City magistrate of tsaritsyn as the estates court for urban population. 1784-1866

At the end of the 18th century in Russia caste system of the judiciary was legalized. For urban and suburban trade and craft population of the Russian Empire estates courts were magistrates. Despite the fact that the activities of magistrates are studied by native historians and legal scholars, regional aspects of the topic are not adequately reflected. This article examines the activities of the Tsaritsyn city magistrate court as an estates court for a merchant and petty-bourgeois population of the city of Tsaritsyn in 1784-1866. In 1775 Ekaterina II carried out a major reform of local government and the court, significantly expanding the functions of local government institutions, and, in fact, restoring estates of municipal government. From that moment in cities the magistrates managed the city, including city magistrates who represented the court of first instance in criminal and civil cases for the urban population - merchants, craftsmen, townspeople. Appeal to the city magistrate was of the Saratov provincial magistrate. Different aspects of his functional features and relations with another official instances are presented. The limits of the jurisdiction of the Tsaritsyn city magistrate was limited to the territory of Tsaritsyn. The objects of the jurisdiction could be only the regular citizens, i.e. assigned to the city, and not the entire population. Implementation of the rule of law, particularly the application of penalties in the material presented in the aspect of not only the all-Russian legal requirements, but also regarding regional social and legal assessments. Tsaritsyn city magistrate heard cases of theft, vandalism, rape, false receipts, and bills of exchange, unauthorized occupation of urban land, abandoned children, the accountability for deviations from the canons of Orthodoxy, committing a schismatic rites, violation of rules of transportation and logging, concealment of recruits, about the insult of the authorities. Here is the study of practice associated with the historical, social, religious, cultural and ethnic features of the region. The focus of attention is fixed on the functionality of local institutions in a changing social and legal environments taking place in the country and its regions. The main stage of the proceedings the magistrate stationery was records management. The trial differed extensive paperwork, lots revisewise and appellate courts, exclusion of the parties from the process. These characteristics, constraints and delay the proceedings, led to the reform of the judicial system in the mid-nineteenth century.