Angela Rustemeyer Dissens und Ehre. Majes­täts­verbrechen in Russland (1600–1800). Harras­sowitz Verlag Wiesbaden 2006. X, 462 S. = Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, 69. ISBN: 3-447-05457-3.

This voluminous study presents a new investigation of the so-called “sovereign’s word and deed” (slovo i delo gosudarevo) proceedings, a topic that has been largely neglected by Western historians. While Russian historian N. Ja. Novom­bergskii and later Soviet scholars (e.g., K.V. Sivkov, N.B. Golikova) sought to reconstruct individuals’ motivations for making disparaging remarks about the tsar, Rustemeyer considers these remarks within the larger context of political culture in early modern Russia. Her basic interest is in the general “population’s knowledge about the organization of political authority” (p. 10), ordinary Russians’ assimilation and “internalization” (p. 431) of official discourses about the tsar’s honor, and the emergence of a quasi-public sphere of communication which allowed Russians limited opportunities to negotiate compromises with their rulers. Influenced by interpretive models from political anthropology, communication studies, and “la­bel­ing” theory (in criminology), Rustemeyer views Russian society’s use of slovo i delo denunciations as proof of widespread acceptance for the autocratic system. In her opinion, official investigations of such denunciations signified “sym­bolic encounters between rulers and subjects” (p. 420) rather than state repression.

Rustemeyer argues further that it is important to understand Russian practices of political denunciation within a larger European context. She finds significant parallels in Roman law (cri­men laesae maiestatis), early modern English and French treason trials, and the Polish crown’s prosecution of Ukrainian Cossacks as “traitors and enemies of the fatherland” (perduel­les et hostes patriae). Her most convincing evidence, however, comes from the Habsburg archives in Vienna. While cases of verbal abuse involving the Austrian emperor’s name (p. 40–43) were rarely prosecuted, the Habsburg court effectively applied accusations of lese majesty (lèse-majesté) “in the integration of its peripheries” (p. 222). Rustemeyer illustrates, for example, the Viennese court’s fear about the defection of peasants and nobles to Turkish territory. As in the Russian Empire, border defense against the Ottomans was seen as “a citizen’s duty” (p. 233) and any resistance was categorized as treason.

Rustemeyer rejects the notion that the Russian political system was more tyrannical and despotic than its European parallels. As she puts it, “the Muscovite Empire was anything but a country immersed in a silence of fear and trembling [...] [the regime] had extremely limited possibilities to silence the population with intimidating edicts (Ukazen)” (p. 83–84). In fact, Rustemeyer observes a tacit political consensus (Konsens) in the “relation between autocracy and population” (p. 25), a thesis she explores in three long chapters devoted to revolts, verbal insults to the tsar’s majesty, and flights across the empire’s borders.

Many Russians saw “the ruler’s ‘honor’ (Eh­re) as the highest political value [...] and connected it with [their own] sense of honor” (p. 272). Popular petitions regularly reminded the Kremlin of the ruin (razorenie) and sacrifice endured by the tsar’s supporters during revolts. They demanded the punishment of rebels as “traitors” and compensation of loyalists as well as memorial services for rebel victims (p. 251).

Rustemeyer points to a number of other examples of consensus between ruler and ruled. Rank-and-file soldiers, for example, protected themselves against abuse by their superiors by raising doubts about these superiors’ political loyalty (p. 283–287). Similarly, peasant elites used accusations of disloyalty towards the tsar to advance their own interests and silence opponents in communal politics (Gemeindepolitik, p. 295). Finally, denunciators from annexed Uk­raine reported local resentment against the tsar’s agents (including murder threats) and alleged that “Little Russians” could not be trusted because their loyalties were with the Turkish sultan and the Crimean Tatars (p. 337–338).

The author must be commended for her pioneering archival research and the discovery of fascinating new materials gathered by central bureaux such as the Muscovite Secret Chancellery (Tainyi Prikaz), Peter I’s Preobrazhenskii Prikaz (1695–1729), and Catherine II’s Secret Expedition (1762–1801). However, the wealth of accumulated data also raises an important question that is not answered by this study: What about popular resistance and widespread societal rejection of the tsar’s authority? Some of the most revealing data about ordinary Russians’ sentiments remain hidden in the text: a parish priest praying publicly for the death of Catherine II (p. 307); an unnamed individual threatening “to cut the tsar’s throat” and others likewise expressing their readiness to murder the tsar (p. 326); contemporaries who denoun­ced Tsar Michael Romanov and Empress Elizabeth as “pigs” (p. 326); the widespread perception of Peter I. as the Antichrist and outrage about the murder of his son, Aleksei Petrovich; and finally, the countless men and women – peasants, Cossacks, and Ukrainians – who fled the Russian Empire’s “lack of freedom” (Unfreiheit, p. 337) to the Ottoman Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden.

Rustemeyer’s most significant contribution is the extent of her groundbreaking archival research on political denunciations in early modern Russia. She does not focus on the opponents of tsarist authority, but rather on those whom the autocratic system managed to mobilize “for the defense of the ‘ruler’s honor’” (p. 422), effect­ively elucidating the invisible forces of conformity in Russian society that contributed to the long-term survival of a largely unpopular regime.

Georg Michels, Riverside, CA

Zitierweise: Georg Michels über: Angela Rustemeyer Dissens und Ehre. Majes­täts­verbrechen in Russland (1600–1800). Harras­sowitz Verlag Wiesbaden 2006. X, 462 S. = Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, 69. ISBN: 3-447-05457-3., in: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. Neue Folge, 56 (2008) H. 4, S. 592-594: http://www.dokumente.ios-regensburg.de/JGO/Rez/Michels_Rustemeyer_Dissens_und_Ehre.html (Datum des Seitenbesuchs)