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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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

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

Collection:: Economics Books

32 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR productive in their career. Their educational work, in particular, made great progress. The number of zemstvo schools largely in- creased (by 34 per cent from 1903 to 1909), plans were pushed forward to assure a network of schools adequate to provide universal education, and public libraries and reading rooms were opened in rapid succession. Agronomic and health measures were introduced on an increasingly large scale. “At this time,” says Veselovsky, “the provincial zemstvos began also to render systematic assistance to the district zemstvos in the construction of school buildings, agronomic aid, anti-epidemic measures, etc. Collegiate bodies were being or- ganized, with the active participation of those practically engaged in these fields (school commissions, economic and medical councils, and so on), and there were now more frequent conventions of the presiding officers of district zemstvo boards and of experts.” The revolution of 1905 radically changed the composition of the majority of the zemstvo assemblies. Agrarian riots, accompanied by the burning and looting of the landlords’ estates in the black-soil sections (in the south and along the Volga), necessarily aroused a reactionary sentiment in the zemstvos, then largely composed of rep- resentatives of the landed gentry. At the first zemstvo election to be held after the events of 1905, the liberals, till then the leading group in the zemstvos, suffered a crushing defeat, and most of the zemstvos came under the control of moderately conservative and sometimes reactionary elements. But even so, after forty years of local gov- ernment, the very conservatism of these new members was of a dif- ferent complexion. By this time the older generation, former serf- owners, had passed away, and even the reactionary elements had advanced. It is true that in some provinces, for instance Kursk, the new representatives in the zemstvos made attempts to abolish a number of educational and philanthropic institutions-left by their predecessors, but on the whole it may be stated that the work of the zemstvos continued to develop at about the same rate as before. For in the twentieth century even an extreme reactionary would hardly dare suggest that there was harm in education, agronomy, medicine, and other such things, as reactionaries of the older generation had done. Today, looking back at the past, we may even say that among the conservative zemstvo leaders of the last decade there were just as many enlightened and devoted men as among the liberals of an earlier period.

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