IMPERIAL POLICY IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INFANTICIDE (ON THE VOLYN PROVINCE EXAMPLE )

Abstract

Abstract
 The aim of this study is to analyse the factors that have influenced the imperial legislation formation process on infanticide and to highlight the specifics of the court decisions execution related to this type of crime.
 The research methodology is based on the general scientific principles of historicism, objectivity, systematicity and comprehensiveness. This has given an opportunity to examine infanticide in specific historical circumstances. Only real facts are offered with the help of archival cases, and all factors are considered that have influenced the outlined issues. The novelty of the paper is that the author analyses the information about the punishment to the women who have committed a crime against the child’s life for the first time in Ukraine (Volyn province) on the archival materials basis, and a wide range of other sources, as well as the factors that have determined the imperial policy towards such crimes. 
 Conclusions. During the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Russian Empire tended to mitigate sentences to women for such crimes as infanticide. A number of factors have led to this. Among them are: a relative insignificance of such crimes to the state, the development of medicine, in particular psychiatry, and, accordingly, a different view of the woman during childbirth. On the one hand, there is an increase in the level of humanity in society (frequent sympathy for criminals on the part of judges and jurors), and on the other, the low cost of a baby's life in modern society, which could be associated with significant overpopulation, particularly on the Right-Bank Ukraine.