The urban self-government reform of 1785 in Siberia: legislation and bureaucratic practice

On the basis of archival documents discovered by the author as well as other data found in the works by Russian researchers, the article gives a detailed stage-by-stage analysis of the urban reform of 1785 implemented in the towns of Western Siberia during 1785-1870 in the provinces of Tobolsk and Tomsk. In the course of the reform the towns were for the first time granted the right to possess real estate and form their budget. The author singles out three stages in reforming urban self-government in Western Siberia, highlighting the typical features of each of them. The Siberian towns turned out unprepared for the reform in social, economic and demographic respects, argues the author. That is why the project conceived by legislators could not be fully realized at the local level. The formation of town Dumas was a slow process coming across various difficulties. As a result, it took years to complete. The reform of 1785 distinguished among six categories of citizens who had the right to elect and be elected to self- government institutions. However, the citizens falling into these categories constituted a narrow circle of merchants, urban petty bourgeois estate and artisans. Other social groups of the town population were practically not represented. As a result, the urban self-government operated largely in the interests of the merchants, and in case the latter were low-numbered, it acted in the interests of the urban petty bourgeois estate. The small-numbered nobility residing in Siberian towns had the right to be elected to the town Duma, but it did not want to burden itself with public and administrative duties. The provincial administration strictly controlled urban self-government institutions using them as an additional administrative mechanism, which rendered their activities less effective.