Fighting Against the ‘Poisoners’ in Cholera-Stricken Petersburg

Abstract

This article examines an underexplored episode in the history of the cholera riots – the ‘hunt for the poisoners’ which happened in St Petersburg in June 1831. This relevance of the topic is determined by the importance of studying the population’s behavior during an epidemic crisis, challenging both the authorities’ ability to stabilize the situation and the possibility of dialogue between them and society. Based on newly-introduced archival sources, the paper attempts to reconstruct the events of June 24–25, 1831 – essential for an understanding of the subsequent developments in Russia, but which have been overshadowed by the cholera riots of June 21–22, 1831, well described by contemporary sources. The cholera outbreak in the imperial capital in mid-June 1831 sparked popular discontent with anti-cholera measures, culminating in attacks on the city’s cholera hospitals. After a temporary respite following the events of June 22 on Sennaya Square, the riots erupted with renewed vigor but with a change in form and substance. On June 24 and 25, instead of attacking hospitals in large crowds, the rioters sought out alleged ‘poisoners’ detaining and handing them over to the authorities on suspicion of having poisoned food and water. Amongst part of the population, this poisoning was considered the real cause of the deaths attributed by doctors and the authorities to cholera. These events of June 24–25 have received little attention from researchers. But it was the St Petersburg ‘hunt for poisoners’ that provided a model for Russia’s ‘cholera panic’ of July 1831, during which the population sought to battle the alleged malicious poisoners. The panic caused a series of mass riots in the European part of Russia. The most violent events during the unrest were the bloody mutinies of military settlers in Novgorod province. The events of June 24–25 in St Petersburg played a significant role in the emergence of the cholera panic in Russia in the summer of 1831.