UDC

342.8(091)

Authors

Viktoriya V. Efimova
Petrozavodsk State University
65 Lomonosova St., Petrozavodsk, 185011, Respublika Kareliya, Russian Federation;
e-mail: efimova1870@rambler.ru

Abstract

This article challenges the established opinion that the legislation enacted after Catherine the Great’s reign to regulate Russian imperial provinces (governorates) was strictly uniform. To illustrate the opposite, the author analyses the adoption of an exclusive 1821 law on municipal elections in Arkhangelsk. The law was initiated by Governor General of Arkhangelsk, Vologda and Olonets Aleksei Klokachev, who intended to overcome the absenteeism of Arkhangelsk guild merchants. Klokachev was persistent and persevering enough to cope with the skepticism of the Minister of the Interior Viktor Kochubei, Siberian Governor General Mikhail Speransky and the Ministers’ Committee. As a result, on October 17, 1821, Emperor Alexander I signed a ukase (decree) “On Temporary Exceptions and Exclusions from Applicable Municipal Election Rules for the City of Arkhangelsk”. This decree stipulated that only first- and second-guild merchants could be elected for key public administration positions (i.e. mayor, magistrate burgomaster, Commercial Bank or Commercial Court member, Arkhangelsk Public Bread Store director, etc.) and vote in such elections. Moreover, it was specified that neither generous “donations” nor achievements in city improvement and development could grant City Duma the right to release anyone from the obligation to stand for election. The author also suggests that the 1821 Decree was one of the sources for the “Guild Ordinance” initiated by the Minister of Finance Yegor Kankrin and enacted on November 14, 1824. This article may be of special interest to those studying not only the history of city reforms, but also the “technology” of legislative enactment in the Russian Empire.

Keywords

municipal elections, absenteeism, Governor General A.F. Klokachev, statute development and enactment technology

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