The creation of the state system for collecting harvests-data in Russia (18th - first half of 19th centuries)

The article discusses the history of the emergence of grain production statistics in Russia in the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. The legislative acts that regulated the methods of collecting harvest data in the provinces and the timing of their transfer to the government are analyzed. The practical implementation of the laws is traced on the archival materials, including regional ones (Ryazan and Tyumen). It was established that the systematic collection of harvest data was formed gradually, starting from 1723. The obligation of village (community) elders and administrations of landowners’ estates to submit written information about the harvest of their villages was introduced by a decree dated December 3, 1760. It had to be done along with the payment of the poll tax every October. This obligation continued into the 19th century. Initially, the principle of a total survey of grain producers was assumed. The reform of 1822 legalized the selective method of calculating the yield based on several villages reports for each uyezd. The collection of primary data and summing up the results of the yield within the boundaries of the uyezd since 1782 was carried out by the Nizhny Zemsky court (governing administrative body at the uyezd level in the 18th - 19th centuries). Final information about the province was to be sent at the end of autumn in a special report to the government (at different periods - to the Chamber Collegium, to the Senate, personally to the Emperor, to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to the Ministry of Police, to the Ministry of State Property). Annual governors’ reports of the 19th century from the provinces were not related to crop statistics and only duplicated the previously sent information. The main purpose of this practice was to monitor the food situation in order to prevent famines. Information about sowings and harvests of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries is proposed to be considered as proto-statistics, which allows studying the dynamics of productivity and approximate comparison of regions in terms of gross yield.