250 years since the provincial reform of Catherine the Great
Coats of arms of the provinces of the Russian Empire. Illustration from the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1890–1907).
250 years ago, Catherine II decreed the "Institution for Governance of the Provinces of the All-Russian Empire." The Russian Empire was divided into 50 provinces.
Provincial reform of Peter I
In late 1708, Tsar Peter I began implementing provincial reform. This reform was driven by the need to improve the administrative division system, which had become largely outdated by the early 18th century.
In the 17th century, the territory of the Muscovite state was divided into counties—districts with close economic ties to the city. A voivode, appointed by Moscow, headed each countie. The counties varied greatly in size—some very large, others very small. In 1625, there were 146 counties, in addition to which there were volosts.
By the 18th century, relations between the center and the provinces had become extremely complex and confusing, and district administration from the center was cumbersome. Another important reason for Peter the Great's regional reform was the need to create a new system of financing and supplying the armed forces for successful warfare. Russia was fighting the long and arduous Northern War with the Swedes.
It was also necessary to strengthen the "vertical of power." Astrakhan uprising (to start a rebellion, to beat the governor and the chieftains) and the Don uprising demonstrated the weakness of local government; it needed to be strengthened so that provincial governors could resolve such issues without large-scale intervention from the center. Governors wielded not only civil authority but also full military authority and garrisons to nip unrest in the bud without bringing in troops from the front lines. Governors were required to ensure the timely collection of taxes and duties, recruitment, and mobilization of the local population for labor service.
The decree of December 18 (29), 1708, announced the intention "to establish 8 provinces for the common good and assign cities to them." Initially, the Moscow, Ingria (later St. Petersburg), Smolensk, Kiev, Azov, Arkhangelsk, and Siberian provinces were created. In 1714, the Nizhny Novgorod and Astrakhan provinces were separated from the Kazan province, and in 1713, the Riga province was created.
The essence of the reform was to establish an intermediate authority—the provincial institutions—between the old districts and the central institutions in the capital, to which the district administration was directly subordinate. This was intended to improve territorial governance. The provinces were headed by governors vested with full administrative, judicial, financial, and military authority. The tsar appointed close associates as governors. Specifically, Menshikov governed the St. Petersburg province, the Apraksin brothers governed the Kazan and Azov provinces, and Streshnev governed the Moscow province.
Peter's reforms were crude and hasty. For example, the principle for assigning governorates was not defined. It is unknown whether the tsar was guided by the governorate's size, population, or economic and geographic factors when assigning a particular city to a particular governorate. The governorates were too large for the provincial governments to effectively manage them. The regional reform did not clearly define the place of the provincial administration in the Russian governmental structure, that is, its relationship to central institutions and district administrations.
In 1719, Tsar Peter implemented another reform of administrative division. Governorates were divided into provinces, and provinces, in turn, were divided into districts. A province was headed by a voivode, and a district by a zemstvo commissar. According to this reform, the province became the highest regional unit of the Russian Empire, and the governorates served as military districts.
In 1719, the Revel Governorate was established. In 1725, the Azov Governorate was renamed Voronezh Governorate.
In 1727, the administrative territorial division was reviewed. Districts were abolished, county was reintroduced instead. The boundaries of “old” districts and “new” counties in many cases coincided or almost coincided. Belgorod (separated from Kiev) and Novgorod (separated from St. Petersburg) provinces were formed.
Further, until 1775, the administrative unit remained relatively stable with a tendency to disaggregate. So, in 1744 two new provinces were formed - Vyborg and Orenburg. Gubernias were formed mainly in the new territories, in some cases several provinces of the old provinces were distinguished into new ones. By October 1775, the territory of Russia was divided into 23 provinces, 62 provinces and 276 counties.
The division of Russia into provinces in 1708
Reform of Catherine II
7 (18) of November 1775 of the year was issued a decree of Empress Catherine II "Institutions for the Management of Provinces", according to which in 1775 — 1785. a fundamental reform of the administrative and territorial division of the Russian Empire was carried out. The reform led to the disintegration of the provinces, their number was doubled, twenty years after it began, the number of provinces reached fifty. I must say that under Catherine the provinces were usually called "governorships".
The need for reform stemmed from the same reasons as in Peter's time. Peter's reforms were incomplete. It was necessary to strengthen local authority and create a clear system of governance. The Peasant War led by Pugachev also demonstrated the need to strengthen local authority. The nobility complained about the weakness of local authorities.
The division into provinces and counties was carried out strictly on administrative grounds, without regard for geographic, ethnic, or economic factors. The primary purpose of the division was to resolve tax and police matters. A purely quantitative criterion—population—was also at the core of the division. A province had a population of approximately three to four hundred thousand, while a county had a population of approximately twenty to thirty thousand. The old territorial bodies were abolished. Provinces were abolished as territorial units.
The governor, appointed and dismissed by the emperor, headed the province. He was supported by the provincial board, which included the provincial prosecutor and two advisers. Financial and fiscal matters in the province were handled by the treasury chamber. Health and education matters were handled by the public welfare department.
The provincial prosecutor and two provincial solicitors oversaw law enforcement in the province. In the district, the same responsibilities were fulfilled by the district solicitor. The district administration was headed by the zemstvo police captain (or captain of police), elected by the district nobility, and by a collegial governing body—the lower zemstvo court (which, in addition to the police captain, included two assessors). The zemstvo court supervised the zemstvo police and oversaw the enforcement of laws and decisions of the provincial governments. In the cities, the position of mayor was established.
Leadership of several provinces was transferred to the governor-general. The governors reported to him, and he was recognized as commander-in-chief within the territory of the governor-general. If the monarch was absent, he could declare a state of emergency and report directly to the tsar.
Thus, the provincial reform of 1775 strengthened the powers of governors, fragmented territories, and consolidated the position of the local administrative apparatus. Under Catherine II, other reforms were carried out with the same goal: special police and punitive bodies were created, and the judicial system was transformed.
Among the negative aspects, one can note the lack of economic significance, the growth of the bureaucratic apparatus, and the sharp increase in its costs. Overall, the cost of maintaining the bureaucratic apparatus during the reign of Catherine II increased 5,6-fold (from 6,5 million rubles in 1762 to 36,5 million rubles in 1796)—much more than, for example, military expenditures (2,6-fold). This was greater than during any other reign during the 18th and 19th centuries. Therefore, the provincial administration system was continually improved in the future.
Province or national republic
It must be said that the provincial (regional) division of Russia based on territorial and demographic principles had more advantages than the division of the USSR and the Russian Federation into autonomous republics, territories and regions.
The national character of many republics carries within itself a “time bomb” leading to the destruction of Russia, which by its very nature is essentially a natural empire.
Such a catastrophe occurred in 1991. While the separation of Central Asia and Transcaucasia can still be tolerated, although our ancestors paid a heavy price for these lands, and their loss dealt a painful blow to Russia's military-strategic stability, the loss of such parts of Greater Russia as the Baltics, White Rus', Little Rus', and Bessarabia cannot be justified. The military-strategic situation in the western and northwestern directions has sharply deteriorated; the achievements and victories of several centuries have essentially been lost. The ancestral lands of the Russian super-ethnos have been lost. The super-ethnos of the Rus' (Russians) has become the largest divided people in the world.
At the same time, the catastrophe only deepens with each generation. In particular, historical The territories of Little Rus' and Novorossiya, due to the West's strategy of dividing and destroying the Russian world (the so-called "Russian question") and cultivating a thieving and nationalist regime in Kyiv, erupted into civil war in 2014. In 2022, it escalated into the Ukrainian Front, a clash between two Russian powers – the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
Another grave consequence is the approach of the hostile NATO bloc to our vital centers. The expansion of Turkey's (NATO member) sphere of influence into the Transcaucasus and Central Asia. The aspirations of the new Ottoman Empire to include the North Caucasus, the southern Russian regions (including Crimea), and the Volga region within its sphere of influence.
The internationalist revolutionaries, by creating national republics, placed a “mine” of enormous destructive power under the Russian civilization (How the Bolsheviks created Ukraine). And the process is not complete. National republics within the Russian Federation are a blow to the Russian people and a threat of further disintegration.
The economic crisis in Russia and the beginning of a hybrid, informational-ideological Fourth World War (The New World Order and Russia), are leading to a worsening of internal contradictions in the Russian Federation. The ambitions of ethnocracies and national intelligentsias, supported from abroad (for example, from Turkey), could be extremely dangerous for the country's unity. Therefore, in the long term, Russia must return to territorial division, preserving only the cultural autonomy of small peoples. Without a privileged position.
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