The work focuses on the meshchanskiye (middle-class, petty-bourgeois) societies in the system of urban self-government of Siberia in the post-reform period. Meshchanstvo was the separate estate in Russian Empire. The purpose of the work is to consider the meshchanskiye community in the cities of Siberia in the second half of the 19^th – early the 20^th century as a social institution of estate character. Tasks: to determine the place of estate self-government in the system of urban self-government, to analyze their organization, functioning, range of competencies, the impact on the daily life of their members. Results: during the mid-nineteenth century reforms in Russia, despite the introduction of all-estates citywide self-government city councils, the Russian imperial government has preserved estates councils and even more clearly institutionalized the self-government of estates. In the cities were established meshchanskiye (petty bourgeois) councils as bodies of estate (community) self-government, which played an important role in the daily life of meshchane –the most massive urban community of pre-revolutionary Russia. All meshchane ranked to the concrete city, made self-governing “meshchanskoe society” (separately there was a societies of merchant and craftsmen’s). Community «gathering» or «assembly» was the main organ of self-government. The assembly had administrative power, all other institutions of the community were built around it. At the meeting (gathering) of the assembly, the townspeople, who had the right to vote, discussed the current community affairs, approved the budgets of the society and various proposals, elected officials to manage the community. The administrative organ which was engaged in the current affairs of self-government was the Meshchanskaya uprava (estates local government) headed by the Meshchanskiy starosta. The competence of the Meshchanskaya uprava was quite a wide range of problems: the preparation of lists of burghers of the city, the calculation and expulsion of members of society, the issuance of passports, the regulation of some economic issues. An important area of activity of the estates societies was charity: the maintenance of almshouses, payment of pensions and benefits, the appointment of scholarships, etc. In fact, the meshchanskie governments, as a part of local government, solving administrative and economic problems, was also an intermediary between the urban society and state institutions.

Goncharov Yuri Mikhailovich, Doctor of Sciences (History), Professor, Department of Russian History, Altai State University, 61, Lenin st., Barnaul, 656049, Russian Federation, tel.: 8(3852) 291-269, e-mail: yuriig@yandex.ru

Goncharov Y.M. Meshchanskiy Societies in the System of Urban Local Government of Siberia in the Second Half of the 19^th – Early the 20^th Century. The Bulletin of Irkutsk State University. Series History, 2019, vol. 29, pp. 72-81. https://doi.org/10.26516/2222-9124.2019.29.72 (in Russian)

local government, Russia, the 19^th century, city, community, petty-bourgeoisie

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