Abstract
There is popular belief that Elizabeth abolished capital punishment at the very inception of her reign. According to legend, in the early morning before seizing the throne, she prayed before an icon and vowed that if she were successful, she would abolish capital punishment. Subsequently, she appeared at the barracks of the Preobrazhenskii Regiment on the same morning of November 25, 1741. When the grenadiers vowed to kill all her enemies, Elizabeth reaffirmed her pledge by declaring that if any blood were shed, she would not lead them.3 In fact, the abolition of capital punishment was a prolonged process both accelerated by the freewheeling will of the monarch, and impeded by the rudimentary character of the Russian judicial system. Ukases, which if implemented could have had sudden and drastic effects, faced a judicial system floundering under yet uncodified laws administered by untrained lawyers and judges. The repetition of ukases abolishing the
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