It turns out that divorces were not so rare in pre-revolutionary Russia, and a woman in a patriarchal Russian family was not so disenfranchised. The author of this scientific monograph, Marina Tsaturova, provides a lot of evidence for this.
There are few sources of information about such a delicate aspect of the family life of our ancestors as divorce. The revolution of 1917 did not spare either church books (since they are church) or the tsarist archives (since they are tsarist) — and one could apply for permission to dissolve a marriage 300-500 years ago either to the parish priest, or directly to the sovereign. Therefore, Marina Tsaturova deserves respect already for the tremendous work in collecting the factual material that is given in the book. All the more so, even when presented in the dry language of a scientific monograph, these stories of sad love endings of centuries ago turn out to be surprisingly interesting and dramatic. And it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about the ordeals of ordinary peasants or about the divorce epic of Peter the Great, Pushkin’s ancestor Abram Petrovich Hannibal, which stretched for 16 years. The point is not only the facts, but also the fact that their analysis allows the author to question many of our historical stereotypes. For example, the idea that divorces in Russia were extremely rare. Or the conventional wisdom about the complete «downtroddenness» of a woman in a patriarchal Russian family. And that she could leave this family only in two ways — to the monastery or to the cemetery …
LOGOS, 288 p.