Abstract

Peasant ethics was the basis for the relationship of peasants in the community, while its norms were largely determined by the patriarchal traditions and the religious stance of its members. Based on the sentences of the volost courts in the Smolensk province in the second half of the 19th century, the article shows the influence of peasant ethics and the related legal customs on the administration of justice in a peasant estate volost. Before the abolition of serfdom, labour, financial and land relations in the community were regulated by legal customs. That is why, aft er 1861, the volost courts, which consisted mostly of illiterate peasants who did not know general civil law, were guided by legal customs. The characteristic features of the volost court were the absence of bureaucratic procedures and the simplicity of paperwork. Litigation often ended with the reconciliation of the parties, since within the framework of the religious worldview of the peasants, the peaceful settlement of disputes and disagreements was considered a deed which was pleasing to God. The majority of litigation cases in the books of verdicts of the volost courts concerned the non-fulfilment of debt and labour obligations by peasants. Peasants who did not fulfil their obligations had a bad reputation in the community. For such offenses, the volost courts usually punished the culprits with a monetary penalty. Theft was a rare type of offense in the practice of peasant estate courts. The peasants knew one another well, and often experienced distress due to the lack of land and crop failures. Under these circumstances, the attitude of the community members to theft was extremely negative. The materials of the volost courts verdicts also show the evolution of the attitude of peasants to corporal punishment, which in the last quarter of the 19th century increasingly met a negative reaction. Such dynamics indicates a change in the consciousness of the peasants, and the awakening in them a sense of dignity. Punishment with rods in the community began to be considered an unacceptable measure that humiliates the peasant. Peasant ethics had a significant impact on the legal practice of volost courts, since peasants in the post-reform period continued to live according to legal customs, unlike other classes of pre-revolutionary Russia.