Socio-Economic Aspects of the Establishment of Zemstvo in the Western Provinces of the Russian Empire

The article discusses the socio-economic aspects of introducing institutes of zemstvo (elective district counsil in pre-revolutionary Russia) self-government on the western outskirts of the Russian Empire (modern territories of Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine) in the late 19th — early 20th centuries. The authors consider the history of the appearance of the zemstvo in the western provinces. Together with the political and ethno-confessional aspects of the problem, attention is focused on its economic component. In addition to the controversy and political struggle around the Stolypin’s law on the Western Zemstvo, the results of the reform, reflected in the economic life of the western provinces, are revealed and analyzed. The authors conclude that the introduction of elected zemstvos marked the beginning of the formation of a new economic and economic system in the Western Territory, contributed to the restructuring of agricultural relations and led to the awakening of the economic activity of the Russian (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian) population of the region. At the same time, due to the outbreak of the First World War, the elected Zemstvo institutes did not have enough time to prove themselves fully, which does not allow us to unambiguously evaluate the results of this reform

Economic history · Empire · Geography · Government (linguistics · Political science · Politics · Population · Restructuring · Sociology · Ukrainian · Demography · History · Law · Regional Socio-Economic Development Trends