The Practice of Social Discipline in Early Yekaterinburg and in the Factories of the Yekaterinburg Department (1720s – 1750s)

Abstract

The article, written in the context of the historiographic problem of social discipline as a significant practice in the formation of societies in the early modern period, examines the disciplinary processes implemented in the first decades of the existence of Yekaterinburg, a large metallurgical enterprise and the center of an extraterritorial administrative unit of departmental subordination in the east of the Russian state. Partially developing the idea of V. M. Zhivov on the possibility of social disciplinarization without confessionalization, the authors, however, are not inclined to consider this version of disciplinarization absolutely devoid of spiritual foundations if we understand spirituality not as religiosity but as a quasi-religious, moralizing model of building a “police” state created by Peter the Great.  In Yekaterinburg, due to the fact that the life of its population was closely connected with ensuring a continuous production cycle, the problem of a high level of discipline was most acute, not only in the factory shops and during working hours but also beyond them. At the same time, these pragmatic considerations were reinforced by the moralizing attitudes of the city's founding fathers: V. I. Hennind and V. N. Tatishchev, who convinced supporters of the idea of building a “regular” state and rationally organized social relations. They, who personified secular power in Yekaterinburg and the Yekaterinburg department, were the true leaders of all processes, including disciplinary ones, having subordinated the church authorities in this regard. Yekaterinburg, thus, represented an almost ideal model for the embodiment of Peter the Great’s “police pathos.” Although practically all disciplinary measures of the local administration met resistance from the population in one way or another, the social environment that developed around industrial production in Yekaterinburg objectively created favorable conditions for the introduction of consistent, total and strict discipline, the results of which have yet to be assessed.