Description
Book SynopsisBrings into focus the legal practice of Russian peasants in the township courts of the Russian empire from 1905 through 1917. This text demonstrates that Russian peasants made effective use of legal opportunities to settle disputes over economic resources, to assert personal dignity, and to address the bane of small crimes in their communities.
Trade ReviewUsing numerous case records from volost courts from 1905 to 1917, Burbank (New York Univ.) argues that the peasants who judged and were judged in these courts showed notable respect for law and legal procedure. The panel of judges, a small jury in the author's thinking, was guided by reason, a concern for documentary proof, and the evidence of witnesses, the hallmarks of the legal order that went unrecognized by contemporary educated society. Burbank believes that the disparagement of peasant justice as disorderly, corrupt, and ignorant was based on data from the 19th century. But she also disagrees with those who see peasant justice as a protest against the state and its laws. Her argument is persuasive, especially when she presents peasants as individuals rather than exemplars of a class. Only in passing does she suggest that her peasant actors may have been more enterprising than others. Although Burbank disagrees with critics of peasant justice, their data for the 19th century is also persuasive. Moreover, readers may not share the author's perplexity that her law-abiding, but admittedly uncivil, peasants made a revolution in 1917. But they should read her book. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
-- D. Balmuth * emeritus, Skidmore College , 2005jun CHOICE. *
Table of ContentsContents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. The Peasant Question and the Law
2. A Litigious Person and Her Possibilities
3. A Day at Court
4. All Sorts of Suits and Disputes
5. Small Crime and Punishment
6. Peasant Jurisprudence
7. Legal Recourse in a Time of Troubles
8. How Different a Justice?
Appendix 1: Information on Data Sets
Appendix 2: Misdemeanors Adjudicable at Township Courts
Glossary
Abbreviations
Note on Sources
Notes
Bibliography
Index
