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Governing Russia’s Provinces

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Michael Speransky

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Abstract

The exile of the former State Secretary ended in late 1816 with his appointment to the governorship of Penza, one of the eastern provinces of central Russia. Speransky wished to return to active public life in order to clear himself of the accusations leveled at him before his disgrace. His new appointment appeared at first as a step in this direction. “Whatever the opinions in St. Petersburg,” he wrote to his friend Masal’skii, “I am sincerely happy and completely satisfied. For the first step this is more than I had ever expected.”1 But the manner of his appointment and the refusal to grant him permission to pass through the capital on his way to Penza, strongly undermined his self confident optimism. He vented his feelings to Count Kochubei: “…neither vindicated nor accused, they have sent me to vindicate myself and at the same time to govern the just.” 2 In truth, however, very few still believed in Speransky’s guilt in 1816. His reappointment to office was therefore viewed as an indication of the Emperor’s desire to deal seriously with the domestic problems that had lain neglected since the invasion of Napoleon. Many thought that Speransky was being sent first to Penza in order to obtain first-hand information on local needs and conditions.

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References

  1. Letter to Masal’skii, 6 Sept. 1816, in Druzheskie pis’ma k Masal’skomu, p. 87.

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  2. Letter to Count V. Kochubei, 21 September 1818, Russkaia Starine, 111 (1902), p. 52.

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  3. I wish to emphasize that I am speaking only of the nobility who lived on their estates in the provinces. The description is not at all applicable to the nobility that lived and served in the capitals. When a nobleman left for the capital to take up service, he usually broke with his former group and became a part of the city bureaucracy and military aristocracy.

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  4. For a good picture of Russian provincial life at the beginning of the 19th century see N. F. Dubrovin, “Russkaia zhizn’ v nachale XIX v.,” Russkaia Starina, vols. 96-99, (Dec. 1898-Aug. 1899) passim.

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  5. Although Penza bordered on the Urals, the local nobility did not engage or participate in state-sponsored industrial and commercial enterprises like the Demidovs and Stroganovs farther East. Nor were there any owners of large estates, run along capitalist lines, with their own factories, such as were beginning to appear in the Ukraine.

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  6. Quoted in A. Fateev, “Speranskii — gubernator Sibiri,” Zapiski Russkogo Nauchno-Issledovatel’nogo ob’edineniia v Frage, vol. XI, No. 82, (Prague 1942), p. 120. See also the almost identical words in Speranskii, “Zamechaniia o gubernskikh uchrezhdeniiakh,” Arkhiv istor. i statist, svedenii, (1859), No. 4, pp. 100-101.

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  7. Letter to Stolypin, 2 May 1818, Russkii Arkhiv (1869), p. 1698.

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  8. Quoted by Fateev, “Speranskii — gubernator Sibiri,” loc. cit., p. 129 (the letter is from 1817).

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  9. Letter to Kochubei, 1 October 1818 from Penza, in Pamiati, pp. 491-492.

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  13. Letter to Kochubei, 21 September 1818, Russkii Arkhiv, 111 (1902), pp. 51-54. Also quoted in Fateev, “Speranskii — gubernator Sibiri,” loc. cit., pp. 137-138.

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  15. On this, see the remarks scattered in his letters to his daughter (Russkii Arkhiv 1869 and in Pamiati).

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  16. Incidentally, Siberia as the land of exile dates only from the middle and second half of the 19th century. But even then the total number of individuals exiled to Siberia was much smaller by far than the yearly migration — legal or extra legal — of peasants, artisans, merchants, etc.

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  17. The names of Pestel and Treskin can be used undifferentiatedly, as both stood for the same policies. Pestel pushed them and protected Treskin from St. Petersburg, whereas Treskin suggested and implemented them on the spot.

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  18. Alexander I to Speranskii, letter dated 22 March 1819, cited in N. K. Shil’der, Imperator Aleksandr Pervyi, IV, p. 149.

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  19. “In Siberia there has not been, and there is not now a public opinion; and for a long time yet there will not be any because of the lack of a nobility.” Speranskii, Obozrenie glavnykh osnovanii mestnogo upravleniia Sibiri (St. Pbg. 1841), p. 13.

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  20. On the activities of the English missionaries see in particular Vagin, Istoricheskie svedeniia o deiatel’nosti grafa M. M. Speranskogo v Sibiri s 1819 po 1822 g. (St. Pbg. 1872) I, pp. 280-284, 721-726; Bogdanov, Ocherk istorii buriat-mongol’skogo naroda (Verkhneudinsk 1926), pp. 162 ff; B. Laufer, Ocherk mongol’skoi literatury (Leningrad 1927), pp. 78, 90-91; for a contemporary description and appreciation see A. Martos, Pis’mo o Vostochnoi Sibiri 1823-1824 (Moscow 1827), pp. 67-71.

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  21. Letter to Count S. S. Uvarov, 17 September 1819 from Irkutsk, Russkaia Starino. 113 (March 1903), p. 444.

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  22. Letter to Count Gur’ev, May 1820, in Pamiati, pp. 321-323.

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  23. See Speranskii’s letters to Count Kochubei, 29 September 1820, from Tobol’sk, Pamiati, p. 501 and to Count Gur’ev, 2 October 1820, ibid., p. 485.

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  24. I. Kalashnikov, “Zapiski irkutskogo zhitelia,” Russkaia Starina, 123 (September 1905), p. 248.

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  25. “To transform the personal power into [the power of] an institution; and having reconciled the unity of its action with its public character, preserve this power by legal means against arbitrariness and abuses… To establish the action of this power in such a manner that it be neither personal nor ‘domestic,’ but public and official.” Obozrenie glavnykh osnovanii mestnogo upravleniia Sibiri, pp. 50-52 and PSZ 29,125, par. 474.

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  29. The Governor General, stipulated the statute of 1822, represents the monarch, he is the head of the Main Administration. In some cases he acts alone, entirely on his own; in others, he first seeks the advice of the Council. His major function is to supervise the proper and rapid execution of administrative measures; he also inspects the region regularly. He makes recommendations for promotions and honors; he has a qualified right to appoint and dismiss officials. In emergencies he may issue temporary executive orders, subject to eventual confirmation by St. Petersburg. (PSZ 29,125, pars. 18, 19).

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  36. PSZ 29,125, pars. 480, 500.

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  37. The Council is composed of: Presidents of the Provincial Board (gubernskoe pravlenie — the general police and administrative office), of the Chamber of the Treasury (kazennaia palata), and of the Provincial Court (gubernskii sud), of the Provincial Procurator (gubernskii prokuror), and the three Chiefs of the Police, Economy and Justice departments of the Council (PSZ 29,125, pars. 21-35). The three major functions of provincial government — police, economy, and justice — are taken care of by three separate special agencies. The police and the administration, in the wider sense, are handled by the Provincial Board (gubernskoe pravlenie), consisting of several functional departments (PSZ 29,125, pars. 39-44). The Provincial Chamber of the Treasury (gubernskaia kazennaia palata) takes care of all matters pertaining to public economy (ibid., pars. 45-53); and the judiciary is in the hands of the Provincial Court (gubernskii sud) (ibid., pars. 54-56).

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  38. lakutsk, Maritime Region, and Troitsko-Savsk in Eastern Siberia; Omsk in Western Siberia. PSZ 29,125, pars. 321-472.

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  39. The District Council included: the District Chief, the Police Chief (gorodnichi) of the District capital, the District Judge (okruzhnoi sud’ia), the Land Captain (zemskii ispravnik), the District Treasurer, the Clerk, and the elected town ‘mayor’ (gorodskoi golova) of the district capital, if there was one. PSZ 29,125, pars. 64-69.

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  40. PSZ 29,125, pars. 75-79.

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  41. PSZ 29,125, pars. 99-102, also infra.

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  45. As one contemporary put it: “the bureaucracy could bring forth a man of Speransky’s caliber, whereas the merchant class produced only Baranov, ‘a vicious and drunken muzhik’.”

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  46. Letter to his daughter, 1 February 1820, from Irkutsk, No. 37, Russkii Arkhiv, (1868), No. 11, p. 1735.

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  48. “The Main Administration (glavnoe upravlenie) protects with all its power and through its ordinances the freedom of enterprise and trade, the freest exchange of the necessities of life throughout all of Siberia without any distinction between districts and provinces.” PSZ 29,125, par. 523. See also pars. 561, 397, 95. To promote and secure free trade, the following provision was included in the statutes; it speaks for itself: “It is forbidden to all officials serving in the Provinces to enter into debt relations with peasants and natives, in their own name or under the cover of the name of a third person. All debt obligations contracted in this manner, with written proof or without it, private or communal, are invalid, there can be no judicial action on them and their collection cannot be enforced.” PSZ 29,134, par. 53.

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  49. “The first and principal means for supplying the people with bread [i.e. grain] is private enterprise and trade. The second means, serving as aid and complement to the first, in years of crop failure, is the network of village stores in the countryside and communal stores in the towns. But because in Siberia, due to the character of its population, communal supplies cannot be established in every town, there must be added a third means to the former two, state supplies.” PSZ 29,133, par. 26.

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  50. I. D. Zavalishin, Opisanie Zapadnoi Sibiri (Moscow 1862) I, p. 68; S. M. Seredonin, Istoricheskii obzor deiatel’nosti Komiteta Ministrov (St. Pbg. 1902), vol. II, part 2, pp. 228-229.

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  51. “… 2. not to prevent, but by all means foster private grain trade; 3. that state grain stores serve only as aid in case of necessity, but not as a means of introducing exclusive grain trade by the Treasury.” PSZ 29,133, par. 7.

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  52. PSZ 29,133, pars. 9, 10.

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  53. The need of enlightening examples to stimulate agriculture was also felt by Speransky’s old schoolfriend and Siberia “expert,” P. A. Slovtsov. See P. A. Slovtsov, Pis’ma iz Sibiri (Moscow 1828), p. 92. Also, PSZ 29,127, pars. 163. 164.

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  54. PSZ 29,128, par. 262.

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  58. Obozrenie glaxmykh osnovanii…, pp. 60-61.

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  63. The Land Police can try to settle disputes between clans, reconcile natives after their own courts have failed to reach a settlement, and if it fails too, forward the matter to a regular Russian court. PSZ 29,126, pars. 214-222.

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  64. PSZ 29,126, pars. 114-121, 202-222.

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  65. PSZ 29,126, pars. 122-132, 223-235.

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  66. PSZ 29,126, pars. 157-162.

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  69. PSZ 29,126, pars. 270-285.

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  70. PSZ 29,126, pars. 28, 30, 31, 45, 52, 300.

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  71. PSZ 29,126, pars. 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 63-67, 286-292.

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  72. V. A. Riazanovskii, Mongol’skoe pravo — preimushchestvenno obychnoe (Kharbin 1931), p. 153; V. A. Riasanovsky, Fundamental Principles of Mongol Law (Tientsin 1937), p. 76. Besides Riazanovskii, materials for the native code were published in Russian by D. I. Samokvasov (ed.) Sbornik obychnogo prava sibirskikh inorodtsev (Warsaw 1876). The history of the codification work on this Code of the Laws of the Steppe is summarized by A. Nol’de, “K istorii sostavleniia proekta’ svoda Stepnykh zakonov kochevykh inorodtsev Vostochnoi Sibiri’,” Sbornik S. F. Platonovu, ucheniki, druz’ia i pochitateli (St. Pbg. 1911), pp. 502-521.

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  73. Riazanovskii, Mongol’skoe pravo, p. 232.

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  75. Cf. PSZ 29, 127, the statute on the Kirghiz, as an instrument for preparing the penetration of Russia into the Kirghiz (Kazakh) steppes.

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  1. Marc Raeff
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© 1957 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands

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Raeff, M. (1957). Governing Russia’s Provinces. In: Michael Speransky. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9304-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9304-7_8

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