Infanticide in the eighteenth-century Russia as a social phenomenon (based on the records of the Sysknoi Prikaz, department of investigations, 1730 – 1763)

<p>The present study examines the practice of infanticide in the eighteenth-century Russia. The analysis of this phenomenon, which might be quite well associated with the women&rsquo;s crime, provides a possibility to reconstruct a number of different aspects of social life in the eighteenth-century Russia: social, political, cultural, economic and other spheres. Special attention to the social aspect of infanticide allows to identify the immediate causes of such an illegal behavior. It seems, that those reasons might be found basically in the sphere of interrelationships of the accused women and in the society&#39;s reaction on such way of behavior.</p><p>By means of the examination of the department&rsquo;s schedule there were revealed fifty seven records of the infanticide cases during the years of department&rsquo;s existence 1730-1763. The collection of Sysknoi prikaz has been chosen not by coincidence. In particular this department engaged in the investigation and judgment of the criminal cases in Moscow and Moscow region.</p><p>Among the main documents that formed a one whole judicial record of interrogation and torture records have a dominant role for the examination of the problem of infanticide in eighteenth-century Russia as a social phenomenon. Detailed social portrait of the accused shows that all of women were peasants, soldier&#39;s wife or just servants, they killed an illegitimate child, as a result of fornication&nbsp; or a rape. Also certain model of the accused can be traced during the preparation and the commission of the crime when accused tried to hide her pregnancy and childbirth because of fear and shame.</p><p>The detailed analysis of judicial records shows that extremely negative attitude toward extramarital sexual relations and children born out of wedlock played a crucial role in the existence of the practice of infanticide in the eighteenth-century Russia.&nbsp;</p>