Russian Empire

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — I. E. Barykina. THE FORMATION OF THE PARLIAMENTARY CULTURE OF RUSSIAN SOCIETY: FROM THE MEMOIRS OF O. V. SINAKEVICH-YAFA ABOUT THE STATE DUMA OF THE FIRST CONVOCATION

The convocation of the State Duma in 1906 was met with significant enthusiasm by the Russian populace. However, for the electoral system and legislative institution to function effectively, it was necessary to form a political culture in Russian society. The State Duma of the first convocation is widely regarded as the most open parliament to society, evidenced by its organisation of public events. In June 1906, an excursion was organised for teachers participating in the Pedagogical Congress to the Tauride Palace. The event was documented in the notes of O. V. Yafa.

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — S. V. Bondarev. THE ACTIVITIES OF THE GATCHINA AND PETERHOF PALACE ADMINISTRATIONS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

The famous suburbs of St. Petersburg — Peterhof and Gatchina — had the status of palace towns at the beginning of the 20th century and were under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Imperial Court. The purpose of this article is to study the management system and organization of the economy of two settlements in the 1900s as a separate type of urban settlements. The study is devoted to a little-known side of the activities of suburban Palace Administrations, which, along with servicing the royal palace complexes, were engaged in the development of urban infrastructure and were responsible for all aspects of the life of settlements that were part of the suburban imperial residences. An appeal to the history of the development of two cities of the Court Department provides for consideration of the features of construction development, communal and gardening, public safety and other aspects. The analysis of interaction of senior officials of various departments with ordinary employees, the mode of work of services in directions, the specifics of work of architects, police chiefs, custodians, fire chiefs, fountain attendants and representatives of other professions allows to present a picture of everyday life in suburbs with a special status. As a result of the work, the features of economic activity of Peterhof and Gatchina palace administrations as bodies engaged in provision of royal residences and towns near them are revealed. Scientific novelty lies in a comprehensive consideration of organizational and administrative work on management of economy of two palace towns and issues of organization of economy and urban economy of Peterhof and Gatchina at the beginning of the 20th century. The study will allow to supplement the picture of the national system of organization and management in the Russian Empire, to make a contribution to the study of history of cities of the Russian Empire. Also, the article contains new information for studying the history of palace and park ensembles in Peterhof and Gatchina.

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — V. V. Lapin. THE ALEXANDROPOLIS FORTRESS IS A EXPANSE OF IMPERIAL INTEGRATION. THE SYMBOLIC ASPECT

The military and political situation in the border regions of the Russian Empire required the construction of fortresses in strategically important points. These fortifications, together with a complex of buildings necessary for the life of the garrison, played a role not only in the defense system against external threats, but also in maintaining the “peace” of the local population. At the same time, the organization of the space of the fortress complexes, their architecture and even the names of the strongholds and their parts (bastions, fronts, gates, etc.) represented imperial messages and carried a significant symbolic load. Near them, suburbs and even cities of various sizes arose, populated mainly by indigenous residents of the national outskirts. The latter, being involuntary witnesses to the manifestations of army routine (housekeeping, military ceremonies, etc.), found themselves in a special cultural space. The significance of the latter was enhanced by the fact that Russian military personnel in peacetime constituted about a third of the population of the city and district, and during the war, the Armenians who settled there found themselves in the minority. The focus is on Alexandropol, which was the only fortress in Transcaucasia, built in the 1830–1850s in the border region of the Armenian region on the site of the Gumry fortification, founded in 1807. Various symbolic messages were addressed primarily “inward” to maintain imperial identity in a foreign cultural environment, but it is impossible to deny that they also influenced the local population and created conditions for imperial integration.

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — E. N. Nazemetseva. RUSSIAN DRAFT DODGERS AND DESERTERS IN CHINA DURING WORLD WAR I

Based on archival materials introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, the article analyzes the previously unexplored problem of draft dodgers and deserters from the Russian army in China during the First World War. The entry of the Russian Empire into the First World War caused serious changes in the life of the state. The mobilization of a huge number of subjects into the army had a drastic impact on the economic, political and social life of the empire. Despite the patriotic upsurge of the majority of the population in the first months of the war, a significant part of Russian citizens did not share these sentiments and sought to avoid being sent to the front, fearing involvement in military operations. Among the draft dodgers were representatives of different segments of the population and ethnic groups. Evaders and deserters moved inland to Siberia and the Far East, and subsequently left the empire. The main focus of the escapes was China, which occupied a neutral position in the war until 1917. The lower ranks of the Russian police and border guard service, as well as the Russian and Chinese local populations, helped the dodgers in organizing their escapes abroad. A network of clandestine migration routes from Russia to China gradually developed. Having arrived in China, as a rule, by rail, the fugitives settled in Harbin, Tianjin, Changchun, and Dalny, then received new documents and financial assistance from employees of German concessions, Russian nationals who settled in China, who were opposed to the Russian authorities, as well as from various criminal elements. The latter have gradually established an illegal business selling forged documents. After receiving new documents, the draft dodgers and deserters sought to leave China and followed first to the Philippine Islands, Hong Kong, and then, as a rule, to the United States. Some stayed in China and joined the American army units based here. The problem of Russian draft dodgers and deserters testifies to the serious crisis of the Russian Empire during the First World War, and also demonstrates the important nuances of its relations with neighboring countries of the Far Eastern region.

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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.

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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 — 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.

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.

PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — A. V. Apanasenok. IN THE FIGHT AGAINST THE “BLUE SNAKE”: THE PROBLEM OF TOBACCO SMOKING ON THE PAGES OF OLD BELIEVER MAGAZINES OF THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

The present paper is devoted to an examination of the history of the anti-smoking campaign that emerged in Russia in the pages of thick Old Believer magazines between 1906 and 1916. It is demonstrated that following the Russian Old Believers’ attainment of fundamental civil liberties in 1905, their customary anti-smoking rhetoric transitioned from the intra-confessional domain to the national stage. The active fight against tobacco use in the territory of the Russian Empire was intended to become a kind of calling card of the Old Believer communities in the process of their integration into the public life of the country. The paper examines the various arguments against smoking that were advanced by Old Believer monthly magazines, as well as the proposed ways to limit the impact of tobacco on Russian society. The study concludes that the expressed ideas had little chance of widespread dissemination and mass support in the context of the growing crisis in Russian society. Nevertheless, they represented a noteworthy landmark in the evolution of the national “anti-smoking discourse”.

PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — A. K. Kirillov. TAX PETITIONER AS PART OF THE TAX OPTIMIZATION CULTURE IN THE LATE IMPERIAL RUSSIA

The article under consideration pertains to the study of a relatively obscure phenomenon in the annals of Russian history — namely, tax offices. By the onset of the 20th century, these institutions had evolved into a pivotal component of the tax calculation technology within the advanced segment of the Russian tax system. A significant aspect of their function pertained to the consideration of objections raised by entrepreneurs with regard to the amount of additional business tax levied upon them. The study draws upon a collection of objections lodged by taxpayers of the 2nd Tomsk office in 1907. The research methods employed encompass graphology, textology and hermeneutics. By comparing the design of the objections, typical expressions and the logic of substantiating taxpayers’ demands, identifying differences between similar documents and analysing corrections in the texts, the author discovers three series of objections, in each of which all documents (from two to eight in number) were undoubtedly composed by the same person. The author’s analysis is further enriched by a comparison of the handwritings in which the objections themselves, the signatures under them and the notes to them were written. This analysis demonstrates two key findings. Firstly, the objections were not composed by the taxpayers themselves, but by professional consultants. Secondly, at least two consultants had assistants who were directly involved in the preparation of the documents. In one particular instance, the name of the consultant was also identified. This finding suggests a discernible tendency among provincial entrepreneurs in late imperial Russia to entrust the reduction of their tax payments to professionals engaged in legal services.