Resistance, Repression, and ReformTo be sure, the situation in Novgorod in July 1831 was extraordina
epidemic of cholera, which had started in Transcaucasia three years
was sweeping through the empire's nonhern and central provinces. It'
first appearance of the disease, for "·hh:h ilu:1 t: was no known cure. It
suddenly, painfully, and almost always fatally. In St. Petersburg 600 ·
were dying each day and the residents were fleeing in droves. Officials in
quarantine measures and ordered buildings to be fumigated and wells pt
The purpose of these precautions was, however, not properly explaine
as they seemed to have no effect contempt for the authorities soon tur
dark suspicions that the sickness must be their fault. Were not the
workers perhaps actually poisoning the wells? Assaults on them were rer
first in the capital and then in its surroundings.^2 t
Refugees transmitted news of these stirring events to the inhabitants
north-western settlements, who were already seething with resentment a
economic and other woes: heavy work norms, overcrowding, niggling r
tions, and sadistic disciplinary controls. The 'puni~hment book' of the D
Mecklenburg Grenadier regiment for December 1830 (which happens t1
been published) shows that heavy sentences were administered for
offences at a rate of about eight a day.^22 Orthodox clergy had been pros
ing the dissenters, and some officers contributed to the disaffection, p1
unwittingly, by dissociating themselves from the disagreeable orders tht
to execute.^23 The epidemic was in truth something of a pretext, as a f
diplomat noted: 'the soldiers and peasants ... took the troubles caused
cholera as a favourable opportunity [to revolt)'. 24
The disease had yet to strike the area of the settlements when violence
near Staraya Rusa on I 0111 July, in a military-labour battalion which con
in part of locally recruited peasants.^25 These men, who had not been inc
into the forces, were however less militant than the uniformed soldiers
ticularly the teen-aged 'cantonists'.^26 They seized officers and oth1
authority and either lynched them on the spot or hauled them off to :
makeshift trial. When some of them confessed to the fantastic charge~
was taken as corroboration that the rumours were true. Simple-m
monarchism and xenophobia were mingled with ancient superstitions.
rebels claimed to be implementing a decree by the tsar and sent messages
Petersburg in this sense-although Panayev reports hearing one group ex
2t The standard account in English of the epidemk i' R. E. McGrew, Russia and the C
1823-1832, Madison and Milwaukee, 1965; on the military sel!lemenl> see pp. 120-1.
22 Some examples: absent from roll-call (private): JO blow,; stealing stoc~ings (private'
50 blows; unlawful sex (private's wife): 50 blows; quarrelling (veterans): 50 blows; stealin~
of oats (private): 150 blows; 9 days' absence without leave and drunkenness (private): 200
Shchukinskiy sbornik, iv. 29.
21 Panayev, 'Rasskai', p. 67.
2~ De la Rue to Mabon. July 1834, MAF, 1\.1 ct D. Rw.,ie .'7 ( llB 1-521. I. 141 '.
2s Gribbe, • Kholernyy bunt'. p. 522.
26 Ushakov, 'Kholernyy bunt', pp. 154, 159; l\ansov, ·o voycnnykh po,eJeniyakh', 4.