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Russian Provincial Governors at the End of the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. E. Mosse
W. E. Mosse
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
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Type
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The Historical Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 225 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 Urusov, S. D., Memoirs of a Russian governor (London, 1908), p. 113Google Scholar.

2 For the following see Harper, Samuel N., ‘Exceptional measures in Russia’, Russian Review, I, 4 (1912), 92Google Scholarff.

3 Riha, T., ‘Constitutional developments in Russia’, in Stavrou, T. G. (ed.), Russia under the last tsar (Minneapolis, 1969), pp. 97Google Scholarf.

4 Originally, this power was given only where a state of reinforced protection had been declared. After 1905, it could be exercised on certain occasions even when that state had been lifted. Local officials, Harper wrote in 1912, had ‘assumed practically legislative powers through the exercise of this ordinance power’. Harper, ‘Exceptional measures’, p. 101.

5 Urusov, Memoirs, p. 3.

6 Hoetzsch, O., Russland (Berlin, 1917), p. 215Google Scholar. see also Leroy-Beaulieu, A., L'empire des Tsars et les Russes (4th ednParis, 1897), 11, 98Google Scholar.

7 Pares, B., My Russian memoirs (London, 1931), pp. 71Google Scholarf.

8 Alexinsky, G., Modern Russia (London and Leipzig, 1913), pp. I79Google Scholarf.

9 Robbins, Richard G. Jr, ‘Choosing the Russian governors: the professionalization of the gubernatorial corps’, The Slavonic and East European Review, LVIII, 4 (10 1980), 541–60Google Scholar.

10 Ibid. p. 557.

11 ‘The material presented in this essay will show that towards the end of the nineteenth century, the MVD increasingly picked governors from among those men whose education and previous service had prepared them to handle the responsibilities of their office. While favouritism and patronage continued to play a role in determining advancement to gubernatorial positions, training and expertise became ever more important in decisions on appointments’ (ibid. p. 542).

12 ‘From 1879 to 1903 some 195 individuals held governorships in European Russia. I have collected biographical and career information on 141 of these or just over 70 per cent. The major sources for the data were the service records…’ (Ibid. p. 547, no. 24.)

13 Almanakh sovremennykh russkikh gosudarstvennykh deyateli (St Petersburg, 1897).

14 Governors of Polish, Caucasian and Siberian provinces, with the possible exception of the last, formed largely self-contained service networks and will be considered later.

15 The career of the solitary non-noble, if hardly typical, is worth sketching: N. A. Zinoviev had been born in 1835 the son of a grammar school teacher in the provincial city of Yaroslavl. After an early private education, he completed his studies at the Lazarev Institute of eastern languages. He then joined the corps of surveyors. After taking part in a scientific expedition to the Altai Mountains, he was sent abroad for two years to complete his studies. On his return in 1866 he entered the Grodno provincial office for peasant affairs. Three years later he became commissioner for peasant affairs attached to the office of the governor-general for the North-Western provinces in Vil'na. In 1876 he became chief administrator of state domains in Vil'na province. Six years later, he was appointed governor of the province of Suwalki (Poland). After a further two years, he was translated to Petrokov, also in Poland. So far, his career had not been wholly untypical of that of a governor in the Polish provinces. However, most unusually, Zinoviev in 1887 was appointed governor of Tula. In 1893 he moved to Mogilev. Nor was this the end of his career. During 1902–3 Zinoviev would be one of Pleve's assistant ministers of the interior.

16 In Russia a title, of course, did not indicate legal status. Thus two counts describe themselves at potomslvennye dvoriane, two princes and one count as simple dvoriane. There is however a good deal of evidence to suggest that titled members of the class did in fact constitute something of an aristocracy. On the other hand, the aristocracy was not confined to titled families only. For the concept of the Znat (the ‘Families’) see Leroy-Beaulieu, L' empire des Tsars, 11, 335f.

17 These were members of families recorded in the provincial registers of the nobility, the rodoslovnye knigi, and hence of ancient lineage.

18 Although they are untypical, their careers are not without interest. V. I. Sosnovsky was born in 1836 into a dvorianstvo family. In 1858, after graduating from Kiev university with a medical degree, he entered government service as a junior District (okrug) doctor. In 1866 he transferred to administrative employment in the then kingdom of Poland as a specialist on peasant affairs. In 1878 he became vice-governor of Poltava, two years later of Kharkov. In 1886, relatively late in his career, he was appointed governor of Smolensk.

D. N. Batiushkov, born in 1830 into a family of dvoriane, studied mathematics and physics at Moscow university. In 1849 he entered the service in the Chancery of the Moscow military governor. From there he transferred to the Moscow office of the state bank and, in 1865, to the Kazan' branch of the state control. He then served in the state control office in St Petersburg. In 1882 he was appointed governor of Podolia, in 1884 of Jekaterinoslav and in 1890 of Grodno. V. A. Levashev came from a family of potomstvennye dvoriane in the province of Tula. On completing a course in natural sciences at Moscow university he moved (in 1872) to Munich and Paris to study geology. Family circumstances however forced him to abandon a proposed academic career. In 1876 he entered the department of agriculture and rural industries. Four years later he resigned from the service. For the next ten years he filled a number of elective offices for the nobility of his native uezd, where in 1885 he was elected marshal. In 1890 he became vice-governor of Chernigov, three years later of Vladimir. In 1894 at 44 he was appointed governor of Vitebsk.

19 Pares, My Russian memoirs, pp. 7Iff.

20 Ed. Zaionchkovski, P. A., Dnevnik gosudarstvennovo sekretarya A.A. Polovtsova (Moskva, 1966), 11, 448Google Scholar.

21 Rising from the relatively common title of kamerjunker through the more exalted kamerger to the exclusive gofmeister and the exceptional shtalmeister, jegermeister and tseremonienmeister. For military men, there was the coveted title of fligel-adjutant.

22 As regards the apparent exceptions, the governor of Simbirsk, significantly, claimed ‘ancient’ dvorianstvo lineage, while the one of semi-industrialized Tula became first kamerjunker and later kamerger.

23 Seventeen of the fifty governors were former uezd marshals (three, prior to appointment as vice-governors or governors, had served as provincial marshals). In addition, a number of governors whose service had been primarily in central administration or local administrative offices had briefly been uezd marshals. So had one marshal whose career was, in fact, entirely military.

24 The seventeen included five potomstvennye dvoriane and two aristocrats. Ten had court titles, with the majority attaining the rank of kamerger.

25 On a twelfth, Prince N. N. Trubetskoy, there is insufficient information. He may well have been an administrator rather than a soldier.

26 A third (Gasenkampf) transferred to the guards from an infantry unit.

27 Another (Surovtsev) had transferred to the cavalry from artillery service.

28 See p. 228, n. 18.

29 For the career of Zinoviev, see p. 227, n. 15.

30 This included all the men with non-Russian names.

31 A striking exception is Rzhevsky, who is a marginal member of this group. Rzhevsky was a potomstvennyi dvorianin, and law graduate of Moscow university, who at an early age became a kamerjunker. After an apprenticeship in the office of the governor of Ryazan', he served first in the Odessa censorship office, then briefly on the Moscow censorship committee. He then became vice-governor of Simbirsk and three years later a kamerger.

32 Robbins, ‘Choosing the Russian governors’, p. 545. ‘But, unfortunately, these materials are incomplete. This fact in itself suggests that informal procedures played a significant role in selection. For while it is no doubt true that numerous files have been lost, the scarcity of existing dela implies that at least some of the appointments to top provincial jobs were not given systematic scrutiny by officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Yet it is equally clear that many such assignments were not determined by patronage and favouritism: the files of the department of General Affairs show that MVD officials reviewed the qualifications of candidates for vice-governorships an d governorships’ (ibid.).

33 Ibid. p. 547.

34 In a revealing footnote, Robbins writes: ‘Both the pre-revolutionary scholar I. Blinov and the Soviet historian P. A. Zayonchkovsky stress the importance of non-service related criteria in gubernatorial appointments…In his memoirs V. I. Gurko states that various Ministers of Internal Affairs used different determinants in selecting key officials but he notes that D. A. Tolstoy gave preference in the choice of governors and vice-governors to men who had been landholders in Ryazan’…The contention that advancement towards a governorship depended on favouritism and patronage is supported by the testimony of men who were themselves governors…

‘Yet there is reason to regard much of this evidence with a certain suspicion. Neither Blinov nor Zayonchkovsky ever made a systematic study of gubernatorial appointments or looked into the governors’ career patterns. Gurko's statement about Tolstoy is not supported by the information I have gathered on the men who were governors in 1892, many of whom were Tolstoy appointees. Koshko and Osorgin, while noting the role of favouritism and patronage in the selection of other governors, implied that it was not relevant in their own cases' (ibid, p. 542, n. 3). Robbins's arguments for disregarding or discounting the fairly overwhelming evidence that favouritism played the major part in gubernatorial appointments are less than convincing.

35 Director of the press department 1883–96.

36 Minister of the interior 1882–9.

37 Ed. Oksman, Yu. G., Vospominaniya Ye. M. Feoktistova (Leningrad, 1929), pp. 230fGoogle Scholar.

38 Minister of the interior 1889–95.

39 Polovtsev, Dnevnik, p. 440.

40 Ibid. p. 406.

41 Robbins, ‘Choosing the Russian governors’, p. 543, n. 8.

42 ‘I ignore insults only from two quarters: French cocottes and grand dukes.’

43 Witte attributed Baranov's rehabilitation to the tsarevich, the Almanac to Loris-Melikov.

44 Sources differ as to whether with the rank of general or, more likely, colonel.

45 Again sources differ on whether it was Kovno or Grodno.

46 For Baranov's career see Witte, S. Ju., Vospominaniya (Moscow, 1960), 1, 268ffGoogle Scholar.

47 Journal intime de Alexis Souvonne (Paris, 1927), p. 163Google Scholar.

48 For the career of Meshchersky see Mosse, W. E., ‘Imperial favourite: V. P. Meshchersky and the Grazhdanin’, The Slavonic and East European Review, III, 4 (10 1981)Google Scholar.

49 Witte, Vospominaniya, III, 588.

50 By order of the emperor, the elected president had had to make way for an appointed one.

51 Witte, Vospominaniya, III, 588 f.

52 Polovtsev, Dnevnik, p. 400.

53 A similar picture emerges by taking samples of sixteen governors first appointed in 1885 or earlier, nine appointed between 1892 and 1894 and four appointed in or after 1895. The proportion of military men is 125, 11.1 and 100 respectively, that of uezd marshals 62, 66.6 and o. Figures for the central institutions are 50, 111 and o, for local offices 31.2, 11.1 and o.

54 To distinguish them from more democratic landowners with populist sympathies.

55 Chernov, V., Zapiski Sotsialista-Revoliutsionera (Berlin, 1922), pp. 251ffGoogle Scholar. It is interesting to compare this picture with that draw n in Dostoevsky's The Devils of the rivalry between the ‘leading lady’ of the local nobility and the wife of the imported (German) governor. Another writer would speak disparagingly of a new ‘German type’ governor, a ‘true servant of the central government’ (Pol'ner, I., Zhiznennii Put' kn. G.E. L'vova [Paris, 1932], p. 46)Google Scholar.

56 Polovtsev, Dnevnik, p. 426.

57 Witte, Vospominaniya, 1, 27 of.

58 Ibid. 1, 265.

59 Feoktistov, Vospominaniya, p. 231.

60 Polovtsev, Dnevnik, 11, 406.

61 Urusov, Memoirs, p. 175.

62 Ibid.