Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794855874

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-179223

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Polner, Tichon I. http://d-nb.info/gnd/172311195

Title:: Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

Place of publication:: New Haven

Publisher:: Yale Univ. Press

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: XXV, 317 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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The Russian Series was in the first instance planned by one of the most distinguished of Russian scholars who had long been a resident of England, Sir Paul Vinogradoff, Corpus Professor of Jurispru- dence at the University of Oxford. To the planning of the Series Sir Paul gave much time and thought. His untimely death in December, 1925, prevented him from seeing its fruition or from assuming the editorial responsibility for the texts. Nevertheless, the Series as a whole remains substantially as he had planned it. The present volume presents a unique chapter in the history of the World War and, indeed, a unique chapter in human history. Most of the other volumes in this collection deal either with national organization and administration or else with the effects of the War upon social and economic life. This deals with both. By a paradox the very inadequacy of the Russian Imperial Government in eco- nomic and social matters threw back upon the organs of local self- government, especially the zemstvos, the task of improvising what might be termed an auxiliary supply organization. The service thus inaugurated became almost a state within a state and the register of its activities to a very large degree the measure of the direct impact of the War upon Russian social and economic life. The term “zemstvo” became a familiar word in the literature of the Western Powers during the hard-pressed years 1915 and 1916. Wherever confidence was lacking in the capacity of the Russian bureaucracy, the American and British public were reassured by statements in the daily press that Slavic initiative had risen to the task of organizing Russia’s gigantic resources and that an organiza- tion had sprung to the fore capable of taking over all the unper- formed tasks of war-time government. A fantastic myth was created of the capacity of this body to supply the Russian armies at the front and the population behind the lines; its scope of action was said to cover everything from the work of a national Red Cross to that of a War Industries Board. The pages which follow will show, for the first time, just what was accomplished. It is the only authoritative, historical record yet published of the work of the zemstvo. Its authoritative nature can hardly be questioned, for the judicious, careful, and sober story 1s not only convincingly told and bears the marks of personal fa- miliarity with the details of zemstvo history, but the narrative is EDITOR’S PREFACE Xi

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