Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

Bibliographic data

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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter I. Origin and organization of zemstvo institutions

Collection:: Economics Books

ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION 19 commercial character, requiring the employment of a large amount of working capital; among these may be mentioned warehouses for iron and steel products and fireproof building materials, stores for agricultural machinery and implements, bookstores, and other such enterprises. The district zemstvos were engaged principally in the work of directly managing and supervising the schools, libraries, hospitals, and roads, and organizing agronomic and veterinary services. The general guidance of zemstvo activities and the preparation of the annual budgets was in the hands of the zemstvo assemblies. These were collegiate bodies ‘composed of delegates, or deputies, elected by the population. The latter chose the delegates to the dis- trict zemstvo assemblies, and these, in turn, would elect among their own members the delegates to the provincial zemstvo assemblies. These were presided over by the marshals of the local nobility elected by the members of their own corporation. An arrangement of this kind was necessary as some concession to the class principle prevailing in the social organization of the Russian Empire previ- ous to the era of the Great Reforms. The assemblies then chose, on the collegiate principle, their executive organs, known as the zem- stvo boards, but the appointment of the presiding officers of these boards, after they had been elected to office, required the approval of the Government. Delegates to the several zemstvo organs were elected on a basis of property qualification, on the “curial” system. The first curia was composed of private individuals possessing real estate outside the cities ; the second, of those owning real estate within the city limits; and the third was represented by the peasant communes. The num- ber of delegates to be chosen by each curia in each district was pre- scribed in a special schedule appended to the law. Since the landowners who did not belong to the peasant com- munes, immediately after the abolition of serfdom, were almost ex- clusively members of the nobility, it was inevitable that the curial election system should impart more or less of a class character to the zemstvos. This happened in spite of the fact that the zemstvo was in principle an institution embracing all classes of the popula- tion. The first curia represented the nobility ; the second, the urban bourgeoisie; and the third, the peasantry. But since, in most of the

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