1. | Apr 16, 2018

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2. | Jan 6, 2018

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3. | Jun 26, 2014

Thanks for the questions! My take on the hphertropyic vs. undergoverned debate which surely exists is that in its essence it's one of ambitions vs. reality, or reputation (as I termed it here) versus substance. I think it is difficult to look at Russian archives of the 18th (much less the early 19th) century and say, this is a modest, incurious state, not interested in what is going on down the ladder. Actually, in addition to writing very detailed decrees, the government conducts very detailed investigations, to make sure the letter (and not merely the spirit) if its decrees is being followed. On the other hand, there's no doubt that the instruments at hand for executing this purpose were very limited; the social and geographical difficulties formidable; the cadres and the local institutions just weren't there. So in answer to the question over or under governed? I think it's possible to say, both!, if you keep in mind the former refers to ambition and the latter to reality. And I would think that that paradox is actually part of the pathos of the history of the time.The comparative question is Russia worse than France or England? is more difficult to answer, I think. If one goes by absolute volume of correspondence, one would suspect that societies in which print technology is much more robust than Russia (and governmental institutions and populations are thicker) produce more paper. I wonder if perhaps Simon Franklin's group on the Graphosphere has an answer to this. On the other hand, both France and England have elements of independent judiciaries parlements and parliaments, as well as courts which take some of the decision making power out of the chancelleries and place it in the legal realm. So the phenomena would seem to be not exactly comparable, I'd be curious as to what others have to say on this.Mostly, however, I wasn't so much intending to endorse the idea that the Russian state was all powerful as to note that in addition to having a lot of ambition (one that often was longer than its reach), it also helped create a world in which lots of people spent a lot of time moving a lot of paper around. Some of that paper, I think, ultimately came from the fact that when in doubt, it was easier to write a lot than to be found wanting in either vigilance or obedience. As was the case in Muscovite times, many people were invested in the idea of Imperial power, even if the reality fell short.

4. | Dec 16, 2013

One thing I might add to my first comment is that “over” and “under” gvreoned are obviously critical judgements, most obviously from a liberal / modern perspective. Hi, John! Certainly that may be true, but I don't think it's necessarily a reason to shy away from critical judgments. Refusing to engage in critical judgment is, after all, only another form of the modern perspective and I don't think we really need to avoid it so much, provided that we do realize our viewpoints and outlooks will always be colored in this way. Or to put it differently, our human brains are made to evaluate and form judgments, which is what keeps debate in constant flux no one perspective is quite the same as any other.Back to the topic you brought up: I've read in several Soviet memoirs that what is written with the pen cannot be cut out with the axe. Even if you go on to Bulgakov and The Master and Margarita , you've still got the ending line: Manuscripts don't burn! So there's a very deep who knows how far back it goes idea of the absolute sovereignty of the printed word. And it certainly makes for an interesting tangle when decrees and pronouncements happened to contradict each other.Wilson makes a point that I think is helpful: that the sheer weight of bureaucracy may have encouraged (and probably did encourage) informal practices. And that's something we see over and over again in Russian and then Soviet history the constant tension between centrality and practical doings the need for a vozhd, a strong single authority and then the need to ignore him, as God is in his Heaven, and the tsar is far away. I haven't gotten farther than that yet with my thoughts, but that ongoing tension always intrigues me the passion for security on one hand and a sort of petty-anarchy on the other.

5. | Dec 14, 2013

This is so interesting, John! First, I feel like I see a spike of cases of pploee firming up their status in the early 1760s, too and my theory is that it has a lot to do with the third revision. The action of cleaning up the books certainly affected individuals and societies in terms of having them register properly, and I can also see it having the effect of making societies guard their privilege more carefully.As far as what makes it in to the PSZ, there's also the factor that apparently Nicholas didn't open all state archives and files to Speransky et al (see here: Marc Raeff, “Preface,” Catherine II’s Charters of 1785 to the Nobility and the Towns,, trans. and edited by David Griffiths and George E. Munro (Bakersfield: Charles Schlacks, Jr., Publisher, 1991), xii.)Then there were a number of books in the early 1800s in which individual authors tried to recover all the laws (or a lot of the laws) pertaining to various subject. I looked at one of them: P. Khavskii, Sobranie zakonov o kuptsakh, meshchanakh, posadskikh i tsekhovykh, ili Gorodovoe Polozhenie so vkliucheniem zakonov predshestvuiushchikh i posleduiushchikh s 1766 po 1823 god (SPb, 1823). I sat there in the Publichka using a usb modem to search through the PSZ online as I looked through the book, to see what wasn't in one or the other. Somewhat to my surprise, the things missing in the PSZ were mostly ukazes from Alexander's reign (and I should note that they may be there, hidden under a different date I had that problem, too, that things were reported oddly).

6. | Oct 15, 2013

That was fascinating hosntely, I think I could fall in love with trivia for its own sake, because it's like getting a few more pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle.Talking about why these men returned . I can think of a couple of possibilities. For one, unless they settled in areas with sizeable Russian enclaves, they had probably encountered isolation and loneliness. An amnesty that meant they could not only go home but be free would settle all their problems at once supposedly. Second, they had entered on a voluntary self-exile, but there does seem to be a strong theme in Russian culture that being exiled is only about two steps better than being dead. You're cut off, you've been sent to the outside. So the pull to go back could be very strong, even if they were living in an otherwise supportive or prosperous environment. And of course, as you suggested, they may have had families back home.(I too am familiar with the wish-I'd-found-that-earlier bug, as I think most historians/historical writers are. He's an itchy little pest.)Thanks for a fun post!

7. | Oct 13, 2013

This is so interesting, John! First, I feel like I see a spike of cases of plpoee firming up their status in the early 1760s, too and my theory is that it has a lot to do with the third revision. The action of cleaning up the books certainly affected individuals and societies in terms of having them register properly, and I can also see it having the effect of making societies guard their privilege more carefully.As far as what makes it in to the PSZ, there's also the factor that apparently Nicholas didn't open all state archives and files to Speransky et al (see here: Marc Raeff, “Preface,” Catherine II’s Charters of 1785 to the Nobility and the Towns,, trans. and edited by David Griffiths and George E. Munro (Bakersfield: Charles Schlacks, Jr., Publisher, 1991), xii.)Then there were a number of books in the early 1800s in which individual authors tried to recover all the laws (or a lot of the laws) pertaining to various subject. I looked at one of them: P. Khavskii, Sobranie zakonov o kuptsakh, meshchanakh, posadskikh i tsekhovykh, ili Gorodovoe Polozhenie so vkliucheniem zakonov predshestvuiushchikh i posleduiushchikh s 1766 po 1823 god (SPb, 1823). I sat there in the Publichka using a usb modem to search through the PSZ online as I looked through the book, to see what wasn't in one or the other. Somewhat to my surprise, the things missing in the PSZ were mostly ukazes from Alexander's reign (and I should note that they may be there, hidden under a different date I had that problem, too, that things were reported oddly).