18 November 1775. A manifesto on a new regional division of the empire was issued
18 November 1775 was issued a manifesto on the new regional division of Russia, the empire was divided into 50 provinces. The document that determined the direction of the new provincial reform was the decree of Catherine II “Institutions for the management of the provinces of the All-Russian Empire”. The first eight provinces — the Ingermanlandskaya (Petersburg), Moscow, Arkhangelsk, Smolensk, Kiev, Kazan, Azov, and Siberian regions — were created during the regional reform of Peter Alekseevich XNUM — 1708. Prior to this reform, the Russian state was divided into counties. Governors gained wide rights: they performed administrative, police, financial, judicial, and even military functions. The provinces were divided into shares controlled by the landrat (nobleman-adviser). In 1715 — 1713 The Riga and Nizhny Novgorod provinces (it was separated from Kazan) were established, and the Smolensk province was divided between Moscow and Riga. In 1714, Astrakhan province was separated from Kazan province, and Nizhegorodskaya province was eliminated. In 1717, Peter conducted a new regional reform: the Nizhny Novgorod province was restored, the Revel province was established. The provinces were divided into provinces, and provinces - into districts. At the head of the provinces were appointed governors, and at the head of districts - Zemstvo commissioners.
In 1725, the Azov province was renamed Voronezh, and in 1726, the province of Smolensk was restored. In 1727, another reform was carried out. The counties were rebuilt, and districts were abolished. In most cases, the boundaries of districts and "new" counties coincided. Belgorod Oblast was singled out from Kiev Province, and Novgorod Province was allocated from Petersburg Province. In the future, the tendency to disaggregate the provinces remained. In addition, usually new provinces were established in the newly acquired lands. By the reform of Catherine II in Russia there were 23 provinces that were divided into 62 provinces and 276 counties.
The reform carried out solved the task of dividing the Russian provinces, 300 — 400 thousand people should live in the province, and 20-30 thousand people lived in the county. As a result, the number of provinces was doubled (as well as counties), twenty years after it began, the number of provinces reached fifty. The division into provinces and counties was carried out according to a strictly administrative principle, without taking into account geographical, economic and national factors. Old territorial bodies were liquidated, provinces were abolished as territorial units.
The governor was the head of the province, who was appointed and dismissed by the monarch at will. In his service, the governor relied on the provincial government, which included the provincial prosecutor and the bottom of the centurion. Financial and tax functions in the province were under the jurisdiction of the state chamber. The public charity order resolved issues of public health, education, and solved other social problems. Legality in the region was monitored by the provincial prosecutor and two provincial conciliators, in the county similar problems were solved by the county interpreter. At the head of the county there was a district police officer, who was elected by the county nobility (once in three years). At the same time he acted, the lower territorial court, he was a collegial body of management (in addition to the police officer there were two assessors). Zemsky district court subordinated to the police. The district court also oversaw the enforcement of laws and decisions of provincial governments. In the cities was created the post of mayor. In the cities introduced tighter police control. The city was divided into parts (districts), which were under the supervision of a private bailiff, and the parts, in turn, were divided into quarters, controlled by a quarterly overseer.
The police generally got very wide rights. Its scope included the observance of order in religious ceremonies, censorship, morality, fisticuffs, control of popular entertainment, ecology, sanitation, food supply for the city, trade procedures, struggle with vagrants, robbers, fire safety, preservation of calm in the city. The apparatus for the protection of "decency, peace and goodwill" laid the responsibility for organizing holidays, taxation, architectural planning of the city, compliance with measures and weights, etc.
Several provinces were entrusted to the Governor-General. The governors directly obeyed him, the governor-general was recognized as the commander-in-chief on his territory. If in the governor-general, the sovereign was absent at the moment, the governor-general could introduce emergency measures, directly address the report to the monarch.
Simultaneously with the regional, judicial reform was carried out. The Senate retained the position of the highest court. For the nobles, a county court was established in each county. It consisted of a county judge and two assessors (they were elected for 3 of the year). The Supreme Court of Zemstvo (it was established in each province) became the appellate instance for the county courts. It consisted of two departments: criminal and civil cases. The Supreme Zemstvo Court had the right to control the county courts and could conduct an audit. The composition of the Supreme district court: the chairman and vice-chairman, appointed by the sovereign and elected by the nobility for the three years ten assessors.
City residents were judged by city magistrates, their members were elected for three years. The highest appellate instance for magistrates was the provincial magistrates, which consisted of two chairmen and assessors elected from the composition of the townspeople of the provincial city. State peasants were tried in the county lower massacre, where appointed officials were considering cases. The appellate court for the lower massacre was the upper massacre. In addition, conscientious courts were created in the provinces, which consisted of class representatives (the chairman and two assessors): the nobility for nobles, the citizens for citizens, and the peasants for peasants. The conscientious courts were conciliatory and special in nature (in particular, they considered cases of minors, insane, etc.). Appeals and auditing functions in the province were performed by judicial chambers (in criminal and civil cases). Their competence included cases considered in the upper district court, the provincial magistrate and the top punishment.
In many ways, the reform was associated with the unstable domestic political situation in the country (peasant war 1773-1775). Existing local authorities could not cope with the growing discontent in the country. In fact, an emergency management regime was introduced throughout the Russian state, when the governor general had unlimited power in the provinces entrusted to him. The administrative apparatus in the field has been strengthened. Special policemen, punitive bodies were established with the same task, and the judicial system was reformed. This led to the growth of the bureaucracy in the empire. Accordingly, the cost of it has risen sharply. Even according to the preliminary calculations of the Senate, the implementation of the reform should have led to an increase in total expenditures of the treasury of 12-15%. Immediately after the completion of the reform, chronic state budget deficits began. In general, the cost of maintaining the bureaucratic apparatus of the empire during the years of Empress Catherine II’s rule increased more than 5 times: from 6,5 million rubles in 1762 year to 36,5 million rubles in 1796 year. For example, spending on the army increased 2,6 times, taking into account the significant number of wars that Russia led in the reign of Catherine II.
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