Article 246 of the Penal Code

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.