Ulozhenia 1649

1. Should anyone think maliciously about the Sovereign's health, and should another person report him concerning this malicious thought, there should be made an inquiry into his malicious thought and intended action against his Tsarist Majesty, and such person, upon investigation, should be executed.

2. Likewise, should a member of his Tsarist Majesty's government wish to seize control of the Muscovite state and become Sovereign, and should he, to attain this evil goal, organise an army or conspire with the enemies of his Tsarist Majesty, issue charters, or aid them in any way, in order to seize control of the Muscovite state or do some other foolish thing with the aid of those enemies of the Sovereign, and should someone report him, there should be organised a proper inquiry into his treason, and such a traitor should be sentenced to death.

3. And should anyone give away a city of his Tsarist Majesty to an enemy through treason, or accept foreigners into cities of his Tsarist Majesty for treasonous purposes, and then investigation be conducted into it, such traitors should be executed.

4. And should anyone consciously and treacherously burn either a city or manors, and then be apprehended during his act or afterwards, and an inquiry be conducted into his evil act, such person should be burned mercilessly.

5. Service estates, hereditary estates, and livestock of all traitors should be transferred to the possession of the Sovereign,

6. Wives and children of traitors, if they were aware of their treasons, should be executed.

7. If a wife knew nothing of the treason of her husband, or children of the treason of their father, and if this be verified by an investigation, such persons should be neither executed not punished; the Sovereign will determine how much of the service and hereditary estates they should be allowed to retain for their livelihood.

8. If a traitor had children, but they, prior to his treason, were separated from him, did not live with him, and hence knew nothing of his treason, and if they had their own livestock and their own hereditary estates, from such children neither livestock nor hereditary estates should be confiscated.

9. And if someone should commit treason and leave [as survivors) in the Muscovite state either his father, or his mother, or his brothers, or his cousins, or his uncles, or any other member of his family, and if he lived with them and they jointly owned their livestock and their hereditary estates, such traitor should be thoroughly investigated in order to determine whether his father, or his mother, or his relatives knew of his treason. Should an investigation determine that they knew of his treason, they should be executed and their livestock and hereditary and service estates transferred to the Sovereign.

10. If, however, an investigation should determine that they knew nothing of the treason of the traitor, they should not be executed and their livestock and their service and hereditary estates should not be confiscated.

11. If a traitor should return from a foreign country to the Muscovite state, and if the Sovereign should pardon him and forgive his guilty action, and then if he should obtain a new service estate through service, the Sovereign may return his old hereditary estate to him, but he cannot grant him his old service estate.

12. If someone should report that another person has revealed a great state secret, but he does not have witnesses to substantiate his report, does not convince anyone [with his arguments), and no evidence exists to aid in the investigation into the revelation of state secrets, a decree should be issued on this problem, following an inquiry, as the Sovereign should direct.

13. And if someone should reveal the state of the Sovereign's health, or if they should disclose information about people whom they serve, or, if they be peasants, to whom they belong, and if such reports are not convincing, they should not be believed. After they have been severely punished for spreading lies, through merciless whipping with a knut, such individuals should then be returned to those persons to whom they belong. Such informers should not be believed or listened to in the future on anything except matters of great importance.

14. And should anyone, regardless of his status, say that he is a government official, and then should it be determined that he is not, such person should be knuted for impersonating a government official, and afterwards he should be returned to those persons to whom he belongs.

15. And if someone apprehends a traitor on the road, and either kills him or captures him and returns him to the Sovereign, that traitor should [In the latter case] be executed, and the person who apprehended or killed him should be given the livestock of the traitor as the Sovereign should decree.

16. And whoever should report that another person had revealed state secrets or was about to commit treason, and the person who had been reported on is absent at the time, that person must be found and he must confront the accuser face to face. If a thorough investigation should verify the validity of the charge, a decree should be issued as stipulated above.

17. If a person should report that another is about to reveal state secrets or to commit treason, and then fail to prove it, and if an investigation should determine that he fabricated his evidence, such an informer should be punished in the same manner that the person who had been reported upon would have been punished if he had been found guilty.

18. Should a person in the Muscovite state, regardless of his social status, learn of the existence of mass discontent, or conspiracy, or any other evil design, [in Moscow] the existence of such plots should be reported either to Aleksei Mikhailovich, the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Prince of All Russia, or to his boiars or his high assistants, or [in the provinces), to local voevodas or other officials of the central government.

19. If someone should know or hear of the existence of mass discontent or a conspiracy or any other evil design against his Tsarist Majesty, but fails to report it either to the Sovereign, or his boiars, or his high assistants, or voevodas, or other officials of the central government in provincial cities, and then the Sovereign should find out that that person was aware of the existence of such action but failed to report it, and an inquiry be conducted into it, such persons should be sentenced to death without mercy.

20. During an insurrection, mass discontent, or conspiracy, no one should break into, or rob, or inflict bodily harm on his Tsarist Majesty, his boyars, his high assistants, members of the boiarskaia duma [Council of Notables], his advisers, his voevodas in regiments, and other officials in provincial cities.

21. Whoever should initiate mass discontent or a conspiracy against his Tsarist Majesty or his boiars, or his high assistants, or members of the boiarskaia duma or his advisers, or voevodas in regiments, or other officials of the central government in provincial cities, and pillage or inflict bodily harm on them, those persons who initiate it should be condemned to death without mercy.

22. Should voevodas of regiments or officials of the central government in provincial cities inform the Sovereign that either service people or people of other classes had approached them in numbers resembling mass discontent or a conspiracy and threatened to kill them, and if those people who had been reported on should petition the Sovereign to investigate those voevodas and officials of the central government and deny that they had approached them with any mass discontent or a conspiracy and say that they came only in small numbers to petition them, upon such petition of the Sovereign a thorough investigation should be conducted of those city officials and, in the regiments, of the military personnel. If this investigation in cities and regiments should determine that these people really came to the voevodas and to the officials of the central government with genuine petitions and not for robbery purposes [as it had been reported], such people should not be sentenced to death. Those voevodas and officials of the central government who erroneously reported to the Tsar should be severely punished as the Tsar may determine.