Vagrant Population and the Causes of Criminal Acts in Pre-Revolutionary Siberia in the Political and Legal Ideological Heritage of N.M. Yadrintseva

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to demonstrate and reconstruct the political and legal ideas of the Siberian regionalist Nikolai Mikhailovich Yadrintsev in the field of factors of criminalization and the growth of crime in the pre-revolutionary period of the history of state and law in Siberia. The material in the work is the journalistic works of the Siberian educator on the topic of the causes of crime in the Asian part of Russia. The author's articles published in Tue. floor. XIX century, as well as his book on prison studies and the penal policy of the autocracy (1872). The methodological basis for the work was the paradigm of narratology. We consider the historical comprehension of political and legal views, expressed in the form of textual expression of ideas and ideals, to be most successfully possible using the tools of narrative history. The article emphasizes that, guided by the principle of dialectical materialism, the regionalist publicist believed that criminal statistics should demonstrate the interdependence of personal reasons and social influence on intentional criminal acts. The authors come to the conclusion that the worldview of the ideologist of Siberian regionalism was characterized by a concept based on an integrated approach and the Hegelian principle of the dialectical unity of all factors and causes that lead to criminal acts in Siberia. The social stratification of the region was powerfully influenced by the punitive nature of the colonization of the East of pre-revolutionary Russia. The scale of the social impact of convicts, exiles, thieves, robbers, and tramps was impressive. This was expressed in an increase in crimes and was accompanied by a lack of faith in the law as the embodiment of the fight against evil. It is also shown that in his political and legal thought the famous Siberian attached importance to the wandering population as the main factor in the spread and growth of crime. He associated with this class the total criminalization of society in the East of the country. Exile and hard labor were considered as accompanying negative factors of deviations and atrocities in Siberia.