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Petition from a Russian noblewoman to Empress Catherine II, 1768
INTRODUCTION
Throughout her reign, Catherine the Great encouraged the population (except for serfs) to petition her regarding their grievances and concerns. Nobles were allowed to petition her directly; townspeople could petition her through the governor of their province. The topics of the petitions ranged widely, but not infrequently they included issues of domestic affairs, like this one from Aleksandra Ivanovna Krotkaia complaining about the behavior of her husband and asking for a legal separation from her, which would allow her to maintain some of her property for her own maintenance.
This petition comes from Aleksandra Ivanovna Krotkaia, the wife of Life-Guards Captain Vasilii Fedorovich Karamyshev and the daughter of Ivan Krotkii. It addresses the following points:

1. In 1762 I was given in marriage by my father, court councillor Ivan Egorovich Krotkii, to the husband named above.

2. Prior to our wedding, my husband did not have the slightest affection and love for me (as became apparent from his subsequent behavior), but his sole aim in marrying me was to exercise his rights as my husband and to enjoy the landed estate which my father deigned to grant me. That is exactly what happened: after we married, he not only did not leave his mistress (his serf girl Daria Moiseeva, who had been such prior to our marriage), but with no shame or sense of decency, and to vex and humiliate me, he treated her like his legal wife. And all the time he constantly subjected me to every conceivable mistreatment.

3. No matter how insulting such behavior may have been, I tried to conceal my feelings from my husband, and always sought to perform the duties of love and respect that are required of me by law. I continued to hope that, by being patient and by submitting completely to his will and wishes, even if I could not elicit mutual love toward me (in accordance with our marital union), then at least I could make him feel pity for my condition. But all this only made him even more brutal and unfeeling. Thus, in spite of everything, he subjected me to even greater mistreatment: he was not content to have the serf girl occupy my place as his legal wife, but to satisfy his wild lust and passion, went to my estate [where he] forcibly took wives from husbands and daughters from fathers (including under age girls) and raped them. I can prove all this with incontrovertible evidence.

4. For the four harrowing years that I lived with him, the words simply do not exist to describe all the vexation and disappointment that I experienced at my husband's hands. So that my patience is now fully exhausted. No matter how much I wished to remain patient, I could see that I lack the strength to restrain his gross misconduct and therefore—under the pretext of visiting my mother—had to leave my husband.

So may Your Imperial Majesty have the Most-Holy Governing Synod accept my petition with regard to the adultery committed by my husband with his serf girl Daria Moiseeva and with others, and for the unendurable maltreatment. And order that I the undersigned be separated from him and be permitted to live a peaceful secure life until the end of my days on my estate. My husband is presently now at his village in Moscow District, in the village of Nikolskoe.

Most merciful Empress, I ask Your Imperial Majesty to have a decision made on my petition. August, 1768. (For submission to the Most Holy Governing Synod.) [Signed: Aleksandra Ivanovna Krotkaia].

Source:  Gregory L. Freeze, From Supplication to Revolution: A Documentary Social History of Imperial Russia (Oxford, 1988).