Bankrupts and usurers of imperial Russia : debt, property, and the law in the age of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy / Sergei Antonov.
2016
KLA1946 .A96 2016 (Mapit)
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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.
Imprint
Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016.
Description
viii, 387 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.
Series
Harvard historical studies ; v. 187.
Formatted Contents Note
Introduction
Usurers' tales
Nobles and merchants
The boundaries of risk
Fraud, property, and respectability
Kinship and family
Debtors and bureaucrats
In the pit with debtors
Intermediaries, lawyers, and scriveners
Creditors and debtors in pre-reform court
Conclusion.
Usurers' tales
Nobles and merchants
The boundaries of risk
Fraud, property, and respectability
Kinship and family
Debtors and bureaucrats
In the pit with debtors
Intermediaries, lawyers, and scriveners
Creditors and debtors in pre-reform court
Conclusion.
Summary
"Bankrupts and Usurers of Imperial Russia explores the culture of money and credit in imperial Russia through the eyes of ordinary individuals. Moving beyond the stereotypes of wasteful nobles, backward merchants, and ruthless moneylenders, this study recreates the daily tangle of motivations, practices, and disputes that preceded and underpinned Russia's "great reforms" of the mid-nineteenth century. Sergei Antonov uses close readings of previously unexamined legal cases to argue that Russian courts, despite their many shortcomings, provided a reasonably efficient forum for defining, promoting, and protecting private property interests. At the same time, debt cases reveal beliefs and attitudes shared by members of various classes and legal estates into which Russia's population was officially divided, and indicate the existence of a single, although amorphous, propertied class previously assumed to be absent in pre-revolutionary Russia"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-371) and index.
Location
STA
Call Number
KLA1946 .A96 2016
Language
English
ISBN
9780674971486 cloth
0674971485 cloth
0674971485 cloth
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