Социально-экономический портрет депутата Дворянского собрания во второй половине XIX – начале XX века

Abstract

Creation in the 1990s of the general noble public organization and regional noble assemblies has inevitably raised the question of possibility of reviving class traditions, of social base and status of these public organizations, of their continuity as a social institution, of similarities and differences with corporate noble organizations of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. The article attempts to create a general socio-economic portrait of noble assembly deputy and candidate for deputy at the turn of the 20th century. Despite extensive historiography on various aspects of the history of nobility, this topic has not been properly covered in the national and foreign scholarship. Meanwhile, creation of the collective portrait of nobility is necessary for understanding characteristics of organization and functioning of estate institutions. Comparative analysis of the records of service deposited in the archives of the St. Petersburg and Samara gubernias, data on the nobility of the Kazan gubernia has made possible to identify distinctive features of the deputy corps representatives on metropolitan and provincial levels of noble organizations. The use of prosopographic and comparative methods has made it possible to characterize the deputy corps in the regions, to reconstruct its collective portrait. Comparative analysis has been conducted on the basis of the number of years since joining the estate organization’s service and that in the office of deputy. Biographical information on the youngest and the oldest deputies is presented. The characteristic of property and family status is given. The educational level of the deputies, as well as their relationship with law is highlighted. The authors illustrate the statistics on the most important comparison criteria with striking examples. On the basis of historical reconstruction, the authors can argue that position of a deputy for nobility could have been the first or the last stage in the nobleman’s career. Distinctive feature of provincial deputy in comparison with metropolitan one is his property status. There is also an absence of the “deputy dynasties” trend in the deputy corps of the St. Petersburg gubernia, which was quite characteristic of provincial regions. The results of the study can be used to characterize the composition and activities of corporate noble organizations in the regions and in the Russian Empire as a whole. Further prospects for the study of the subject lie in the comprehensive study of the institute of noble corporations.