1. | Jul 26, 2014

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. *grin*Catherine had the devil of a time trniyg to bridle a nobility that had its own ideas about ruling Russia. I think if she had admitted the grounds behind the Pugachev revolt, she would have undermined her own authority (in the eyes of the nobles) at a time when she absolutely could not afford it. But notice what she does instead. Instead of persecuting her own people into the ground, which Peter I or Ivan IV would probably have done, she claims the first excuse she can find to call off any prosecutions or punishments.I can't say that she didn't manipulate that situation or many situations to the detriment of the historical record, but it seems to be a repeated theme of her reign that she showed mercy on sometimes slim pretexts when it was hardly to be expected of her.Thanks for this post, by the way! I'm looking forward to more.

2. | Mar 24, 2014

Oh, now I want to know how the story comes out. (It's a writer thing, yes.) But a rlleay good point there history is only fragments, in the end. A jumble of the archives that were saved, the things that survived in print. And when it comes to modern accessibility, we take what we can well reach, and make history out of even smaller fragments.The good thing in all this yes, there's an upside is that the rage to digitize shows no signs of slowing down. New collections are going up every day; and while the Full Collection of Laws may exert a heavier influence on research for a time, it is likely to be counterbalanced by the greater availability of other documents. (Which, may I add, I'm looking forward to the more free research material, the better.)

3. | Mar 23, 2014

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. *grin*Catherine had the devil of a time trnyig to bridle a nobility that had its own ideas about ruling Russia. I think if she had admitted the grounds behind the Pugachev revolt, she would have undermined her own authority (in the eyes of the nobles) at a time when she absolutely could not afford it. But notice what she does instead. Instead of persecuting her own people into the ground, which Peter I or Ivan IV would probably have done, she claims the first excuse she can find to call off any prosecutions or punishments.I can't say that she didn't manipulate that situation or many situations to the detriment of the historical record, but it seems to be a repeated theme of her reign that she showed mercy on sometimes slim pretexts when it was hardly to be expected of her.Thanks for this post, by the way! I'm looking forward to more.

4. | Jan 22, 2014

You know what, I'm very much incenild to agree.

5. | Dec 3, 2013

This is so interesting, John! First, I feel like I see a spike of cases of peploe 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. | Dec 3, 2013

leer esto fue como juntarme con unas amiags del colegio, el ultimo tiempo se las dan de moralistas, sobretodo una en particular, entre mujeres es tal cual describes, y casi que me apunta con el dedo y me enjucia cuando dice tal cual “oye que mal, yo NUNCA he/hubiese hecho eso .y lo remata con un: eso me haria sentir me1s vaceda como si tubiera que sentirme culpable de ciertas actos que he realizado, ja! El punto es que cuando hay algun hombre dentro del grupo se las da de alumbra que le gusta la cacha y me llega dar verguenza ajena con sus comentarios. Sinceramente no la entiendo y me tiene algo chata, como que me absorve la energia hasta matarme de aburrimiento (sobre todo cuando hablan de vestidos de novia) asi que trato de evitarla lo mas que puedo, pero que onda con este tipo de minas?? muy femina sere, pero hay actitudes de mis congeneres que sencillamente escapan a mi razonamiento creo que merecen una clasificacion especial todas esas minas inconsistentes/incoherentes

7. | Nov 14, 2013

To think, I was coensufd a minute ago.

8. | Nov 13, 2013

etot kurginyan soladt rothschildov! ego tozhe raskrutshiwaut w Rossii dlja psewdosozialisma po trotskomu (nowi tolpolitarism) i raswala Rossii (revoluzia kak eto uzhe bilo) Info pro kurginyana na KPE.  ru !!!Dmitri Slawoljubov ..wash bibleiski projekt w rasnowidnoi forme skoro prowaliza i washa psewdowlast (kapitalism, pwsewdosozialism gde toka elita rulit a ne narod..) isbrannix balnix skoro bolshe nebudet