Traditions Of The Town Self-Governance In The Activities Of The Swedish-Novgorod Administration

Abstract

The article is concerned with the nature and elements of Russian town self-governance that existed in Veliky Novgorod under the Swedish rule in the period called the Time of Troubles. The electiveness of local public officials for performing of intertown administrative duties was quite common in Northern Russia and was preserved by the Swedes as an element of a specific management model as part of the Russian-Swedish alliance of the early 17th century. Such practice was not typical for all Russian administrations of that time, as evidenced by the comparison of the Novgorod town government with the order established by False Dmitry II, who significantly downsized the local self-governance in the regions under his control and concentrated overall authority in foreign bailiffs’ and decemvirs’ holdfast. This study highlights a question of the main local officials in Novgorod under the Swedish rule, especially, pjatikoneckij starostas (five-division-elders) and sworn men, their origin and official duties. Using of the record material from the Novgorod occupation archive from the Swedish state archive (Stockholm) and the collection of S. Solovyov (Collection 124) from the Archive of the Saint Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences let us to confirm the election to town lower and middle ranking positions only Novgorodians and determine their duties. Sources allow saying about the effectiveness of the actions of Novgorod self-governance under the Swedes, as well as about the striving of Novgorodians to cooperate with representatives of the higher management.