Conditions of Confinement of Russian Prisoners between the 2nd Half of the 17th — 1st Quarter of the 18th Centuries (With Reference to Ural and Western Siberian Prisons)

Abstract

The article considers the little studied issue of Russia’s penitentiary system development in the 1 st quarter of the 18 th century. Referring to a variety of sources, such as laws, documentary sources and memoirs of foreigners who visited Russia between the mid-17 th — 1 st quarter of the 18 th century, the author reconstructs the living conditions of prisoners in order to determine the scale of influence of Peter the Great’s reforms on the main principles of prison organization and the prisoners’ confinement conditions. A comparative and historical analysis helps establish the frequency of imprisonment as a punishment during the period in question, and refers to the differences there existed in the confinement of convicts in the second half of the 17 th and the 1 st third of the 18 th century. The study of primary sources and assessments of prisons contained in the historical books has shown no drastic changes in incarceration conditions during Petrine transformations. As in the previous century, the main contradiction in the life of prisons was the lack of the government’s attention to the problem of funding and a tendency to dictate strict requirements to the guarding of convicts. Nevertheless, unlike in the 17 th century, prisoners had more opportunities to earn their living as their labour was used in factories and they did other hard work.