«Cholera Riot» in St. Petersburg in 1831 and the Police: Who Is to Blame?

The article describes the events associated with the «cholera riot» in St. Petersburg in June 1831. However, the authors did not limit themselves to describing these events. Based on a number of sources, they analyzed the situation that preceded them. The article reveals the causes of the cholera pandemic that covered a significant part of the territory of the Russian Empire in 1829–1831 and the measures taken by the government to counteract the spread of cholera. The article also describes the «cholera riots» that took place in other regions of the Russian Empire. The subject of this research is the normative legal acts regulating the implementation of sanitary and police measures in the Russian Empire during the period under review, materials of periodicals, and archival documents. Within the framework of the research methodology, using historical-legal, comparative-legal and comparative-historical methods, the analysis of the state's activities to ensure sanitary and epidemiological measures is carried out. According to the authors, the conclusions drawn from the investigation of the causes of the «cholera riot» about the provocation of riots by police officers were largely not objective. The causes of the «cholera riots» were the shortcomings of the existing system of sanitary and epidemiological surveillance and the health care system as a whole.