Social and cultural characteristics of the deputies of the provincial zemstvo's assemblies of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Perm in the first three-year term

The article examines the social and cultural characteristics of the deputies of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Perm Zemstvo’s assemblies. The first three-year period of the zemstvo institutions’ work has particular importance. At that time, the competences were divided between the provincial and district Zemstvos, and the apparatus of the zemstvo’s institutions was being formed. The authors give statistical data on such characteristics as professional and social stratum, education, age, etc. and raise the hypothesis about the influence of deputies’ social and cultural characteristics on zemstvo’s activities. The obtained characteristics further allow designing a socio-cultural portrait of deputies’ corpus. The analysis of social and cultural characteristics made it possible to identify common and special features in the composition of zemstvo deputies in the metropolitan and provincial gubernias. The results of statistical analysis enable evaluating the nature and extent of the influence of social and cultural characteristics on the activities of Zemstvos, assessing the place and role of both individual deputies and provincial zemstvo’s assemblies in general.