Abstract
The article deals with the noble guardianship, an estate institution founded by Catherine II, which successfully existed until 1917. The purpose of the article is to reveal its functions and find out the measures taken by the state to modernize it. Guardianship became a flexible means of controlling the status of the estates of the privileged class. The state strove for estates with the loss of their owner to remain in the family and under the control of the guardianship and noble corporation, materially ensuring the upbringing and education of young nobles, potential military and state managers. It disciplined the owners of estates to productive management, not to resort to extravagance, as well as suspended the brutality of the landlords regarding the exploitation of the peasantry, the main tax payer and source of supply of soldiers for the army. In the second half of the 19th–beginning of the 20th centuries guardianship became more active, which is explained by attempts to use it to preserve estates during the transition to market relations. Losing their dominant position, the nobility used guardianship to preserve state identity, protect property, and the state – to collect funds from indebted owners.
Published Version
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