"Exile Cases" of the Moscow Investigatory Office (1730–1763) as a Historical Source

Whereas the Russian exile system has been extensively studied before, the period of 18th century has been generally neglected. Despite the complex of research papers devoted to the history of this period in general and its individual elements and institutions, the framework of the entire system remains unexplored, probably due to insufficient development of office materials. This paper considers and analyzes some documents of the Investigatory Office, the central institution of the exile system at that time. More particularly, it draws the attention to the sources that have never been used before in this research area. In fact, the study revealed that this type of source, “exile cases”, is useful and promising for future research in this field. The main idea of the work is that these documents, previously almost unexplored, may fill some gaps in the study of the penitentiary system of Russia in the 18th century, the key period in development of the exile system.