Murder Most Russian: True Crime and Punishment in Late Imperial Russia
FAIN: FA-55061-10
Louise McReynolds
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC 27599-1350)
My project takes a selection of sensational murders that shook late imperial Russia, and uses them as windows through which to view how notions of crime and punishment intersected with other cultural, social, and political issues. Chronologically, my work spans 1864-1914, years highlighted by rapid industrialization and political and social upheaval. This study is fully comparative with western scholarship, which allows me to illustrate that these murders [were] "most Russian" because the issues they raised reflected upon a culture that was autocratic and Orthodox Christian, yet one being pressured from within and without to adapt to western notions of modernity, especially as characterized by "rule of law."