[Untitled]
St.
Petersburg, July 1, 1868.
My Lord: With reference to your
lordship’s dispatch of the 16th instant, instructing me to
furnish information for the use of the naturalization
commission, as to disabilities to which aliens residing in
Russia are subjected by Russian laws, I have the honor to
inclose herewith a statement on the subject which I have
received from Mr. Roebuck, the consulting lawyer of Her
Majesty’s embassy, and I also inclose a translation by Mr.
Michell of the law promulgated on the 22d of February, 1864,
relative to foreigners residing in Russia who may wish to become
Russian subjects, or who, having done so, may wish to resume
their original nationality.
I have, &c.,
Opinion of Mr. Josiah Roebuck, sworn
advocate at St. Petersburg, respecting the disabilities
to which aliens residing in Russia are subjected by
Russian laws.
Several restrictions and disabilities with regard to the
enjoyment of civil and political rights, to which foreigners
in Russia were formerly liable, have been abolished since
1860, and the rights and prerogatives of foreigners have
since been greatly extended.
Foreigners are thus allowed to trade without taking the oath
of allegiance.
They can hold landed property, and as landholders are
eligible as members of the rural provincial assemblies, with
right of vote.
A foreigner may hold a commission in the Russian army, and
take the several ranks
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in it, and having the rank of
lieutenant-general or full general, or of field-marshal, may
he appointed senator and member of the council of the
empire.
The disabilities to which foreigners are still subject in
Russia are the following:
- 1.
- They cannot acquire the right of hereditary
nobility.
- 2.
- They cannot hold the office of judge, magistrate,
justice of the peace, advocate, or usher of a
council of law, nor serve on a jury.
- 3.
- Foreigners are not allowed to enter the civil
service. An exception is, however, made in favor of
professional and scientific men, such as physicians,
surgeons, apothecaries, architects, engineers,
professors, and teachers of the arts and sciences,
who may acquire in the service of the state the
ranks attached to their respective capacities, and
receive decorations which they may acquire, do not
confer on them the rights and prerogatives enjoyed
by national-born subjects.
N. B.—Aliens of the Jewish persuasion are subject to very
serious disabilities.
Law of 10th–22d of February, 1864,
relative to foreigners in
Russia.
- 1.
- A foreigner must be domiciled in the empire before he
can be admitted as a Russian subject.
- 2.
- A foreigner wishing to become domiciled in Russia must
inform the governor of the province in which he wishes
to reside of his desire to do so, explaining the nature
of his occupation in his own country and the pursuits he
proposes to follow in Russia.
- On the receipt of such declaration the petitioner is
considered to be domiciled in Russia, but will
nevertheless be accounted a foreigner until he take the
oath of allegiance.
- 3.
- Foreigners already resident in Russia, distinguished
in art, trade, or commerce, or in any other pursuit may
prove their domiciliation by other means than those
mentioned in § 2.
- 4.
- A foreigner, after being domiciled five years in
Russia, may apply to be admitted to Russian
allegiance.
- 5.
- Foreign married women cannot become Russian subjects
without their husbands.
- 6.
- The allegiance when sworn to is merely personal, and
does not affect children, whether of age or minors,
previously born. Those born after the adoption of
Russian nationality are acknowledged to be
Russians.
- 7.
- Specifies rules to be observed in petitioning the
minister of the interior to be admitted to Russian
allegiance, (documents and declarations
required.)
- 8.
- It is optional with the minister to grant the above
petition or not.
- 9.
- An oath to be taken.
- 10.
- Mode of taking oaths.
- 11.
- In special cases the period requisite to constitute a
domicile may be shortened.
- 12.
- Children of foreigners not Russian subjects born or
educated in Russia, or, if born abroad, yet who have
completed their education in a Russian upper and middle
school, will be admitted to Russian allegiance, should
they desire to do so, a year after they have attained
their majority.
- 13.
- The children of foreigners wishing to become Russian
subjects will be admitted on the same terms as their
parents.
- 14.
- Foreigners in the Russian military or civil service,
or ecclesiastics of foreign persuasion, will be admitted
to Russian allegiance without period of domicile.
- 15.
- A Russian subject marrying a foreign husband, and
therefore considered a foreigner, may, on the death of
her husband, or in case of her divorce, return to her
former allegiance.
- 16.
- The children in the above case are treated as in §
12.
- 17.
- Foreign women marrying Russian subjects, and the wives
of foreigners who had become Russian subjects, are
admitted as Russian subjects without taking oaths of
allegiance. Widows and divorced wives retain the
nationality of their husbands.
- 18.
- Special enactments relative to colonists, foreign
agricultural laborers, Bulgarians, &c, remain in
full force.
- 19.
- Foreigners admitted to Russian nationality are placed
in respect to their rights and obligations on a perfect
equality with native Russians.
- 20.
- Provides for the speedy transaction of business in
connection with the adoption of Russian
nationality.
ii. transitional
measures.
- 1.
- Foreigners who shall have already adopted Russian
nationality may return at any time to their former
nationality on payment of all claims against them,
(government, private, and other claims.)
- 2.
- Those who throw off their Russian allegiance may
either quit the country or remain in Russia, enjoying
equal rights with other foreigners; they must provide
themselves with national passports if in European Russia
and belonging to a country in Europe,
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within a year; if
residing in Siberia or having to obtain such passports
from any other quarter of the globe, within two
years.
- On the lapse of such dates without production of
passports, the foreigner must either leave the country
or resume his Russian nationality.
- 3.
- Exception in cases of desertion, and
- 4.
- Annuls all enactment compelling Russian women married
to foreigners to sell their immovable property in
Russia, with the exception of certain kinds of property
which as foreigners they still have no right to possess.
With respect to the enactment concerning the payment of
three years’ dues and export duties by foreigners
wishing to leave their Russian nationality, that law is
abrogated in respect to those countries which shall
adopt a reciprocity in such matters.
III. Abrogating law obliging foreigners to take oaths of
allegiance prior to marriage with Russian women and
requiring them to ask permission of the emperor to contract
marriage with a Russian woman of the orthodox faith.