New Communication Channels between Petitioners and the Monarch in Russia at the Turn of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

In this article the author focuses on the practice of using new communication channels between subjects and the sovereign in Russia. During the reign of Catherine II, the people of Russia made extensive use of the post office to send petitions to the monarch; under Paul I, the petition box and newspapers were used for the same purpose. In the historiography of modern Russia, there are no special studies of the communication channels between petitioners and the monarch. This article attempts to reconstruct the institutional and socio-cultural history of the new communication tools in order to understand how their use transformed communication between government and society in Russia. The main sources for the paper are records and periodicals, as well as contemporaries' notes describing the new means of communication. The author concludes that the development of remote communication relieved petitioners of the need to visit administrative offices in person. When petitioners used the post office, both the postmasters and state secretaries acted as communication intermediaries. The petition box allowed petitioners to address the monarch without intermediaries. By publishing responses to petitions in the Vedomosti, the government changed the communication with petitioners and promoted legal education. The new channels of communication, however, contributed to maintaining the old tradition of the personal administration of justice by the monarch.

Keywords

communication, complaints, post, petition box, media, Catherine II, Paul I, Alexander I, Russia

Received

16.03.2022

Publication date

01.09.2022

Number of characters

50488

Cite

GOST	Moriakov Y. New Communication Channels between Petitioners and the Monarch in Russia at the Turn of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries // Novaia i noveishaia istoriia – 2022. – Issue 4 C. 55-71 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://nni.jes.su/S013038640018611-0-1 (circulation date: 28.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013038640018611-0
MLA	Moriakov, Yerofei "New Communication Channels between Petitioners and the Monarch in Russia at the Turn of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries." Novaia i noveishaia istoriia 4 (2022):55-71. DOI: 10.31857/S013038640018611-0
APA	Moriakov Y. (2022). New Communication Channels between Petitioners and the Monarch in Russia at the Turn of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (4), pp.55-71 DOI: 10.31857/S013038640018611-0

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