blows, there were extraordinary cases when the number of blows rose to 12,000. This punishment was actually originally assigned to the military. But then it was extended to include exiled convicts and exiled settlers. Persons of the civil department were also not exempted from this punishment. In the XV volume of the Holy Laws, ed. In 1857, there were about 40 categories of persons and cases who were tried by a military court, and to whom punishment with spitzrutens was applied. In addition, it was only necessary to issue a special law in order to bring a certain category of crimes and persons, or a certain area, under the influence of spitzrutens. We think that rozgn also gave a certain percentage of punishments. Thus, despite the apparent abolition of the death penalty, it existed in our country until recently in the form of a punishment, so to speak in a disguised form. People are inclined to look at the case because of the names: there is no doubt that few understood the state of the case. Public opinion in Russia and Europe was conscientiously mistaken about the non-existence of the death penalty for ordinary crimes in our country.
This disguised death penalty has been put to an end, or almost put to an end, by the currently reigning legislator. In 1863, whips and spitzrutens were abolished for troops and citizens. The whips are reserved, pending conversion, only for exiled convicts and exiled settlers. However, in our legislative spheres they understood the importance of spitzrutens and cats as punishments to a certain extent replacing the death penalty. Proof of this is that, along with the destruction of spitzrutens and koshes, the possibility of a wider use of ordinary, undisguised death penalty was opened. The law of April 17, 1863, which abolished spitzrutens and cats in the army and navy, says: “With the establishment of such mitigation for ordinary cases, it is commanded that those guilty of important violations of discipline or public safety, necessitating a more severe and immediate punishment, be subjected in peacetime to trial according to field military laws.” According to military field laws, or issued for wartime, in addition to purely state and purely military crimes, the following general crimes are subject to the death penalty: 1) robbery; 2) arson and destruction of forests and harvests; 3) kill-
F THE DEATH Oath IN RUSSIA.
etvo; 4) attacking defenseless residents with weapons; 5) violence against women.
According to the meaning of the above words, the increase in the law of April 17, 1863 should exclusively apply to the army in the navy, i.e., since 1863, only soldiers and sailors could be tried under criminal field laws in peacetime. But our practice has expanded the meaning of this law, extending it to persons in the civil department. The first person convicted and executed according to the law was Private Gudzevich, who in 1864 killed two guards at the chapel in the house of Peter the Great and stole money there. The coachman Nikiforov, who in 1867 was hanged in Kyiv for the murder of Sokhansky, was brought under this law. In 1865, I had to defend the sexton Shcherbatov, who was put on trial under field laws for inflicting a slight wound on a non-commissioned officer of a prison company, where he was taken for falsely revealing his name. According to the same law, since 1863, quite a lot of death sentences have been carried out in many places in Russia on those guilty of murder, arson and robbery. It should be noted that in places where new courts were introduced, since the introduction there have been no examples of trial on the basis of this law, that is, according to field laws, and therefore the application of the death penalty, with the exception of cases of declaring a certain area under martial law.
This brief sketch of the death penalty in Russia forms an extract from a more detailed work on this subject, which will be published in due course.
Archaeological finds and excavations in Kyiv and the Kyiv province in within three years.
Reading by V. B. Antonovich.