Introduction

Abstract

The introduction presents the theme of this issue by asking what role monasteries played in the genesis of early modern penal practice. While their function as places of incarceration for any of the Tsar’s political opponents who had become disagreeable is widely known, their use as places of custody for various types of delinquency still remains a research desideratum. In Western historiography, however, monasteries have long been the focus of prison history. The article discusses the approach of the multifunctionality of the space of incarceration using Russian empirical material, traces the historiographical foundations and introduces the topics of the four articles of this special issue. The focus on the complexity of the monastic space as a space of confinement illuminates the history of interaction between the secular and ecclesiastical practices of punishment and discipline in 18th-century Russia.