Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 July 6

= July 6 =

Capital punishment in the Russian Empire around 1826
Five of the Decembrist revolt members were sentenced to quartering. Then the Emperor commutes that sentence to hanging instead.

According to the Kondraty Ryleyev article, during the hanging, three out of the five men had their ropes snap, leaving them alive. Supposedly, the reason the ropes snapped was because:

However, the most recent hanging in Russia before the Decembrists took place nearly 50 years earlier, so there was no more or less experienced hangman available.

My question are:

1. How common was quartering at the time in the Russian Empire?

2. What was the most common capital punishment method at the time in the Russian Empire? (Hanging would've been my first guess, but according to the above quote it hasn't been used for almost 50 years.)

3. How common was capital punishment in general at the time in the Russian Empire? (As compared to other European societies at the time)

Thank you for your assistance. Daniel T Wolters (talk) 02:29, 6 July 2022 (UTC)


 * The article section Capital_punishment_in_Russia gives some history. It suggests that capital punishment of any form wasn't regularly used in the Russian Empire at the time, although it remained possible for leaders of uprisings against the government. I haven't found a specific reference to execution in the Russian Empire between Yemelyan Pugachev in 1775 and the Decembrists in 1826. --Amble (talk) 09:46, 6 July 2022 (UTC)


 * How the death penalty was carried out in Russia says that "from the 18th century, there were mainly beheadings, hangings and executions by firing squad" but that a moretorium on the death penalty in the reign of Elizabeth of Russia (1741-1762) led to execution being used in treason cases only, until the reign of Nicholas II in the 20th century. Alansplodge (talk) 12:26, 6 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you both! Daniel T Wolters (talk) 19:04, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Actually capital punishment was extremely rare in Russia of the long nineteenth century when compared to Western Europe. That's why the Russian classic authors, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, were so scandalized by regular public executions that were staged in the West (e.g., in Switzerland) as some kind of feast. Napoleon, promoted as the most liberal of sovereigns, had 12 people executed in connection with the Pichegru Conspiracy alone... --Ghirla-трёп- 00:15, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, Nicholas I's regime often masked corporal punishments as running the gauntlet (there's a famous Tolstoy story about it). --Ghirla-трёп- 00:17, 8 July 2022 (UTC)