“Unfortunately, the Government Has Met Resistance, Not Support”

This article considers the policies of the Russian Empire in the provinces of the Ostsee region in the early 1880s, namely the experience of a senatorial inspection of Livonia and Kurland provinces by N. A. Manasein. The purpose of the paper is to establish the role of the senatorial inspection in the elaboration of a new policy with respect to the Baltic provinces during the reign of Alexander III and to determine its specific features in comparison with earlier revisions. In order to solve the problem, the authors suggest approaching it from the standpoint of new political history, shifting attention from specific acts of state power meant to change the judicial and educational systems of the imperial outskirts to the existing practices of organising interaction between the centre and the periphery when developing a programme of reforms. The study is based on various archival and published historical sources. Some archival materials have never been analysed previously, which allows the authors to examine both the interpersonal relations of representatives of the empire with the local community and the process of developing a programme of reforms in the Ostsee region in the 1880s. The authors conclude that the inspection was conducted in order to gather material in accordance with a programme of reforms prepared beforehand. The government was interested in obtaining the basis for a policy of administrative and political incorporation of the periphery into the empire. To achieve this goal, the Russian autocracy spared neither human nor material resources

Autocracy · Business · Democracy · Economics · Economy · Empire · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Reign · Sociology · Central European and Russian historical studies · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · Law