2025

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PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — R. A. Davydov. INSTRUCTION OF THE ARKHANGELSK MEDICAL BOARD OF 1837 ON THE PREVENTION AND TREATMENT OF SCURVY ON NOVAYA ZEMLYA AND SPITSBERGEN

This work is a publication of the document “Instruction for the prevention of mortality occurring on Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen from scurvy”. The document was prepared at the suggestion of the military governor of Arkhangelsk after a number of deaths from scurvy among Russians engaged in hunting on Spitsbergen in the mid-1830s. The text of the document was drafted at the Arkhangelsk Medical Board in 1837 and printed as a pamphlet at the provincial printing house in the same year. The pamphlets were sent to the local police departments of the province to supply shipowners involved in organizing hunting expeditions to the Arctic archipelagos of Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen. One of the copies of the pamphlet is currently kept in the State Archives of the Arkhangelsk region. This document is interesting because it describes the main symptoms and the course of the disease in a laconic form, in a language understandable to a non-specialist. In particular, to prevent scurvy, those who hunted in the Arctic archipelagoes were advised to use sour products, i. e. sauerkraut, horseradish, cloudberries, cranberries and lingonberries. These products were easily available to the provincial population and could be stored for long periods during hunting expeditions. For the treatment of scurvy, it was recommended to “drink with the juice of cranberries or cloudberries” and a decoction of conifers, more precisely a decoction of pine cones. Thus, in 1837 — almost a century before vitamin C was officially discovered, artificially synthesised and the dependence of scurvy on a deficiency of this vitamin in the body was proven — doctors in Arkhangelsk gave recommendations for the prevention and treatment of scurvy patients, focusing on providing people with foods rich in vitamin C.богатыми именно витамином C.

PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — A. A. Vovin. ROMAN LAW AND THE PSKOV JUDICIAL CHARTER

The article continues a series of two articles co-authored by Alexei Vovin and Natalya Sredinskaya and focuses on the Roman law reception (in its Latin version) in the North-West of Rus’. There is a core text which is at the center of all forementioned publications. The 89 th article of the Pskov Judicial Charter is very close in textual and semantic terms to the corresponding places in the codes of Theodosius and Justinian. This article develops and substantiates the previously expressed idea that the norm of Justinian’s codification could not penetrate into the Pskov Judicial Charter through later Byzantine law codes, whose translations into Church Slavonic were spread in Old Rus’. Accordingly, the 89 th article source, as well as a number of new notions appearing in Pskov Judicial Charter, were produced as a result of borrowing from an unknown Latin-language source that reflected the realities of the code of Justinian or the earlier code of Theodosius. The article also examines another article of the Pskov Judicial Charter (the 91th), whose origin could be probably found in Theodosian Code as well. The final conclusions lead us to a new glance at the origins of the law of the North-West of Rus’ and the extent to which the Old Russian culture experienced the Roman law reception.

PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — T. N. Zhukovskaya, K. S. Kazakova. STUDENTS, CORPORANTS, LOYAL SUBJECTS. REVIEW ON MONOGRAPH: FRIEDMAN R. MASCULINITY, AUTOCRACY, AND THE RUSSIAN UNIVERSITY, 1804–1863 / TRANSL. FROM ENGLISH BY N. PROTSENKO. BOSTON / ST. PETERSBURG: ACADEMIC STUDIES PRESS / BIBLIOROSSIKA, 2024. 264 P. SERIES “MODERN WESTERN RUSSIAN STUDIES” // PETERSBURG HISTORICAL JOURNAL, NO. 2, 2025, PP. 250–258

The book under review is a study of the relationship between the student community and the authorities, both university and state, as well as the characteristics of the legal and corporate organisation of students at the pre-reform university. The author examines the social relations of student youth, the formation of official and alternative models of student behaviour, which at that time was an exclusively male community. The author argues that there was a significant gap between the normative gender model of the loyal subject “servant of the fatherland and the Tsar” and the ideal of the educated, emancipated young man developed by the university corporation. The article critically evaluates the ideals of masculinity reconstructed by the author for this socio-cultural group.

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — S. G. Serebryakova. JAPANESE PRISONERS OF WAR IN THE RUSSIAN CAPTIVITY DURING THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR (1904–1905)

The Russo-Japanese War has been attracting the attention of researchers studying the military, political, economic and diplomatic aspects of the war for more than a century. However, social issues are less often addressed by scientists. The problems of the Japanese in Russian captivity at that time became the object of research only recently. The main purpose of the article is to reveal the specifics of the organization of captivity, taking into account the specifics of Japanese prisoners of war. A brief historiographical overview of the study of the problem of Japanese prisoners of war in Russia is given, and the general conditions of detention of Japanese prisoners of war are outlined. The main issues considered in the work are the norms of international humanitarian law and the status of prisoners of war during the Russo-Japanese War, as well as the real conditions of detention of Japanese prisoners of war in Russia. The problems of organizing captivity with the involvement of new historical sources are outlined. The complaints of Japanese prisoners of war are analyzed, the reasons for these complaints are presented by the Japanese, and the reaction of the Russian administration. The conclusions are drawn that the Russian Empire sought to comply with the norms of international law but could not always do so largely for objective reasons. Russian archival documents and information from Japanese historiography were used to write the article.

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — A. Yu. Fomin. WAR AND THE “SMUTA”: THE MILITARY DEPARTMENT’S STRUGGLE TO PRESERVE THE ARMY’S LOYALTY IN 1905–1907

The unsuccessful war with Japan and the onset of revolution placed the Russian military authorities and officer corps in a challenging position. The challenge of the era was to combat the spread of revolutionary propaganda among the troops. For the government, the army was its last bulwark in the fight against the revolution after its humiliation in Manchuria, but there was a real threat of revolutionary unrest spreading to the army itself. These circumstances led the military authorities to realise the necessity of fighting the revolutionaries using their own methods — namely, printed counter-propaganda and oral patriotic agitation. Since 1906, a special subdivision of the military department — the Committee for the Education of Troops under the Military Council — had been examining printed matter intended for the troops and selecting publications that were useful from the authorities’ point of view. Dozens of books and brochures, as well as military newspapers and magazines with a patriotic slant, were approved by the Committee for the Education of Troops. The committee believed that official government publications would not be able to compete with the revolutionary and opposition press and therefore relied on private publications for support. Enterprising publishers were eager to offer the government their help in combating revolutionary propaganda in the hope of making a profit. However, the Ministry of War ultimately recognised the ineffectiveness of this approach. Soldiers were far more interested in anti-government propaganda that largely reflected their own sentiments than in conservative publications.

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — D. Yu. Kozlov. “THIS WAS THE ACHILLES’ HEEL OF THE RUSSIAN COLOSSUS…”: ON THE ROLE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BLACK SEA THEATER OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

The article under scrutiny herein undertakes a thoroughgoing analysis of the impact of the struggle between the Russian and Ottoman navies on the course and outcome of the First World War. The author’s primary focus is on the impact of naval operations in the Black Sea on the economic and, to a certain extent, socio-political situation in Russia and Turkey. It is concluded that the results of the struggle in the Black Sea, principally the actions of the opposing fleets on maritime communications, largely catalysed the economic and political problems in the Russian and Ottoman Empires, which ultimately led to their military defeat and subsequent disintegration.

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — S. G. Nelipovich. THE ROMANIAN CAMPAIGN: COMBAT LOSSES (SEPTEMBER 1916 — JANUARY 1917)

The combat losses of the opposing armies are indicative not only of the casualties and the intensity of the fighting, but also a factor in assessing the combat effectiveness of the troops. The article, which is based on documents from the State Military Historical Archive of Bulgaria (DVIA), the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA), the Austrian State Archive (ÖStA), the Bavarian Main State Archive (BayHSA), and information collected by researchers from different countries, identifies and clarifies the losses of the armies of Bulgaria, Romania, Austria-Hungary, the German, Ottoman and Russian Empires during the Romanian campaign (September 1916 — January 1917). The substantial losses sustained by the Romanian army in Transylvania, particularly in Dobrudzha, were a contributing factor to the defeat of the Romanian forces in the autumn and winter of 1916. This ultimately resulted in the loss of Wallachia and Bucharest. Researchers have not yet reached a consensus on the precise figure for the size of the losses suffered by the Romanian army, which is estimated to be between 300 thousand and 500 thousand men. The losses sustained by the Russian armies of the Romanian Front are documented for the first time (totalling up to 262 thousand men). The losses sustained by the armed forces of the Quadruple Alliance during the Romanian campaign of 1916 were significant, with a total of 167,000 casualties recorded. This was primarily attributable to the intensity of the hostilities. The Bulgarian army suffered significant losses, with estimates reaching up to 55,000 casualties.

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — A. B. Astashov. ECONOMIC ABUSES AND COMBATING THEM IN THE RUSSIAN THEATER OF MILITARY OPERATIONS DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR

The article is devoted to a rare topic — the analysis of economic crimes in the Russian theater of military operations during the First World War. In Russian historiography the question of abuses is more often considered from the point of view of class position or politicized approach to the activities of public organizations — All-Russian unions of zemstvos and cities. In this paper, written on the basis of archival materials, the emphasis is on the identification of economic crimes in the conditions of frontline everyday life, their types, dynamics, increasing volumes of economic losses, and their impact on the socio-political situation in the country. Particular attention is paid to the activities of public organizations and the attitude of the authorities and the army to them. The central subject is the fight against economic crimes by the army, especially in the Petrograd Military District. The author comes to the conclusion about the mass of problems in the organization of the supply of the population, the contradictory coexistence of two new types of war: regulation and free market is revealed. The war exposed the shortcomings of the system of supplying the army with the help of a group of persons (Jews) whom the authorities did not trust, and at the same time could not do without them. Hidden machinations, which were part of the daily routine of warfare, caused great harm to defense: speculation, mass fabrication of documents for property. The inconsistency of waging war “for money” was aggravated by the lack of reliable control, the absence of an effective legal framework, and the clash of interests of the military and civilian administration, as well as the agents of the free market. This combination of contradictory factors led to great losses of resources, suffering of millions of citizens, damage to the cause of defense, and the threat of loss of statehood. In this situation, sporadic, haphazard attempts by military figures to combat economic crime by neutralizing individual criminals, even of the highest level, were doomed to failure.

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — V. B. Aksenov. WAR AND BLASPHEMY: CRIMINAL CASES OF INSULTS TO THE IMPERIAL FAMILY DURING THE RUSSO-JAPANESE AND WORLD WAR I AS A HISTORICAL SOURCE

Cases of insults against members of the imperial family are a valuable source for studying public sentiments and the images of power formed in them; they allow reconstructing the portrait of an average insulter, as well as demonstrating the paradoxes of state practices of counteracting obscene statements. The sources show that the obscene political discourse of the Russo-Japanese War period, despite a comparable number of cases to that of World War I, is less diverse and emotional, with less prevalent infernal characterizations of members of the royal family and less pronounced eschatological sentiments and political rumors. The author believes that the state’s struggle against insults to power cannot be considered successful — in a number
of cases legislation and judicial practice contributed to the spread of insulting political discourse, creating relevant precedents and thus intensifying socio-political conflicts of the war era.