Журнал «История: факты и символы»

DISESTABLISHMENT OF ELETS PROVINCE IN THE COURSE OF THE GUBERNIA REFORM OF CATHERINE II

Author: Khitrov Dmitry Alekseevich

The article examines the implementation of Catherine II’s gubernia reform in the Elets province. The author reconstructs the borders of the administrative units before and after the reform and reveals his approach to the reform. The reform was associated with the largest in the history of the Russian Empire reconstruction of the system of administrative-territorial division and local governance; the previously existing three-tier system of local government (gubernia - province - uezd) was abolished and replaced by the two - level (gubernia - uezd). The boundaries of the gubernias and uezds were redefined on the principle of approximate equality of population. This article is an attempt to restore the pre-reform administrative boundaries of the counties of the Yelets province and to find out how the territories were reallocated between the new provinces. This requires the creation and combination of the two maps of administrative division before and after the reform; the modern GIS technologies provide great opportunities for spatial processing and systematization of cartographic sources. The post-reform division was restored on the basis of processing of the uezd plans of the General Land survey by means of GIS, and the pre-reform, through the analysis of materials of 1720s surveyings (the so-called "Petrine geodesists"). Also, the problems associated with the peculiarities of these sources, relating to the initial stage of the development of Russian cartography were resolved. For the first time a detailed map of the Yelets province on the eve of the reform was developed (it included Yelets, Livny, Chernavskii, Efremov, Lebedyansky, Dankowski and Skopin districts). On the basis of comparison of the electronic maps and analysis of the legislative acts the intentions of the authors of the reforms and their implementation were analysed. It is shown that the opening of the new gubernias took place gradually, first in the center of the country, and then on its outskirts, so that for some time the old and the new administrative-territorial unit exised at the same time, were bordering each other exchanged certain territories. Located at the junction of the newly created governorships (Tula, Orel, Ryazan, Kursk, Tambov and Voronezh), the area of the Elets province was divided between them. Despite the significant changes associated with the creation of new uezds and the reformatting of the old, the government's commitment to maintain the existing administrative and economic ties can be tracked, which resulted in the keeping of large amounts of land in the districts of the old towns.