From Unification to Specificities: Regional Administration in the Russian Empire (Second Quarter of the XIXth Century)

Abstract. The article focuses on the project of local administration known as the ‘governor program’ of Alexander I. It was implemented in the interior provinces of the Russian Empire in 1819. The project intended to unify the system of governorgeneral mediation, and it was dismantled at the start of Nicholas I’s rule. Using the fundamental idea of the project, the Emperor wanted to re-organize administration of Russian governorates. The study of Governors’ documentation (1828, 1837, 1842, 1853), its contents, and gendarme’s reports allows us to reconstruct the imperial regional policy, based on the specificity of administrating separate regions of the Russian Empire. 

Keywords: Russian Empire, regional administration, governor’s report, the Ministry of the Inner, administrative practices.