Post-reform Russia Research Articles

CHAIRMEN OF KOSTROMA DISTRICT COURT: THEIR ROLE AND PLACE IN THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM RUSSIAN EMPIRE (1871-1917)

Based on archival and historical materials, the article examines in detail the personalities of the chairmen of the Kostroma District Court for the period 1871–1917. Based on the study of the personnel of Kostroma District Court, the purpose of the study is to analyse the personalities of its chairmen as a special social group and their place in the system of judicial authorities of the Russian Empire. The main stages of their life path, formation and professional development as judicial figures are revealed. Topicality is due to insufficient research of the scientific biographies of the chairmen of the courts of post-reform Russia, as well as the expansion of the source base of research on their personalities. The author introduced new facts about the activities of the chairmen of Kostroma District Court into scientific circulation, which made it possible to recreate the portrait of judicial officials of the second half of the 19th – the early 20th century. Their estate origin, education, well-being, marital status, and official status are investigated. Their role and place in the activities of the judicial bodies of the Russian Empire are noted, including through effective public administration in the field of justice in the context of an increasing crisis of power. The conclusion is made about their personal contribution to the management of the judicial branch of government in Kostroma Province, their professionalism.

The Orthodox parish as a mirror of post-Reform Russia

The article is a review of the monograph by A.L. Beglov, dedicated to the history of the Orthodox parish in pre-revolutionary Russia. The article reveals the place of the monograph’s topics in historiography dedicated to the history of the Orthodox Church, features of the study of this topic at different stages of the development of historical studies. The main aspects of the content of the monograph are elucidated, the features of the theoretical, methodological and source base of the study, its advantages and disadvantages are revealed.

Economic Aspects of the Development of Civil Society Institutions in the Late Imperial Period on the Example of the Smolensk House of Diligence

The study of the history of charity makes it possible to more accurately identify the initial period of the creation of the foundations of civil society in Russia. The article is devoted to the analysis of the activities of the Smolensk House of Diligence as an example of charitable practice in the Russian Empire of the late XIX – early XX century. Using a specific example, the author examines the history of the creation and development of houses of diligence in the regional plane, their role in public life and their influence on the formation of basic narratives of civil society in the imperial reality of that period. Special attention is paid to the analysis of economic aspects within the framework of the Smolensk House of Diligence and their role in the formation of new principles of “non-pedigree” communication in the society of post-reform Russia. The study allows the author to conclude that the study of projects such as the activities of charitable societies through the prism of economic history makes it possible to more fully assess them in the context of the power aspirations of local social groups and the importance of these actors in the formation of civil society in the late Imperial period.

The Moral Principles Guiding the Judge’s Activities (Illustrated by the Life Journey of A. F. Koni)

The year 2024 commemorates the 180th anniversary of the birth of Anatoly Fedorovich Koni (1844–1927), a prominent lawyer, prosecutor, statesman, and public figure in post-reform Russia during the latter half of the 19th century. In this context, it appears fitting to reconsider the legacy of this iconic individual, whose life journey serves as a compelling testament to the challenging process of shaping and advancing the principles upon which the trial currently rests. The aim of this study is to uncover the attributes of the present-day incorporation of A. F. Koni’s moral and ethical principles within the domestic legal framework. Research methods. This study was based on general scientific methods (analysis and synthesis, etc.) and methods of legal science (historical-legal, formal-legal). The study is based on the theoretical works of domestic specialists who have studied the A. F. Koni’s legacy. Study results. The moral concepts of A. F. Koni were formulated in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, wherein the fundamental tenets of administration of justice are enumerated: independence, irremovability, inviolability of judges, and openness of court proceedings. Moreover, the judge’s moral and ethical requirements coined by A. F. Koni were mirrored in the Law of the Russian Federation No. 3132-1 on the Status of Judges in the Russian Federation dated 26 June 1992. The Code of Judicial Ethics adopted in 2012 gains particular importance in the context of the analysis of A. F. Koni’s legacy. This document consistently and comprehensively outlines the principles of professional conduct for judges, as well as their involvement in activities pertaining to the advancement of law and legislation, implementation of legal practice, etc. It appears imperative to conduct further examination of A. F. Koni’s moral and ethical concepts to enhance the existing legislative instruments regulating judicial activities.

Land use practices in the estates of landlords in the late XIX – early XX century

Importance. Unequal resource provision of owners’ property and a significant shortage of peasant hay and forest lands, aggravated by overgrowth and far-earth land, determined the practice of economic relations between landlords and communal farms.Research Methods. The problem of land use in the landlord economy system of post-reform Russia remains one of the most difficult in agrarian historiography. In the writings of prerevolutionary historians, the modernization of estates is highlighted in the writings of conservatives who linked crisis moments in the economy of estates with insufficient state support for owners and liberal figures stratifying savings into labor and capitalist ones. In the works of Soviet historians, the modernization of the latifundia is severely criticized.Results and Discussion. Many landlords, taking advantage of the positive situation in the grain market, expanded production and established a diversified economic complex. These trends were especially strong in estates with sugar and distilleries. However, even during the period of maximum capitalist development of the agricultural sector, the predominant form of land use of Latifundists remained a combination of running their own farm and rental distributions.Conclusion. The transition from a serfdom to a productive economy was associated with the modernization of the field-growing complex of estates, the use of agricultural innovations. However, the active introduction of grass planting by owners and the mechanization of agriculture have long been combined with unproductive methods of agricultural development.

Regulatory and legal foundations of the national education in Russia in the post-reform period (1860-1917)

The article is devoted to the problem of identifying regional peculiarities of the integral process of formation of normative-legal support for the activity of national education in post-reform Russia. The aim of the article is to present the results of the study of the relationship between the accumulation of organizational and legal knowledge and the applied experience of the implementation of this process at the national and regional levels. Objectives: to characterize the conditions that influenced the formation of normative-legal support for the activity of national schools as an independent direction of nation-state building in the educational system of post-reform Russia. The research was based on the principle of historicism, methods of analysis and comparison, historical-systemic, sociological methods and the method of content analysis. The analysis of the main normative-legal acts that directly or indirectly influenced the national education development demonstrates a rather high professionalism of the developers of the basic ideas of the national policy, which are characterized by external positive motivation. The authors confirmed the hypothesis of the study that in the period under study the normative and legal foundations for the establishment of the national education in Russia were laid, which played a determining role in the birth and development of educational institutions with a national component in Yenisei province. This historical experience was not wasted, but was taken into account in the next attempt to solve the problems of nation-state building and national education in the first decades of Soviet power, which determined the direction and nature of our further research activities from the position of determining the possibility of its use in modern conditions.

Trends and dynamics of modernization changes in the agrarian system of post-reform Russia

The subject of this article is the agrarian policy of Russia, conducted after the abolition of serfdom. Specifically, we are talking about the modernization of agriculture in Russia at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries. It is no secret that, despite the lingering remnants of feudal-serfdom relations, the peasant reform of 1861 gave a noticeable impetus not only to the development of agriculture, but also to the economic development of Russia as a whole for several decades. The object of the study is the analysis of the state of agriculture in Russia, the level of development of which largely determined the state of the economy as a whole. The authors place special emphasis on the comparison of the American and Prussian ways of developing the agrarian system, as well as on the analysis of P.A. Stolypin's policy. The article presents two ways of developing the agrarian system – the Prussian and the American. If the Prussian way was typical for Russian agriculture in the first two decades after 1861, the American way became a reality in the early twentieth century. The novelty of the conducted research lies in the fact that in modern historiography there is no consensus on the question of the correlation of types of agrarian evolution in Russia. In the "old", serf-like areas, of course, the "Prussian" way of development prevailed. The "American" way of developing capitalism in rural areas, or rather, its potential, has become a historical reality where the level of development of landed proprietorship was low or it was absent as such. Despite the fact that the reforms initiated by P. A. Stolypin were curtailed, the trace of Stolypin's evolution of peasant farming on capitalist principles turned out to be quite noticeable in the agrarian policy of some regions. So, in those provinces where the remnants of serfdom did not have a significant impact on the socio-economic development of the village, there was a lot of free land and there was an active process of colonization, the colonists created separate farms. Modernization was actively underway in these regions: the most developed, mature forms of capitalism in agriculture emerged – using large capital, mass wage labor and improved tools and machines. It is no coincidence that after 1917, bran and farmsteads often existed until complete collectivization.

Невыученные уроки истории сквозь призму биографии Валериана Осинского – человека и революционера

The article is a review of the monograph by historian O.A. Milevsky on the ideology of Russian political terror by revolutionary populist Valerian Andreevich Osinsky. Based on a thorough historiographical analysis, it is shown that the book is the first special comprehensive study of the life path of Valerian Osinsky in world historical science. The non-trivial title of the monograph, "Steps to the Scaffold", and the competent structural composition of the book are emphasized. The methodological basis of the monographic research is analyzed and its interdisciplinary nature is shown. Special attention is paid to the productivity of the psychohistorical concepts of Eric Erickson and Lloyd De Moze. Using the example of the hero of the monograph in four chapters-"steps", the author consistently analyzes the typical and specific ways of formation of the Russian youth of the 1870s, which turn it into an irreconcilable opposition to the autocratic regime. The main attention is paid to the generational conflict between the "fathers", the highest personification of which was the state, and the "children", that is, the radical youth. This conflict is shown as a reflection of the contradictions of two eras: the outgoing and the upcoming. The new data presented in the monograph once again emphasize the fact of uncompromising confrontation between the government and society in post-reform Russia. Attention is drawn to the fact that in Osinsky's life, as if in a mirror, the moral problems of the correlation of the purpose and means of political action were reflected in the absence of dialogue between the warring parties. When studying the activities of the Executive Committee of the Russian Social Revolutionary Party created by Valerian Osinsky, it is noted that the author raised a fundamental and urgent question about the permissibility of political violence in the struggle against the authorities in the absence of legal opportunities for citizens to protect human rights against administrative arbitrariness. Based on the biography of Osinsky presented in the monograph, the cruel lessons of history that have not yet been learned by Russian society are formulated.

Protest sentiments of the Russian peasantry at the beginning of the XX century as a factor of destructive influence on the stable development of society

The article is devoted to a protest sentiment of Russian peasants as one of the problems of society in Russian Empire at the beginning of XX century. The Russian peasantry influenced the path of development of the country objectively as being the majority of the population of Russia. The protest sentiments of the Russian peasants were one of the important elements that influenced the destructive processes in the Russian Empire. The article draws attention to the motivation of the peasant protest and raises the question of the historical responsibility of the peasantry for the revolutionary events of 1917. The authors noted that the traditions of communalism, collective ownership of land, a “moral” rather than a market economy, and the rejection of individualism among peasants were in conflict with the modernization processes that began in post-reform Russia, based on opposing values. In the 1880–1890s an unprecedented industrial boom begins and, as a result, a significant numerical reduction of the peasantry due to the city’s need for labor and the mechanization of agricultural labor. The peasant community also had to become an inevitable victim of the modernization process. The authors concluded, that disruption of the centuries-old way of life became a natural source of protest reaction from the peasantry beginning at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries. Stolypin's government briefly restored stability in the country. The Great War aggravated the existing problems and the protest of the peasants destroyed the old society.

Prosecutorial supervision bodies in the law enforcement system of the North Caucasus in post-Reform Russia of the late 19th century

Prosecutorial supervision bodies in the law enforcement system of the North Caucasus in post-Reform Russia of the late 19th century

Факторы усложнения структуры драматического героя («На всякого мудреца довольно простоты» А. Н. Островского)

The article argues that the historical factor of complicating the structure of the dramatic character is dominant. During the work on the comedy “Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man,” N. A. Ostrovskii comprehended the new hero of post-reform Russia in the 1860s in the context of the opposition of the general (folk) and the personal in the transitional eras of Russian history. The literary factor in understanding a new hero relies on the experience of “eternal” images, such as Chatsky and Molchalin. According to the author of the article, their combination in the image of Glumov led to the creation of a holistic and original character with an expanded range of properties, including opposite ones. The author of the article concludes that the search for internal connections and attempts to identify transition situations between them determined the stages of the playwright’s work on the comedy from the first draft notes to the final text. For the first time, the article identifies new pretexts in the historical and literary context of the comedy of 1868 (at different stages of its writing).

Cadet Ladies

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of women in the Constitutional Democratic Party from its very foundation up to the preparation of the organization for the elections to the Constituent Assembly in 1917. The author seeks to reconstruct a socio-cultural portrait of “cadet ladies”, to find out the factors that could have influenced their entry into the party and to characterize their activities in the organization. Special attention is paid to the position in the party hierarchy that women could occupy, as well as to the opportunities for advancement in it. Cadet ladies were mainly responsible for maintaining the organizationʹs welfare, housekeeping, logistics, events and charitable institutions, but at the same time were actively involved in key decision-making, although they did not have the same political rights as men. Moreover, women gained the right to vote after the February Revolution, the number of Cadet ladies in key party positions increased dramatically, which confirms their importance to constitutional democrats. Characteristic features of the socio-cultural portrait of the women of the Peopleʹs Freedom Party are also highlighted. Cadet ladies grew up in post-reform Russia, when social and economic changes in the country and society had a huge impact on the process of womenʹs emancipation. The opportunity to receive a quality education, acquire a profession and work, to choose a spouse out of mutual respect and similarity of views — all these served as factors for acquiring the subjectivity that later allowed the cadet ladies to become the political phenomenon discussed in this article.

Ufa ladies’ fashion (formation of provincial fashion industry in post-reform Russia)

The process of formation of one of the branches of commercial and industrial activity – the fashion industry, which included the sale and production of goods for women in the Russian province in the 1860s–1880s – is considered. The subject of study is gender history, raising the status of a woman who becomes an independent owner or manager of a business. In the post-reform period, the rapid development of trade in women’s goods began for representatives of the "middle" and "upper" classes of Ufa, the capital of a separate province that emerged in 1865. Due to the transport isolation of the region, only during the summer navigation period the river shipping company operated, the delivery of "fashionable" goods from the capitals and abroad through Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan sharply increased the cost of products. Therefore, an independent system for the production of women’s clothing, hats, shoes and even jewelry is being developed in Ufa. It was practically the only purely female business in the city, covering about a third to a quarter of all establishments. Either the owners or managers who actually managed the business were women. Initially, the fashion industry of Ufa as an entertainment for wealthy officials and merchants who dreamed of breaking out of everyday life, quickly transformed into a serious business, acquiring the features of small-scale production with a considerable number of employees. Women’s entrepreneurship in the fashion industry was distinguished by a higher socio-cultural level; noblewomen (officials) and merchant women made up 2/3 of the owners of establishments, while the production of men’s clothing and shoes was dominated by the bourgeoisie. This situation persisted for about 30 years, until the railroad arrived in Ufa in 1888. The influx of cheaper imports has dramatically changed the situation.
 For citation: Rodnov M.I. Ufa ladies’ fashion (formation of provincial fashion industry in post-reform Russia). From History and Culture of Peoples of the Middle Volga Region. 2023. vol.13, no.4, pp.49–68. https://doi.org/10.22378/2410-0765.2023-13-4.49-68 (In Russian)

Engineer K.O. De-Skrokhovsky: conservative versus bureaucracy

The history of discussions around economic issues and railway construction in post-reform Russia has not been deprived of the attention of modern researchers. At the same time, even in special publications on this topic, the name of one of its most prominent participants, engineer Konstantin Osipovich De-Skrokhovsky, is practically not found. This name is now almost completely forgotten; even the year of birth is missing from brief dictionary references about it. Meanwhile, the “intellectual biography” of this figure is extremely interesting in the context of studying the history of economics and railway business in the last quarter of the 19th century: it helps to better understand the socio-political context of the process of “nationalization” of railways that was then beginning. But it is not without significance (and in this context has never been considered by researchers) for a researcher of social thought in the second half of the 19th century, for understanding the history of both right-wing salons and the struggle of court groups of this period.

System-forming mission of culture: Russian civilization at the turn of the era

The article is a review of the book by M.K. Gorshkov, S.N. Komissarov and O.I. Karpukhin At the Turn of the Era: Social Dynamics of Russian Culture (Moscow: FCTAS RAS, 2022. 703 p.). The book is of great theoretical and social-political significance and outlines new horizons for the development of sociological science. The authors emphasize the strategic role of culture as the core of the Russian society and its importance for successful social modernization and economic growth. The book provides new concepts and theoretical-methodological approaches to the analysis of the social-cultural reality in post-reform Russia and defines the field of sociology of culture as the entire human world in its specific spatial-temporal coordinates, taken in dynamics that reveals the intercultural interaction between the past, present and future. Culture is presented in the book as an environment for the preservation and transmission of spiritual heritage, which contributes to the ‘immunity’ from the destabilizing information impact. The authors consider the issues of the social dynamics of the Russian culture in the late 20th - early 21st century on the data of many sociological surveys, conduct a social-cultural analysis of organizational, structural and qualitative changes in the cultural activities of the population and in the artistic-creative process, present a comprehensive picture of the social dynamics of the Russian culture at the turn of the era, including the state of the spiritual-value motivation, the social-cultural nature of transformations and their social-cultural consequences.

Provincial Legal Culture of the Northern Peasantry in the Context of the Implementation of Bourgeois Reforms of the Second Half of the XIX Century in Russia

The subject of the study is the legal culture of the northern peasantry of post-reform Russia in the period from 1861 to 1917. The implementation of the bourgeois reforms of the second half of the XIX century was due to the absence of private feudal dependence of the majority of the northern peasantry and bright regional aspects of the peasant community. Under the influence of the history of settlement, occupation, climatic and socio-economic conditions of existence, as well as state regulation of the peasant community in the European North, the provincial legal culture of the northern peasantry was formed. Through the prism of bourgeois reforms carried out in the second half of the XIX century, the article analyzes its qualitative state and external manifestation. The study uses a formal legal method, as well as a multidimensional statistical analysis by identifying, interpreting the content and interrelationships of semantic units of protocols of parish courts, regulatory legal acts, norms of customary law. Based on the understanding of archival material and information from pre-revolutionary periodicals introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, conclusions are substantiated about a sufficiently high level of legal culture of the peasantry and the readiness of the population to be included in the legal culture of Russian society common to all estates. The study of the main results of peasant, judicial and zemstvo reforms in the northern provinces leads to the conclusion about the inconsistency and inefficiency of the policy of the government of the Russian Empire in the field of the peasant question, the unresolved nature of which led to problems not only economic, but also political. The contradictory nature of the reforms and their uneven implementation have slowed down democratic processes and violated the principle of equality of all before the law.

А. А. Фет и Д. А. Столыпин: диалог о крестьянском землевладении (по материалам неопубликованных писем)

The article presents an analytical review of D. A. Stolypin’s unpublished letters to A. A. Fet, dated back to 1889–1892. The article considers the relationship between the authors, defines the reasons for their bonding and further friendly communication. Discussing the issues of agricultural development in Russia is central in Stolypin’s letters to Fet, both correspondents having dedicated opinion articles to these questions. They were likeminded people: they saw the right way of the development of the post-reform Russia in destroying communal ownership of land and creating farmstead establishments, in switching the whole country to the entrepreneurship. Stolypin’s letters to Fet help restore the creative history of the brochure “Agricultural sketches” (1998) written in collaboration. The brochure consists of three articles: two written by Fet (“On the article ‘Family plots of land’” and “The answer to the piece of Vestnik Evropy (European Bulletin)”) and one written by Stolypin (“Some words on the household and economic organization of peasants about A. A. Fet’s article”). The brochure is consolidated by the theme unity – a conversation about the issues of agricultural development in Russia on account of the governmental decree of July 13, 1889, and discussions this decree caused in periodical press. Fet was certain that the laws of life are unalterable, therefore, the obsolete community ownership would be inevitably replaced by partial peasants’ land ownership; this process would be accompanied by the stratification within peasantry into “rich peasants” and “day laborers”, by the increase in the number of rented homesteads and the share of private households. Fet and Stolypin considered this as the only way where the agriculture of Russia would have an opportunity for future economic prosperity.

Горничные, денщики, прачки и другая прислуга в мире российской повседневности рубежа XIX – XX веков

The article reviews a multi-authored monograph titled Domestic Servants in the Russian Empire in the Second Half of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries. The book comprehensively investigates the issue of domestic servants in post-reform Russia. It studies a great number of sources, contains interesting factual material and comes to some theoretical conclusions, as well as makes a serious contribution to understanding the social transformations in Russia. The review maintains that the investigated issues are highly relevant, since domestic service is in great demand in today’s Russia, though remaining as poorly regulated as it was in the early 20th century.

Features of communal ownership in post-reform Russia

Features of communal ownership in post-reform Russia

Modern approaches to managing the development of the Arctic zone

The issue of the development of hydrocarbon deposits in the Arctic zone belongs to the category of strategic and urgent. Its solution, in fact, is the use of a chance, the implementation of which would allow to overcome the single-industry specialization of the country, reduce the degree of raw materials orientation and solve structural and technological problems to restore the industrial subsystem. Overcoming these difficulties can be accomplished by revaluing the institutions of post-reform Russia and adjusting them in terms of the synthesis of commercial and statistic approaches to industrial policy. The institutional way of research is new (although it currently has wide variability). The authors, in the form of a worker, chose a statement by L. Thévenot regarding the theory of agreements, which states the presence of seven subsystems (“worlds”) in society that participants in economic transactions encounter. In this context, the purpose of the study is to modernize the management model of the Arctic zone, taking into account both the traditions of institutionalism with its ideas about the strong influence of management institutions on the economy, and the directions of new institutionalism with its theory of agreements. At the same time, as a hypothesis, it is noted that achieving the goal involves analyzing the control object taking into account its basic characteristics, reflecting the real fundamental principle in a specific subsystem. The institutional method of research makes it substantively to answer the question of the role of the state in industrial policy: to determine the nature of the model and the degree of intervention, taking into account the features of the functionality of the management object, its belonging to a certain subsystem, role, geopolitical significance, cycle duration and degree of fusion with other participants in inter-economic relations. According to the theory of agreements, the Arctic zone (as well as other regions of the Far North), according to the authors, belongs to the number of management objects that are organically poorly compatible with universal norms of market behavior. Based on the nature of economic relations in the Arctic zone, we note that subsystems of industrial, ecological, traditional and creative activities are immanent for it. Conclusions are drawn that the provisions of the theory of agreements are a convincing argument for an institutional view of the Arctic zone. Therefore, the solution of the issue of transformation of the economic model of the development of hydrocarbon deposits in the Arctic zone in the context of the proposed synthesis of commercial and statistic approaches is of particular importance.