Архивные документы о разработке нормативно-правовой базы производства военной продукции на горных заводах Урала в первой половине XIX века

Abstract

The article characterizes archival sources on creation and improvement of legal framework governing the manufacture of military goods in the mining industry of the Urals in the first half of the 19th century. The chronological framework of the study is determined by the fact that it was during this period that special committees and commissions of military and mining departments representatives were preparing rules and instructions to govern the production and acceptance of military products. The development of legal and regulatory framework for military contracts is one of the least studied issues in the history of the Russian military economy. The sources are fragmentary; they are stored in the fonds of both federal and regional archives. Therefore, the purpose of the work is to identify archival materials on normative work of military and mining authorities in the field of military contracts. In the federal archives, documents devoted to this problem are stored in the fonds of central bodies of military and mining administration of the first half of the 19th century. The Berg Collegium materials from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) and those of the Mining Department from the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA) enable the study of the activities of committees created in 1804 and 1808 for the development of military products acceptance procedure in the state-owned factories of the Urals. Participation of the military command and control bodies in the preparation of these normative acts can be traced in the documents from the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA). Moreover, the correspondence of military and mining authorities testifies of unsatisfactory fulfillment of military contracts by mining plants, which was the reason for creation of rules for acceptance of military products and their processing. The fonds of the federal archives also store documents on the Artillery and Mining Departments activities in improving regulatory framework in the 1820s–40s. New rules for the acceptance of guns, shells, and metals were outlined and approved in 1831 and 1846. In the fonds of regional governing bodies and industries from the State Archive of the Sverdlovsk Region (GASO), documents have been identified on the development of rules for military goods acceptance procedure, their delivery to mining plants, use in manufacture, military receiving clerks’ activities. Materials of the GASO fond of the chief artillery inspector at the factories of the Urals provide data on his participation in the work of the committee created in the 1820s.