BOURGEOIS PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE NOVGOROD PROVINCE OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIX – EARLY XX CENTURIES

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of urban governance reforms in Russia in the second half of the 19th century, marked by the emergence of a new class of bourgeois public administration. Based on the analysis of the City Regulations of 1870 and 1892, the author gives a description of the practice of creating estate bodies in the towns and settlements of Novgorod province and their functions. The archival documents allow the author to come to the conclusion about the true goals of the government, which sought to transfer responsibility to the urban population for in-kind and monetary duties, social support for fellow citizens in need, for urban improvement and trade. The article describes the attempts of bodies of estate self-government to defend their independence in the face of public authorities, protect the rights of bourgeois, reduce their tax obligations. The analysis of documents containing materials on elections to bodies of estate self-government is of particular interest. They testify the distrust of the population in the management system, which was actually created not by the townspeople themselves, but was implanted by the provincial administration. The author argues that during this period it was precisely the bodies of estate, and not city self-government that carried the main burden of performing financial and economic functions. Moreover, according to the law, they were deprived of real authority to manage the collected taxes and urban real estate. The dissatisfaction of the bourgeoisie with the form of self-government provided by the state was expressed in attempts on its own initiative to abolish class self-government in individual counties of the province. Despite the mistakes in organizing estate self-government, by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries considerable experience of local self-government was accumulated in Novgorod province, which subsequently formed the basis for the formation of modern municipal authority.

Keywords: elections; city administration in Russia in the 18th century; history of legislation; Novgorod province; self-government.

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Author

Yuliya P. Stepanova – Graduate Student, Department of Theory of State and Law, Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University, Veliky Novgorod, Russia.
E-mail: yulia4444@inbox.ru.

For citation:
Stepanova Yu.P. Bourgeois Public Administration in the Novgorod Province of the Second Half of the XIX – Early XX Centuries // BENEFICIUM. 2020. No. 1 (34). pp. 72-85. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.34680/BENEFICIUM.2020.1(34).72-85.