Town Councils and Their Routine Activities in Volyn Governorate (Late 18th Century – Early 1860s)
Abstract
The paper sheds light on the process of formation of town councils and also on their main activities as the pivot of the county town governance in Volyn governorate. An analysis of the legislation and everyday practices of the Russian Empire allows the author to describe in detail how the centre tried to ensure interaction between its representatives and the townspeople. It is shown that the Charter to the towns (1785) in Volyn governorate applied only to the «privileged» county towns which were able to finance, to an extent, town council activities. St. Petersburg saw in municipal elections an important communication channel between town dwellers and governors. Provincial governments approved the results and thus legitimized elected officials. In the four privately owned county towns there were no councils of any kind. Such failure to comply with the basic law on municipal administration didn’t go unnoticed by the provincial government. When establishing town councils the imperial centre derived its guidance from two principles: election and estate representation. The ethnic diversity on the ground played an important part in formation of town councils as a branch of the judiciary. Only merchants, burghers, guild artisans, and «citizens» (persons recently demoted from petty nobility) enjoyed enfranchisement. The author proves that the town council was constructed by the imperial authorities which copied European models of governance in such a way so that some of urban social strata would take care of local affairs. Elected officials were accountable not to their voters but to the state apparatus, which controlled them and directed their efforts rather towards the raison d’état than their corporate interest. So the limited independence of urban estates seems quite evident.
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