“The Freedom to Choose a Way of Life”: Fugitives, Borders, and Imperial Amnesties in Russia

Abstract

On August 30, 1814, Emperor Alexander I (r. 1801–25) released several decrees to commemorate Russia’s victories in the Napoleonic wars. First, he proclaimed that December 25 would be observed as a day of remembrance for the “deliverance of the Church and Powers of Russia from the invasion of the Gauls and with them twenty other peoples” and used starkly emotional terms—the “terrible, evil, and cruel enemy” and the “bloody battles and victories gained”—to describe the invasion of 1812.1 In a second manifesto, Alexander addressed not the abstract “Church and Powers” but, rather, the individual Russians who had made the victory possible. He promised a series of medals for priests, military servitors, nobles, and merchants “and various privileges and mercies” for the many peasants and townspeople (meshchane) who had contributed to the war effort. Among these mercies were a new revision of the census, which would free communities from tax burdens caused by out-of-date tax rolls, and a series of acts that wiped out any arrears in state dues or debts. And there was this: “To any kind or calling of military people, peasants, and other inhabitants who have absented themselves from the country, their home, or their military detachment without permission, We give pardon, if those living inside Russia return by one year from this date, and from foreign lands within two years.”2 Yet another law clarified several points of the main manifesto. In particular, it specified different fates for those fugitives who had been outside the country and those who had been within it. The latter were forgiven their flight, but they had to return to their place and soslovie (social estate or status) of origin. The former, however, in return for repatriating themselves, would receive “complete freedom to choose their way of life.”3 These manifestos were almost immediately lauded as examples of Alexan-