“Insulting His Majesty with Insolent Words” as State Crime (St. Petersburg Archives)

The article is devoted to the responsibility for the verbal insult of the Russian Emperor, which belonged to the category of state crimes. For the commission of such criminal acts, according to Russian laws, responsibility was due. The documents of the two largest St. Petersburg archives: the Russian State Historical Archive and the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg are analyzed in the article. The evolution of the concept of “insulting His Majesty” as a type of crime in Russian legislation is studied. The application of legal norms in the practical activities of Russian courts is considered. It is concluded that the Russian authorities paid great attention to this type of state crime. The degree of responsibility for its commission was very severe — up to a reference to hard labor. This was partly due to the sacralization of the person of the monarch, and therefore it was believed that the criminals encroached not only on him, but also on the very foundations of the state system. “Insulting His Majesty” remained one of the most common types of state crimes in the Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Expenditures on Pensions and Benefits in State Budget of Russian Empire in 19th to Early 20th Century

The article deals with the issue of the place of expenditures for the payment of pensions and benefits in the structure of public expenditures of the Russian Empire. It is shown that the amount of expenditures on pensions in absolute terms constantly increased (from 1741 to 1913 by more than 13 times). Since the amount of pensions paid, determined by the Pension statute of 1827, remained unchanged until 1917, this growth was determined by a constant increase in the number of pension recipients. This increase was due to an increase in the number of civil servants. At the same time, the share of expenditures on pensions and benefits in the expenditure part of the budget of the Russian Empire (“ordinary expenses”) fluctuated, reaching a maximum (5.1%) in 1871 and a minimum (2.3%) in 1903-1904. These fluctuations were determined by changes in the amount of the expenditure part of the empire’s budget, which increased noticeably by the beginning of the 20th century. On the whole, expenditures on pension provision accounted for a significant part of budget expenditures, exceeding such significant expenditure items as, for example, the expenditures of the Ministry of Public Education or the Ministry of State Property (Ministry of Agriculture and State Property, Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture), although they were inferior to the expenditures of the Military Department. The insufficiency of the size of pensions, due to their invariability, was combined with the burdensomeness of pension expenditures for the state, but a radical reform of the pension system did not take place

Responsibility for Sacrilege in Russian Empire of 19th — early 20th Centuries (Law and Enforcement)

The article deals with the history of relations between the Orthodox Church and the state and society. The importance of the religious component as a factor that played one of the key roles in the relationship between the state and society in Russia in the 19th — early 20th centuries is emphasized. The history of the development of responsibility for crimes against faith is traced. Particular attention is paid to this type of religious crime as sacrilege. The definition of “sacrilege” is given as a property encroachment directed at sacred or consecrated objects, as well as at church property. A detailed description of this type of crime is given and, using examples of judicial precedents of the law enforcement practice of the Russian Empire of the 19th century, its features are shown. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that it traces the evolution of the concept of “sacrilege” in Russian legislation of the 19th — early 20th centuries and determines the main trends in the field of law enforcement in relation to these crimes. It is proved that, despite the all-Russian tendency to gradually mitigate punishments for committing many religious crimes at the beginning of the 20th century, mitigation of responsibility in relation to sacrilege did not happen

Quasi-classical versus non-classical spectral asymptotics for magnetic Schroedinger operators with decreasing electric potentials

We consider the Schroedinger operator H on L^2(R^2) or L^2(R^3) with constant magnetic field and electric potential V which typically decays at infinity exponentially fast or has a compact support. We investigate the asymptotic behaviour of the discrete spectrum of H near the boundary points of its essential spectrum. If the decay of V is Gaussian or faster, this behaviour is non-classical in the sense that it is not described by the quasi-classical formulas known for the case where V admits a power-like decay.Comment: Corrected versio