Bankruptcy. Forms And Methods. Historical Facts. Part I
The world Organization of Labor specifies that the debt slavery continues to exist and nowadays in India, Pakistan, China, many states of Africa and Latin America. For example, in Niger similar practice has been recognized to be illegal only in 2003 — by then up to 8 % of the country population was in debt slavery, and in many cases grandsons and great-grandsons continued to pay the debts made by their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. In India up to 40 million persons are in such dependence. Often enough unlucky debtors went to prison. In the USA this practice has been cancelled on the federal level only in 1833, in British Empire — in 1869 (nevertheless, the inaccurate debtor could be sentenced to imprisonment for the term of up to six weeks). It is little-known that the modern American state Georgia was initially created, including, for the purpose of resettlement on these lands the poor debtors from English debt prisons.
In medieval Russia traditional “beating back” — in the literal meaning of this word — debts was such procedure unpleasant for the debtor as ‘pravegeue’ . The accused was tied to a column on a market square and was beaten by sticks on calves of feet until he agreed to liquidate a debt. Such process of collecting of a debt could proceed long time as the main terminator here was firmness of the subjected going under execution. The duration of ‘pravegeue’ depended and on a required amount of debt. Usually for 100 rubles the debtor was on ‘pravegeue’ for a month. The object of the execution was as the respondent, as his guarantor, or people dependent on the respondent (peasants and lackeys).
The principal kind of punishment of the borrowers during New time was the debt prison. In Russia it is known from time immemorial and has existed up to 1917. Its inhabitants included even the celebrities. For example, the known literary critic and poet Apollo Grigoriev (1822—1864) has visited in his time this gloomy place, and not only one time: once in 1861 and two times in 1864. A known portrayer of ordinary life Moscow Vladimir Giljarovsky (1853—1935) has described debt prison as a place which inhabitants were sympathized even with its security guards. Moreover, there was a way of especially refined mockery at prisoners of the debt prison (the hole) from outside creditors. As, the prisoners were kept at the expense of their accusers there were situations when the last stopped to pay their supplies and those joyfully came back home. However, this pleasure was premature. As soon as the debtor got a job and started to receive the income, he was again brought to the places “not so far away” as the prison administration received the means for his further supplies.
Almost all of us still remember the times when it was possible to buy a thing even if one had not enough funds. Loan was a simple way out. No wonder that today many of those who applied for a loan, are looking around for how to avoid bankruptcy.
Those people who managed to get into the condition when their expenses exceed their earnings, definitely should search for ways to avoid bankruptcy.
Being in such condition it is wise to use any tools to get over it. Take advantage of such unique opportunity as the Internet technologies. Using them at full capacity will give great results. Working with search engines, forums, social networks,web sites one can learn a number of tips to avoid bankruptcy and a great deal of other respective info. Also subscribing to RSS feed on this blog will assist to be aware of new publications and tips on the topic.
