Dueling in the Russian Empire: Law and Punishment

Abstract

The first anti-dueling norms, setting forth draconian penalties for offenders, appeared in Russian law at the beginning of the 18th century. In particular, according to the “Patent on Dueling and Starting Quarrels” (1716), participation in a duel was punished by death. This approach proved to be quite effective – only three duels were recorded in the Petrine era. The increase in their frequency in the days of Catherine II led to further regulatory efforts, which resulted in the publication of a “Manifesto on Duels” (1787). It mostly retained harsh penalties for engaging in duels. The reign of Alexander I was generally characterized by a rather lenient attitude towards this practice on the part of the emperor, although there were cases of prosecution. In the era of Nicholas I, the punishment for participating in a duel usually depended on the sovereign’s decision, because of the precedence of legal authority (which belonged to the ruler) over legal norm in the Russian Empire. Various sources confirm that the emperor generally sought to clarify the circumstances of each particular conflict and to mete out sanction according to the fault of each participant. That is why it was often not even the duelists, but the seconds who were treated with more severity. Church penitence also became a common form of punishment at this time, which was in complete agreement with the modern-era trend of aiming the criminal procedure “not at the body, but at the soul” of the offender. The section “On Duels” in the “Regulation on Punishments” (1845) reflected the general tendency towards the liberalization of criminal law in the empire. During the reign of Alexander II, neither the incidence of duels nor the monarch’s attitude to their participants changed significantly. In 1871, only one official document barely hinted at the possibility of radical change in dueling legislation. However, this view soon found expression in the law of 1894, which legalized duels in officer circles. In conclusion, the author discusses the precedent-based nature of dueling legislation in the Russian Empire.