the transfer of local administration into its hands. The most prominent representative of the reactionary noble ideology was the deputy of the Yaroslavl nobility, Prince M.M. Shcherbatov.

The growing importance of the merchants in the economic and political life of the country was reflected in the insistent demands of city deputies not only to consolidate the old rights of the merchants, but to expand them, create conditions for the growth of the trade industry, and protect merchants from the competition of trading nobles and peasants. Moreover, the merchants sought the right to own serfs.

The deputies from the state peasants asked to ease taxes and duties, put an end to the arbitrariness of the authorities, and so on. As the activities of the Commission developed, the purpose of its convening became clearer and clearer - to clarify the mood of various social groups... Keeping serfdom unshakable, the autocratic empress only pretended to care about the "people."

The work of this Commission did not affect the subsequent Russian reality, but there was plenty of noise and loud phraseology around this action of the Empress. At one of the meetings, Catherine II was awarded the title of "great, wise mother of the Fatherland." Ekaterina did not accept or reject the title, although in a note to A.B. Bibikov she expressed her displeasure: “I told them to do Russian Empire laws, and they make apologies for my qualities. " 112 Klyuchevsky V.O., Course of Russian history, vol. 5, Moscow, Mysl, 1989. 2

On the other hand, this title strengthened the position of Catherine on the Russian throne, who came to power as a result of a coup.

According to VO Klyuchevsky, the Commission worked for a year and a half, held 203 meetings, limited itself to discussing the peasant issue and legislation, was disbanded and no longer met in full.

Thus, Catherine II received the information she was interested in, managed, to a certain extent, to distract and mislead public opinion, presented herself as an "enlightened" monarch and no longer needed the "services" of the Commission. Under the pretext of the beginning russian-Turkish war at the end of 1768, the work of the Commission was interrupted, and there could be no question of resuming its work under the conditions of the outbreak of the Peasant War.

A distinctive feature of the Legislated Commission of 1767 from the previous ones was that for the first time elected deputies took part in the work and for the first time projects were submitted not from above, but came from voters.

Catherine's "order", like many of her other decrees, testified to her desire to reform the existing system in the state. She was largely influenced by the ideas of the Enlighteners. However, with a sharp change in the country's internal political course, Catherine was afraid of losing power, since the nobility still remained her main support, and its main privilege was the ownership of peasants and land. Catherine's attempt to create a third estate did not instill in anything. At the same time, the empress tried to strengthen her state through centralization and serfdom. It is believed that the stumbling block of the "Order" of Catherine II was the issue of serfdom, which the empress considered "economically unprofitable and inhumane." However, the fact that the inner circle did not share the empress's ideas speaks of the reactionary and backward views of society at that time. And since Catherine could not radically go against the wishes of her subjects, without fear of losing power (for example, by a coup), her further actions were not as effective as she dreamed of, and many of her decrees directly contradicted the views that she recited.

With the dissolution of the Legislative Commission, the first stage of Catherine's reforms ended, a characteristic feature of which was the empress's desire to carry out transformations, taking into account the wishes of various social groups, but it became clear that the broad masses were conservative and therefore radical reforms were impossible. But this stage of reforms gave Catherine a real picture of public views and the opportunity to develop new tactics for further transformations, taking into account these views.

Reasons for creating "Order"

Letter and autograph of Catherine the Great

Sources of the "Order"

A significant part of the text (about 350 articles) is borrowed from the treatises of Charles Montesquieu "On the spirit of the laws" and Cesare Beccaria "On crimes and punishments".
The rest of the articles are a compilation of publications by Denis Diderot and Jean d'Alembert from the famous Encyclopedia.

Thus, Catherine the Great just used the already available material, which, however, does not detract from the significance of her work.

The text of the "Order" consisted of 22 chapters and 655 articles.

Ch. I-V (Art. 1-38) - General principles of the state structure.
Ch. VI-VII (Art. 39-79) - "On laws in general" and "On laws in detail": the foundations of the legislative policy of the state.
Ch. VIII-IX (art. 80-141) - Criminal law and legal proceedings.
Ch. X (Articles 142-250) - The concept of criminal law from the point of view of Cesare Beccaria.
Ch. XI-XVIII (Art. 251-438) - The estate organization of society.
Ch. XIX-XX (Art. 439-521) - Questions of legal technology.

Finance and budget

Criminal law

Concerning criminal law, Catherine noted that it is much better to prevent a crime than to punish a criminal.

The Mandate noted that there is no need to punish naked intent that did not cause real harm to society. For the first time in Russian legislation, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe humanistic goals of punishment was voiced: to correct the personality of a criminal. And only then - about preventing him from doing harm in the future. Punishment, according to the "Order", must be inevitable and proportionate to the crime.

Legal technique

Quotes:

Christian law teaches us to do each other good, as much as possible.
Russia is a European power.
A vast state presupposes autocratic power in the person who rules it. It is imperative that speed in resolving cases sent from distant countries should reward the slowness caused by the remoteness of places. Any other rule would not only be harmful to Russia, but completely ruinous.
The equality of all citizens is that all are subject to the same laws.
Love for the fatherland, shame and fear of reproach are taming means and capable of abstaining from many crimes.
A person should not and can never be forgotten.
Every man has more concern for his own than for that which belongs to another; and does not make any effort about what he may fear that the other will take away from him.

Literature

// Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
Isaev I.A.
Ed. Titova Yu. P. History of the state and law of Russia. - M., 2006.
Tomsinov V.A. Empress Catherine II (1729-1796) // Russian jurists of the XVIII-XX centuries: Essays on life and work. In 2 volumes. - Mirror. - M., 2007 .-- T. 1. - S. 63-89. - 672 p. - ("Russian Legal Heritage"). - 1000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-8078-0144-9

- (Bolshoi) was written by Empress Catherine II to the leadership of a large commission convened by her to draw up a new Code (see). Noticing disagreement and even contradiction in the laws, the empress, in her own words, began to read, then ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary F. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

Philos. legal treatise, ed. in 1767 in Russian, French, German. and lat. lang. as a guide for the deputies of the Commission on the Code of 1767. Consisted of 22 chapters, 655 articles of state, criminal and civil. law and process, as well as introduction, conclusion and 2 ... ... Soviet Historical Encyclopedia

Philosophical and legal treatise, a guide for deputies of the "Commission on the Code" 1767, published in 1767 in Russian, French, German and latin... Consisted of 22 chapters, 655 articles of state, criminal and civil law and ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Mandate is an ambiguous term: Mandate in common usage is a strict instruction, command. It can also have a humorous connotation, for example, “order to newlyweds”. Mandate deputy instructions of voters to elected deputies ... ... Wikipedia

A document setting out the instruction of a higher authority to a lower one about a certain procedure for action; in this sense, mandate historical view legal act... Order of Catherine II Catherine II's philosophical and legal work. Order of the order ... ... Wikipedia

ORDER, order, husband. 1. Order, order, instruction (outdated and simple.). "And they sang in chorus as instructed." Pushkin. Give detailed instructions. || Statement of instructions given by the chief, authority; instruction (official. obsolete). Order of Catherine II. 2. ... ... Dictionary Ushakova

Order is a document setting out the order of a higher authority to a lower one about a certain procedure for action; in this sense, the mandate is the historical form of a legal act. This term has other meanings, see Order ... ... Wikipedia

Order, 1766, - one of the main documents of the period of enlightened absolutism, the message of Catherine II to the delegates of the commission for drawing up a new code. Consisted of 20 chapters (526 articles). Formulated the principles of legal policy and legal system. Significant ... ... A short dictionary of historical and legal terms

"Order" - PUNISH op., Written by imp. Catherine II in 1765 67 for the preparing Commission for drawing up a new Code. It is a draft presentation of the basics of Russian. state device and systematization of legislation. Consists of 20 chapters, 655 paragraphs ... Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary

In a two-volume collection of monuments to Russian legislation of the early 20th century, it was noted: The "Order" of Empress Catherine II never had the force of a law in force, but nevertheless it is a monument of exceptional importance. It is important as the first attempt to base legislation on the conclusions and ideas of educational philosophy; it is important for those sources directly from which the empress proceeded; it is also remarkable for its positive content; it is interesting, finally, because of the special circumstances that accompanied its writing.

The main content of the "Order", which Catherine II intended to make "the foundation of the legislative building of the empire", consists of 20 chapters (522 articles) and the end (articles 523-526). In addition, a little later, Catherine made two additions to the main text - special chapters on the police (Articles 527-566) and on income, expenses, public administration (Articles 567-655).

The text (draft) of the "Order" presented by Catherine II was discussed by a very representative Commission of more than 550 deputies elected from different socio-political strata of the then Russian society - government officials, nobility, townspeople, service people, free (non-serf) rural population. The deputy corps consisted of people of a wide variety of faiths, cultures and languages \u200b\u200b- from the highly educated representative of the Holy Synod, Metropolitan Demetrius of Novgorod, to the deputy of the service burghers of the Iset province, Mullah Abdulla Murza Tavyshev, and to the pagan Samoyeds.

The official procedure for discussing the "Order" was quite free. Here is how SM Soloviev describes it: “When the deputies gathered in Moscow, the Empress, being in the Kolomna Palace, appointed different persons of different opinions in order to listen to the prepared“ Order ”. A debate was born with each article. The Empress gave them to blacken and blacken everything they wanted. They stained more than half of what was written by her, and the "Order" remained, as if it was printed. "

It should be borne in mind that an important circumstance was that the deputies were ordered to study the needs of the population of their region, summarize them and submit them to the Commission as parliamentary "orders" for reading and discussion. Many deputies presented several orders according to the needs different groups population. The deputy especially distinguished himself from the "odnodvortsy" of the Arkhangelsk province, who brought with him 195 orders. In total, one and a half thousand deputy orders were presented, of which about two-thirds were drawn up by representatives of the peasants. At first, the work of the Commission consisted mainly in reading and discussing deputy orders, which were of interest to the government, as they allowed judging the state of the country.

"Order" of Catherine II received a loud resonance in Europe. It is curious that many of the ideas of the French Enlightenment voiced by the Russian empress, having returned to their homeland, caused obvious confusion among the royal power. Published in Russia in 1767, the text of the "Order", devoid of the most liberal articles and formulations, was banned from translation in France.

Let us briefly list the main ideas of Catherine II's “Order” in order to emphasize the courage and foresight of her political and legal views.

Proceeding from the fact that laws should correspond to the “general mentality” of the people, i.e. To his mentality, Catherine II at the very beginning raises a fundamental question: how useful can the conclusions drawn by European public thought be for the Russian people? Her answer is unequivocal: “Russia is a European power, the Russian people are a European people; what gave him the characteristics of a non-European people was temporary and accidental. " After the reforms carried out by Peter I, the state of the Russian people fully meets the requirements of the introduction of the new Code.

Empress Catherine II considered the autocratic monarchy to be the best form of government in the vast Russian state. “The sovereign is autocratic,” says the “Order”, “for no other power, once united in his person, can act, similar to the space of such a great state. Any other government would not only be harmful to Russia, but completely ruinous. " "The sovereign is the source of all state and civil power."

But the autocratic sovereign, in the understanding of Catherine II, is not a dictator, not a tyrant. He is a wise leader and mentor, a strict but just father of his subjects (Catherine II herself was often called "Mother Empress - Empress"). With his instructions and decrees, the sovereign protects the people "from spontaneous desires and from inexorable whims." In the second additional chapter (XXII), the Russian empress calls the most important state "needs": "preserving the integrity of the state", for which it is necessary to maintain at the proper level of defense, land and sea troops, fortresses, etc .; "Observance of internal order, peace and safety of one and all"; "The administration of justice, deanery and supervision over various institutions serving the common good."

All subjects of the Russian state Catherine II calls "citizens" and quite definitely stands for their equality before the laws, regardless of ranks, titles and wealth. At the same time, in the “clarifying” chapter XX, she warns against such an understanding of equality, when “everyone wants to be equal to the one who is established by law to be the boss over him”. Realizing that "European states differ from Asian states in freedom in the relations of subjects to governments", Catherine II seeks to determine the measure of this freedom, or "liberty", in an autocratic state. She agrees that “liberty is the right to do everything that the laws allow, and if any citizen could do what is prohibited by laws, there would be no more liberty; for others would also have this power in the same way. "

Further, it is concretized that “state liberty in a citizen is peace of mind arising from the opinion that each of them enjoys security in its own right; and for people to have this freedom, there must be a law such that one citizen could not be afraid of another, but everyone would be afraid of the same laws. "

Let's pay attention to the formulation of the idea of \u200b\u200bthe possibility of self-restraint of power. Article 512 states that there are cases when "the authorities must act within the limits set by itself." Of course, this does not mean supreme power, which should be absolute, and the "average authorities" subordinate to it, the delimitation of competences between them. “Where the limits of police power end,” says Article 562, “the power of civil justice begins”.

In the articles of the "Order", considering the problem of crimes and punishments, one can see an approximation to the features of the rule of law. A crime is a violation of the law, and the criminal must not escape responsibility; he must be punished, but in strict accordance with the law - this is the leitmotif of the articles on crimes and punishments. Article 200 states that in order for punishment not to be perceived as the violence of one or many people against a person who has committed a crime, it must be in strict accordance with the laws. In this regard, the following circumstances are emphasized:

a) The crime must be proven and the sentences of the judges are known to the people, so that every citizen can say that he lives under the protection of laws (Art. 49).

b) Until the crime is proven, the presumption of innocence of the person charged with the crime is in force. Article 194 says the following: "A person cannot be considered guilty until a judicial verdict, and laws cannot deprive him of his protection before it is proved that he has violated them."

c) The punishment must correspond to the crime: “If the one who kills the animal is subjected to equal punishment; the one who kills a person, and the one who forges an important document, then very soon people will no longer distinguish between crimes ”(Article 227).

The wording of the "Order" concerning especially grave crimes is of interest. These include crimes against the sovereign, the state and society as a whole, and they are called crimes “in insult to the Majesty” (Articles 229, 465). Moreover, the corpus delicti is determined only by action, but not by thought or word. “Words are never imputed as a crime” (v. 480), for thought they are not punished. Article 477 tells of a man who dreamed that he had killed the king. This king ordered the execution of this man, saying that he would not have dreamed it at night if he had not thought about it during the day, in reality. Catherine II regards this execution as a "great tyranny."

Among the most serious crimes, the "Order" also includes encroachments "on the life and liberties of a citizen" (Article 231). At the same time, it should be clarified that this means "not only murders committed by people from the people, but also the same kind of violence committed by individuals of any privileged class."

The "Order" also condemns the death penalty. “Experiments show,” it says, “that the frequent use of executions has never made people better; in the ordinary state of society, the death of a citizen is neither useful nor necessary ”(Article 210). And only in one case does Catherine allow the death penalty - when a person, even a convicted and imprisoned person, "still has a method and strength that could disturb the peace of the people." Clearly foreseeing the appearance of such "troublemakers", the empress extinguishes her inherent feelings of philanthropy and condescension: "Whoever muddies the peace of the people, who does not obey the laws, who violates these ways in which people are united in society and mutually protect each other, he must society to be excluded, that is: to become a monster ”(Article 214).

In full accordance with this part of the "Order" in 1775, on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, the leader of the Cossack-peasant uprising Emelyan Pugachev will be executed, to whom Catherine II could not and did not want to allow any condescension and for the reason that he dared to name himself Peter III, her husband, who was killed in 1762. In connection with this uprising, of particular interest are those articles of the "Order" which spoke about the plight of the peasants in Russia and which were "blacked out" by the deputies of the Commission and were not included in its printed text.

The deputies rejected primarily those articles that concerned serfs. The principles of serfdom embodied by the well-known Saltychikha were supported by the deputies, only from the nobility, but also from other estates - everyone wanted to have their own serfs. The articles in which it was said: “Every person must have food and clothing according to his condition, and this must be determined by law, turned out to be unnecessary. Laws must also be taken care of, so that slaves, both in old age and in illness, are not abandoned. "

The same fate befell Catherine's reference to the freer position of the peasants in "Russian Finland" and her conclusion: "Usefully, a similar method could be used to reduce the domestic austerity of landlords or servants, who are sent by them to govern their villages, which is often ruinous for villages and people. and it is harmful to the state when the peasants, dejected by them, are forced to flee from their fatherland involuntarily. The Empress proposes to adopt a law that "can prevent any torture of masters, nobles, masters, etc."

What was the meaning of Catherine's order. Catherine's order ii

Encyclopedic YouTube

Subtitles

Reasons for creating "Order"

Sources of the "Order"

Quotes

Value

Key points:

Reasons for creating "Order"

Sources of the "Order"

Finance and budget

Criminal law

Legal technique

Links

Literature

see also

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