ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of complaint, with its mighty cultural and emotional components, goes way beyond the limits of an official address to the authorities. According to historical documents, the official complaint was by the fourteenth century regulated by a hard protocol. The bureaucratic form of the complaint in Russia was called chelobitnaia. Analysis of the place of complaint among the whole field of genres of appeals has not been exhausted. Petition as a genre of application to the authorities was delegitimized in the Soviet period and was in some decades illegal. The genre of denunciations is the most studied in the entire Soviet and post-Soviet history of appeals to the authorities. On a number of issues, citizens could equally appeal to the court or to the authorities with their complaints. Complaint as a tool for the restoration of justice has also been explored. Sheila Fitzpatrick argues that complaints in Soviet society executed the function of substitution of rights protection.
