European University Institute Library

Bankrupts and usurers of imperial Russia, debt, property, and the law in the age of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Sergei Antonov

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-371) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Bankrupts and usurers of imperial Russia

bibliography

946906960

Sergei Antonov

Harvard historical studies, 187

debt, property, and the law in the age of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy

"Bankrupts and Usurers of Imperial Russia explores the culture of money and credit in imperial Russia through the eyes of ordinary individuals. Moving beyond the stereotypes of wasteful nobles, backward merchants, and ruthless moneylenders, this study recreates the daily tangle of motivations, practices, and disputes that preceded and underpinned Russia's "great reforms" of the mid-nineteenth century. Sergei Antonov uses close readings of previously unexamined legal cases to argue that Russian courts, despite their many shortcomings, provided a reasonably efficient forum for defining, promoting, and protecting private property interests. At the same time, debt cases reveal beliefs and attitudes shared by members of various classes and legal estates into which Russia's population was officially divided, and indicate the existence of a single, although amorphous, propertied class previously assumed to be absent in pre-revolutionary Russia"--, Provided by publisher

Introduction -- Usurers' tales -- Nobles and merchants -- The boundaries of risk -- Fraud, property, and respectability -- Kinship and family -- Debtors and bureaucrats -- In the pit with debtors -- Intermediaries, lawyers, and scriveners -- Creditors and debtors in pre-reform court -- Conclusion