Crime and Punishment in Russia: A Comparative History from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin

About the Author

Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA. He is the author of several books, including Autocracy under Siege: Security Police and Opposition in Russia, 1866–1905 (1998), The Watchful State: Security Police and Opposition in Russia, 1906–1917 (2004), and Hammer, Sickle, and Soil: The Soviet Drive to Collectivize Agriculture (2017).

Jonathan D. Smele is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Queen Mary, University of London. For a decade (2002-2012) he was editor of Revolutionary Russia, the journal of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution and is the author of The 'Russian' Civil Wars 1916-1926:Ten Years That Shook the World (2016), Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926 (2016; 2 vols.) and Civil War in Siberia: The Anti-Bolshevik Government of Admiral Kolchak, 1918–1920 (1997). He is also the co-editor, along with Anthony J. Heywood, of The Russian Revolution of 1905: Centenary Perspectives (2005) and compiled The Russian Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921: An Annotated Bibliography (2003).

Michael S. Melancon is Professor Emeritus at Auburn University, USA. He is a co-editor of the Wildman Series, a monograph series issued by Slavica Publishers (Indiana University, USA) that focuses on the revolutionary experience in Russia. Michael is the author of The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Russian Anti-War Movement, July 1914 Through February 1917 (1990) and The Lena Goldfields Massacre and the Crisis of Late Tsarist Society (2005). He is also the co-editor of New Labor History: Russian Workers' Experiences and Discourses, 1800-1917 (2002; with Alice Pate), Russia in the European Context, 1789-1917: A Member of the Family (2005; with Susan P. Mccaffray), Russia's Century of Revolutions: Parties, People, Places (2012; with Donald J. Raleigh). Michael also serves on the editorial board for the journal, Revolutionary Russia.

Product Description

Crime and Punishment in Russia surveys the evolution of criminal justice in Russia during a span of more than 300 years, from the early modern era to the present day. Maps, organizational charts, a list of important dates, and a glossary help the reader to navigate key institutional, legal, political, and cultural developments in this evolution.

The book approaches Russia both on its own terms and in light of changes in Europe and the wider West, to which Russia's rulers and educated elites continuously looked for legal models and inspiration. It examines the weak advancement of the rule of the law over the period and analyzes the contrasts and seeming contradictions of a society in which capital punishment was sharply restricted in the mid-1700s, while penal and administrative exile remained heavily applied until 1917 and even beyond. Daly also provides concise political, social, and economic contextual detail, showing how the story of crime and punishment fits into the broader narrative of modern Russian history.

This is an important and useful book for all students of modern Russian history as well as of the history of crime and punishment in modern Europe.

Review

"[Crime and Punishment in Russia] provides a wealth of information about the Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet criminal justice system." - Canadian Journal of History / Annales canadiennes d’histoire

"Anyone looking for an inroad into teaching or research on Russian and Soviet criminal justice would benefit from reading Jonathan Daly’s new synthesis, Crime and Punishment in Russia: A Comparative History from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin." - Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History

"This rich, well-paced, and systematic book will be helpful to many students and teachers of Russian history." -
International Institute of Social History

"[This] study is a solid discussion of the past three centuries of Russia’s criminal justice system." - Ab Imperio Quarterly

“Daly’s book provides a comprehensive overview of the org