Lyubichankovskiy Sergey, «Formation and Development of Informal Associations of the Ural's provincial Officials at the End of the 19th Century and the Beginning of the 20th Century». New York, the Edwin Mellen Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0-7734-4282-5 Текст научной статьи по специальности «История и археология»

yflK 930.1 + 930.85

Kimitaka Matsuzato

Lyubichankovskiy Sergey, «Formation and Development of Informal Associations of the Ural's Provincial Officials at the End of the 19th Century and the Beginning of the 20th Century». New York, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0-7734-4282-5

Russian officialdom has attracted historians' attention since effective functioning of bureaucracy has vital importance for any political regime. We may enjoy excellent monographs which analyzed the Russian officialdom, in particular, its sociological background [2; 3]. However, the previous studies paid attention to the Russian officialdom only as an instrument of tsarist rule. The analyzed brochure [1] is quite unique since it explores the Russian officialdom, perhaps for the first time in historiography, as an independent actor.

The author, Sergei Lyubichankovskiy, demonstrates that the salaries which the officers were granted in the late tsarist regime did not cover the rising cost of their living, which induced them to look for illegal and legal ways of solution of the predicaments they faced. On the one hand, corruption of officers hypertrophied; Lyubichankovskiy mobilizes many cases in which the provincial boards (gubernskie pravleniia) intervened in law suites against corrupted officers to defend them (the illegal solution). On the other hand, the officers tried to organize themselves in trade unions (the legal solution), but this way was incompatible with autocratic rule. Based on reports submitted by senators of their inspections, the author argues that the difficulties that the officialdom in the Ural region faced were the universal phenomenon for the whole Russian Empire.

The author emphasizes the anti-bureaucracy mood of the population as an important factor of the First Russian Revolution in 1905. This factor might explain various popular protests during the World War I and the February and even October Revolutions. Historians in the past underscored too much the class component of the revolution (land and labor). Presently, ethnic factors seem to have replaced the class factors to explain the revolutions in 1905 and 1917. Yet anti-bureaucrat campaign was and continues to be a most convenient instrument for political struggle even in developed democratic countries.

Based on abundant references to central and local archival sources, this brochure proposes to revisit the history of the late imperial Russia.

© Matsuzato Kimitaka, 2014

Bibliography

1. Lyubichankovskiy S. Formation and Development of Informal Associations of the Ural's Provincial Officials at the End of the 19th Century and the Beginning of the 20th Century. - New York:, 2014.

2. Robbins R.G., jr. The Tsar's Viceroys. Russian Provincial Governors in the Last Years of the Empire. - Ithaca and London, 1987.

3. Zaionchikovskii P.A. Pravitel'stvennyj apparat samoderzhavnoj Rossii v XIX veke. - M., 1978.