Urbanization and Autocracy: Russian Urban Development in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Russian urban life in the first half of the nineteenth century was marked by two dominant features. Tsarist statutes and edicts enveloped public life in a web of restrictions and impositions, from street plans to passport rules, from municipal budgetary obligations to administrative surveillance. At the same time, economic hardship and social instability pervaded the urban community, while the corruption and petty abuses of state and municipal officials undermined imperial regulations. The contrast between the imperious reglementation by the central government and the squalor and corruption of urban life afforded rich material to satirists, of whom Gogol is only the best known. Cities and towns occupied a special place in both the political and the social history of the time. Though containing only a small proportion (less than 10 percent in 1850) of the population and generating a minor share of the nation's wealth, they played a key role in the expansion of state administration, many serving as the seats of provincial and district offices. Furthermore, they enjoyed the remarkable privilege of municipal self-government. The most obvious sign of imperial attention was the imposition of classical facades on public and private buildings, visible manifestations of state order and grandeur (paradnost'). Architectural styles changed as the years passed, from the rococo structures of the mid-eighteenth century to the severe neo-classical buildings of the early nineteenth. The basic features of the plan remained intact. Symmetry and uniformity prevailed, and the needs of the population mattered little by comparison. Alongside the monumental public buildings, the inhabitants took on the proportions of dwarfs. In addition, cities enjoyed a prominent place in the nation's commerce, which was encouraged by the state as an important source of tax revenues. Certain urban areas gradually became centers of migration for rural and urban workers searching for new sources of income. For all these reasons-political, economic, and social-conditions in Russia's towns and cities provide valuable evidence concerning both the