Bankrupts and Usurers of Imperial Russia : Debt, Property, and the Law in the Age of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy / Sergei Antonov.
Antonov, Sergei, author.
2016
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Title Bankrupts and Usurers of Imperial Russia : Debt, Property, and the Law in the Age of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy / Sergei Antonov.
Author Antonov, Sergei, author.
ISBN 9780674972599
DOI https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674972599
Published Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2016]
Copyright ©2016
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource (350 p.) : 6 halftones, 14 tables
Item Number 10.4159/9780674972599 doi
Summary As readers of classic Russian literature know, the nineteenth century was a time of pervasive financial anxiety. With incomes erratic and banks inadequate, Russians of all social castes were deeply enmeshed in networks of credit and debt. The necessity of borrowing and lending shaped perceptions of material and moral worth, as well as notions of social respectability and personal responsibility. Credit and debt were defining features of imperial Russia's culture of property ownership. Sergei Antonov recreates this vanished world of borrowers, bankrupts, lenders, and loan sharks in imperial Russia from the reign of Nicholas I to the period of great social and political reforms of the 1860s. Poring over a trove of previously unexamined records, Antonov gleans insights into the experiences of ordinary Russians, rich and poor, and shows how Russia's informal but sprawling credit system helped cement connections among property owners across socioeconomic lines. Individuals of varying rank and wealth commonly borrowed from one another. Without a firm legal basis for formalizing debt relationships, obtaining a loan often hinged on subjective perceptions of trustworthiness and reputation. Even after joint-stock banks appeared in Russia in the 1860s, credit continued to operate through vast networks linked by word of mouth, as well as ties of kinship and community. Disputes over debt were common, and Bankrupts and Usurers of Imperial Russia offers close readings of legal cases to argue that Russian courts-usually thought to be underdeveloped in this era-provided an effective forum for defining and protecting private property interests.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Dez 2022)
Series Harvard Historical Studies
In Harvard University Press Complete eBook-Package 2016
Linked Resources Online Access
Record Appears in Online Resources > Ebooks
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Frontmatter
Contents
Introduction
Part I: The Culture of Debt
1. Usurers' Tales
2. Nobles and Merchants
3. The Boundaries of Risk
4. Fraud, Property, and Respectability
5. Kinship and Family
Part II: Debt and the Law
6. Debtors and Bureaucrats
7. In the Pit with Debtors
8. Intermediaries, Lawyers, and Scriveners
9. Creditors and Debtors in Pre-Reform Courts
Conclusion
Appendix A: Glossary
Appendix B: The Table of Ranks (as of 1850)
Appendix C: St. Petersburg Pawnbrokers, 1866
Appendix D.1: Objectives of Legal Representation, Based on the Powers of Attorney Registered at the Moscow Chamber of Civil Justice
Appendix D.2: Legal Representatives Registered at the Moscow Chamber of Civil Justice
Appendix E: Agreement to Provide Legal Services, 1865
Notes. Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Index

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