Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 1, 1873

[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.,

ANDREW BUCHANAN.

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 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.

J. MICHELL.

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, 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.