The myth of the Russian nobility: Nobility and privileges of the last period of imperial Russia. Bazarov's disputes with Pavel Petrovich: who is right? (Roman I.S

The action of the novel by I. S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” dates back to 1859, and the writer completed work on it in 1861. The time of action and creation of the novel is separated by only two years.

It was one of the most intense epochs in Russian history. At the end of the 1850s, the whole country lived in a revolutionary situation, under the sign of close sharp turn in the fate of the people and society - the impending liberation of the peasants. Again, for the umpteenth time, Russia "raised on its hind legs" over an unknown abyss, and for some its future lit up with hope, for others it faded in the horror of the unknown.

The abolition of serfdom was proclaimed in February 1861. This event is grandiose in its significance. However, the reform not only did not solve the social and political problems, but posed new, no less painful questions for society. (Peasants were freed without land, they could buy it.)

In such turning points especially sharply, painfully, and sometimes menacingly, the conflict of generations makes itself felt. And it was impossible to do this more accurately than I. S. Turgenev in the novel "Fathers and Sons."

But before we start talking about Bazarov, about the "children", let's turn in seniority to the generation of "fathers".

Fathers. Nobles. The predominant theme of all Russian literature of the first half of XIX century. From what sides did not depict the life of the nobility! What controversy it did not generate! Now, in new era, Turgenev, always especially sensitive to all the changes in the social life of Russia, with severe rightness passed a merciless guilty verdict on the generation of "fathers", affirming the idea of ​​​​the decay, degeneration, and social failure of the nobility. “My whole story is directed against the nobles as an advanced class,” he wrote to the poet K. K. Sluchevsky. This idea in the novel is primarily associated with the images of the brothers Nikolai Petrovich and Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov. It should be noted that the writer chose a very simple method for proving it. Yes, the Kirsanov brothers are people who are quite worthy of respect or at least sympathy on the part of the reader, and at first glance there can be no question of any degeneration here. But the author consciously reveals his thought on the example of the best and most worthy representatives of the nobility. Behind the external attractiveness of the Kirsanovs is “weakness and lethargy”, their complete unfitness for life. “If cream is so bad, what is milk?”

The development of the images of Nikolai Petrovich and Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov reflected in the novel two different aspects of a single process of decomposition of the noble class. Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov and all his economic activities are a kind of illustration of the economic insolvency of the nobility.

During the long period of serfdom, this class was placed in an exceptional position: the nobles actually had the opportunity and the right not to do any work and not worry about tomorrow. The means of subsistence and, in general, all the blessings of life were provided for them by the peasants. And now the upcoming reform doomed the nobles to heavy thoughts about a piece of bread, called for work, even if not physical, but mental. Very soon the landowner will hear a call addressed to him (N. A. Nekrasov will write about this in the poem “Who in Rus' should live well”):

Wake up, sleepy landowner! Get up! - learn! work hard!

The landowner Obolt-Obolduev, one of the characters in the poem, answers in bewilderment:

The same Obolt-Obolduev ingenuously declares his understanding of the appointment of the nobility (and so the majority thought):

... an ancient name, Dignity of the nobility To support with hunting, Feasts, all luxury And live by someone else's labor ...

And yet the most far-sighted of the landlords, on the eve of the changes, took on a difficult task for themselves: they began to manage. Among them is Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov. He "does everything to keep up with the times." His "red" for this throughout the province and called. He carried out a delimitation (division of land) with the peasants on his estate, but even before the reform he started a capitalist-type economy, using not serfs, but hired workers in his work. Nikolai Petrovich follows all the achievements of agricultural science, writes out the latest machines, but ... new way the household creaked like an unoiled wheel, cracked like home-made furniture made of raw wood ... Life was not going very nicely in Maryino, and the owner had a bad time. The troubles for the reform grew every day - joyless, stupid troubles. In fact, the author of "Fathers and Sons" predicted that long and painful process of "impoverishment of the nobility" that began after the reform of 1861.

Pavel Petrovich in his reasoning demonstrates the collapse of the noble ideology. According to him, the nobles are the bearers of high moral principles, on which the inviolability of the life of the whole society is based. “Without self-respect, without respect for oneself,” he says, “there is no foundation for a public building.” The idea itself is good, and one cannot but agree with Pavel Petrovich. However, he limits these principles to narrow class boundaries, connects "self-esteem" exclusively with the nobility, or rather, even narrower: with the aristocracy. But it was in the nobility that these principles lost their social content. Bazarov wittily remarks in a dispute with Kirsanov: “Here you respect yourself and sit back; what is the benefit to society? You wouldn't respect yourself and you'd do the same." Bazarov here does not just laugh at his opponent - he rejects Pavel Petrovich's claims to the social significance of his principles.

Kirsanov is indeed a noble man, possessing the highest degree of self-respect. But the highest principles, not supported by action, have no meaning for society, do not bear any benefit. Sitting "hands folded" Kirsanov may or may not respect himself - for public life it doesn't matter. Individualistic isolation, which Turgenev constantly explores in his work, acquires here a very definite social characteristic.

Turgenev laughed angrily at Kirsanov in the scene of Pavel Petrovich's duel with Bazarov. The duel has always been not only the duty of a nobleman to defend his honor, but also his high exclusive right. Recognition of the right to a duel was tantamount to recognition of the honor and dignity of a person. And vice versa, in the novel, the high content and tragic solemnity of the duel is destroyed by its truly parodic character, primarily by the comic figure of the "second" - footman Peter, whose absurdity is recognized by Pavel Petrovich himself. “But you must admit, Pavel Petrovich, that our duel is unusual to the point of ridiculousness. Just look at the physiognomy of our second,” says Bazarov. The noble hero, what Kirsanov would like to look like, is reduced to the level of the mob he despised.

Having wounded Pavel Petrovich in the leg, Bazarov provided medical assistance to his opponent and soon left the Kirsanovs' house. As he leaves, he sees their estate for the last time.

What are his feelings? “He only spat and, muttering: “Damned barchuks,” he wrapped himself more tightly in his overcoat.

At this time, “Pavel Petrovich wet his forehead with cologne and closed his eyes. Illuminated by bright daylight, his beautiful, emaciated head lay on a white pillow, like the head of a dead man ... Yes, he was a dead man ... ”These words of the author are symbolic. Dead, of course, is not a man Pavel Petrovich - the nobleman Kirsanov is dead. And this is the best of nobles. An aristocrat, a gentleman, a man of undeniable inner dignity. And a dead man. “But if cream is bad, what is milk?”

And “milk” is people who have long lost their former high principles and replaced them with empty hypocrisy. Dead nobility. The time of noble revolutionism is long in the past. The most that they are capable of is good impulses, which they have neither the strength nor the energy to carry out. The best proof of this is the fate of Arkady Kirsanov, who at first was "fascinated" by the ideas of his friend Bazarov, but in fact belongs to the "fathers" camp. Precisely the "fathers", although in terms of age and immaturity of thought he is still a perfect "child". But in this case, “fathers” and “children” are not age-related concepts, but worldview ones. According to Pisarev's witty remark, Arkady "is in a transitional state from adolescence to old age."

The brilliant work of I. S. Turgenev has not lost its significance for many decades, because in Russia there are always crisis situations, and hence the conflict of generations of “fathers” and “children”.

In chapter 10, there is an open ideological conflict between Bazarov and the Kirsanov brothers. Let's take a look at their dispute.

What do you think prevails in the chapter: description, narration, dialogue?

(The dialogue in this chapter and in most others is a feature of the composition of the novel.)

How can you explain so many dialogues in the novel?

(A large number of disputes are due to the content of the novel. The presence of an acute conflict makes the work dramatic, and the predominance in the manner of presentation of dialogues with the author's remarks, reminiscent of remarks, speaks of the well-known stage nature of the novel; this is why the novel was staged many times.)

(Main lines of dispute:

- about the attitude towards the nobility, the aristocracy and its principles;

- about the principle of activity of nihilists;

- about the attitude towards the people;

- about views on art and nature.)

First line of argument.

The first thought of the dispute, which arose by chance, was important for both Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich. It was a dispute about the aristocracy and its principles. Chapter 8 - read the excerpt by roles, comment; who won the argument?

(From this dialogue, we see that Pavel Petrovich sees the main social force in the aristocrats. The significance of the aristocracy, in his opinion, is that it once gave England freedom, that aristocrats have a highly developed sense of their own dignity, self-respect; their self-respect important, since society is built on individuals. Bazarov breaks this seemingly harmonious system with simple arguments. Talking about the fact that the aristocracy gave England freedom - old song much has changed since the 17th century, so this reference by Pavel Petrovich cannot serve as an argument. Beliefs that aristocrats are the basis of the public good are shattered by Bazarov’s well-aimed remarks that there is no benefit to anyone from aristocrats, and their main occupation is doing nothing (“they sit idly by”). They only care about themselves, about their appearance. Under these conditions, their dignity and self-respect look like empty words. Aristocracy is a useless word. In idleness and empty chatter, Bazarov sees the basic political principle of the entire noble society, living at the expense of others.)

What is the outcome of this dispute?

(Pavel Petrovich "turned pale" and no longer started talking about aristocracy - a subtle psychological detail of Turgenev, conveying the defeat of Pavel Petrovich in this dispute.)

Second line of argument.

The second line of argument is about the principles of the nihilists. Let's read an excerpt from the text. Pavel Petrovich has not yet laid down his arms and wants to discredit the new people in unscrupulousness. "What are you acting on?" he asks. And it turns out that nihilists have principles, they have beliefs.

What are the principles of the nihilists, what do they reject?

(Nihilists act deliberately, proceeding from the principle of the usefulness of activity for society. They deny the social system, that is, autocracy, religion, this is the meaning of the word “everything.” Bazarov notices that freedom, which the government is fussing about, is unlikely to go in the future; this phrase contains a hint at the reforms being prepared. Bazarov does not accept reform as a means of changing the social position. Denial is perceived by new people as activity, not chatter. These statements by Bazarov can be called revolutionary. Turgenev himself understood Bazarov's nihilism as revolutionary.)

But what shortcomings can be seen in the views of Bazarov?

(He does not consider it his business to build on a destroyed sheet. Bazarov does not have a positive program.)

What is Kirsanov's attitude to this position of Bazarov?

(Later in this dispute, Pavel Petrovich stands for the preservation of the old order. He is afraid to imagine the destruction of everything in society. He agrees to make only minor changes when combining the foundations of the existing system, to adapt to new conditions, as his brother does. They are not reactionaries, they liberals compared to Bazarov.)

Are there like-minded people in the novel Bazarov?

(Sitnikov and Kukshina consider themselves nihilists.)

What do we know about these heroes?

(Sitnikov is busy with farming his father; Kukshina is “really a landowner,” she says about herself, regularly manages her estate.

Both heroes perceived only the external form of nihilism. "Down with Macaulay!" - thunders Sitnikov. But then he stopped. “Yes, I do not deny them,” he said. (Macaulay is an English bourgeois historian who defends the interests of the big bourgeoisie). So briefly Turgenev shows the absurdity of this denial. In Kukshina, everything is unnatural. And behind this counterfeit, everything is ugly and gone.)

(Turgenev treats Bazarov with respect and with irony, scorns Sitnikov and Kukshina, because Bazarov’s convictions are deeper and sincere, and for these people she is false. Kukshina is a caricature of those who dress up as new people. Those like her cannot be real students of Bazarov, since they do not have the ideological basis of nihilism. Sitnikov and Kukshina - imitators of Bazarov, set off the seriousness, sincerity, depth of the true nihilist Bazarov.)

The third line of the dispute about the Russian people.

How do Pavel Petrovich and Bazarov imagine the character of the Russian people? Read and comment.

(According to Pavel Petrovich, the Russian people are patriarchal, they cherish traditions, they cannot live without religion. These Slavophile views (with an English way of life) speak of reactionaryism. He belittles the backwardness of the people and sees in this a guarantee of the salvation of society.

The situation of the people causes in Bazarov not tenderness, but anger. He sees trouble in all areas folk life. Bazarov turns out to be far-sighted and condemns what would later become a creed of populism. It is no coincidence that he says that the Russian people do not need useless words like "liberalism", "progress".

Bazarov has a sober attitude towards the people. He sees the ignorance and superstition of the people. These shortcomings he despises. However, Bazarov sees not only the oppression, but also the discontent of the people.)

Who are the peasants more likely to recognize? prove it with text.

(Bazarov got up early in the morning (not like a bar), he talks to the servants without a lordly tone, although he teases us; Dunyasha could not help but be attracted that Bazarov turned to her on “You” and asked her about her health. Fenechka feels herself with Bazarov Pavel Petrovich doesn't know how to talk to the peasants, he himself admits it. For him, the peasants are dirty peasants, without whom, it is true, one cannot do without.

N.P., forced to communicate more with the peasants, is more democratic, he calls the valet "brother", but the ordinary people themselves treat the Kirsanovs as masters, and are afraid of Pavel Petrovich.)

Their speech can serve as a vivid evidence of the connection of the hero with the people. What can you note in the language of Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich?

(Bazarov’s speech is characterized by simplicity, accuracy and accuracy of expressions, an abundance of folk proverbs, sayings (the song is sung; we heard this song many times ...; there is a road; Moscow burned down from a penny candle). Pavel Petrovich does not use proverbs in his speech , distorts words (efto), uses many foreign words.)

Fourth line of argument.

The fourth direction in the dispute - differences in views on art and nature.

Exercise.

Pavel Petrovich, defeated in everything else, found a weak spot in Bazarov and decides to take revenge. He believes that nihilism, "this infection", has already spread far and captured the field of art. Read out. Is Pavel Petrovich right when he says this about the artists of the sixties?

(Yes and no. Right, realizing that the new Wanderers are abandoning the frozen academic traditions, from blindly following the old models, including Raphael. Pavel Petrovich is wrong that the Wanderers, as he believes , absolutely abandoned tradition.He says that the new artists are "powerless and fruitless to the point of disgust."

Bazarov, on the other hand, denies both the old and the new art: "Rafael is not worth a penny, and they are no better than him.")

Remember what else Bazarov says about art in other chapters? How can you evaluate this position?

(Bazarov does not know art well, he does not engage in art, not because he could not, but because he was only interested in science, since he saw power in science. “A decent chemist is 20 times better than any poet.” Pushkin does not know and denies This was characteristic of a part of the democratic youth of the 60s, who preferred the study of science, but Pavel Petrovich, since he cannot judge art, having read about 5-6 French books in his youth and something in English. contemporary artists He only knows by hearsay.)

Who is Bazarov's opponent in the dispute? How is the fallacy of the ideas about art and Bazarov and P.P. shown?

(Not Pavel Petrovich is Bazarov's opponent in this dispute, but Nikolai Petrovich. He is especially favorable to art, but does not dare to enter into an argument. Turgenev himself does this, showing a sense of the organic influence of Pushkin's poems, spring nature, the sweet melody of playing the cello.)

How does Bazarov look at nature?

(He does not deny it at all, but sees in it only the source and field of human activity. Bazarov has a master's view of nature, but he is also one-sided. Denying the role of nature as an eternal source of beauty that affects a person, Bazarov impoverishes human life. But Arkady and Nikolai Petrovich do not argue with him, but object in the form of timid questions.)

How is this line of argument resolved?

(Landscapes appear in chapter 11. All signs of the evening affirm the existence of eternal beauty. Thus the last line of the dispute is resolved.)

V. Summary of the lesson

Consolidation of knowledge on the topic "Ideological differences between Bazarov and the Kirsanov seniors" can be carried out in the form of a survey.

Highlight the main issues of the dispute. Is there a connection between them?

Prove that aristocracy is a "barren principle."

Do nihilists have principles? Prove it.

Is Turgenev right when he calls Bazarov a revolutionary? What is the hero's attitude towards reforms?

What is the position of the Kirsanovs in relation to the reforms? What is the weak side of Bazarov's views?

How do the Bazarovs and Kirsanovs treat the people? Whose views are progressive?

Is Bazarov right in his rejection of art? Why does he have such views?

Does Bazarov feel the beauty of nature? What is the basis of his attitude towards her?

Do the Kirsanovs feel defeated?

Homework

Write out quotes from the novel that explain the attitude of the main characters (N. P., P. P., Arkady, Bazarov, Odintsova, Katya, Fenechka, Princess R.) to love and to its place in human life.

The problem of the relationship between fathers and children in literature is not a new topic. However, Turgenev is the first to create an image advanced man of his time. The writer treats the protagonist of the work "Fathers and Sons" ambiguously.

Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov and Bazarov are representatives of different generations. Let's try to compare and analyze in what aspects these two characters differ.

The writer about the work

Of his novel, Turgenev says that it is directed against the aristocracy, which was considered an advanced class in Russia.

Bazarov and Kirsanov are two characters whose opposition of views formed the basis of the plot of the work. The specifics of the worldview and position in society of these heroes can be presented in the form of a table. This form allows you to see the main aspects of their contradictions most clearly.

Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich. Comparative characteristics. Table

Attitude towards the aristocracy

Kirsanov believes that the aristocracy is the key driving force The ideal, in his opinion, is a constitutional monarchy, which can be achieved through liberal reforms.

Bazarov notes the inability of the aristocrats to act, they cannot be useful, unable to lead Russia to the future.

This is how Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich treat the aristocracy. (table presented above) reflects this, gives an idea of ​​how different their understanding of what is the driving force of the development of society.

Attitude towards nihilism

The next question, on which the two heroes argue, concerns nihilism, its role in the life of society.

Pavel Petrovich defines the representatives of this worldview as impudent and cynics who do not respect and do not recognize anything. He is glad that there are few of them in society.

Nihilists note the need for revolutionary change. Bazarov believes that the people are ignorant, but revolutionary in spirit. Eugene sees the point only in what is useful, he does not consider it necessary to speak big words.

That is how Pavel Petrovich is looked at. Comparative characteristics(the table is available in the article) reflects the current moment, shows how different the attitude of the characters to this worldview position is.

Attitude towards ordinary people

Pavel Petrovich is far from the people, while being touched by patriarchy and religiosity. Bazarov considers the peasants dark, ignorant, ignorant of their rights.

Kirsanov believes that the life of ordinary people according to the orders established by great-grandfathers is correct. Bazarov despises the ignorance of the peasants.

Pavel Petrovich and Bazarov (the table captures this moment) differently perceive the position of the common people in society.

By origin, Eugene is closer to ordinary people. He is a rogue. Consequently, he understands the peasants more. Pavel Petrovich comes from a noble family, he is absolutely far from understanding the life of ordinary people. What Kirsanov considers faith, Bazarov calls superstition.

A compromise between these heroes is impossible, which is confirmed by the duel between Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich.

Attitude towards art, nature

The views of Bazarov and Kirsanov differ even in the perception of art. They are different from nature. According to Bazarov, reading fiction is an empty business, and he evaluates nature exclusively as a resource. Kirsanov is the complete opposite of him. He, on the contrary, loves the world around him, art, music.

Bazarov believes that it is necessary to rely in life only on personal experience and feelings. Proceeding from this, he denies art, since it is only a generalized and figurative understanding of experience, distracting from the case. He denies world achievements of culture.

So Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich look at nature and art differently. Comparative characteristic (table displays this) in Once again shows the practicality of Eugene's views.

Biography of heroes, attitude to life

Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov and Bazarov are two opposite characters. The author makes this clear to us. Kirsanov hated Yevgeny for showing Pavel Petrovich the futility of his existence. Before meeting him, Kirsanov believed that he was noble and worthy of respect. When Evgeny appears, Pavel Petrovich comes to the realization of the emptiness and meaninglessness of his own life.

Kirsanov is undoubtedly a worthy representative of the nobility. He is the son of a general, an officer who has wasted the best years of his life in an effort to win the woman he loves. Senior Kirsanov, of course, is honest, decent, loves his family.

Turgenev notes that, having described in the novel the best representatives nobility, he wanted to emphasize the failure and futility of this class.

Bazarov's parents are very pious people. His father is a zemstvo doctor, his mother, as the author writes about her, should have been born two hundred years ago.

In his own way, Bazarov is a raznochinets who loves work. He is a man with a strong mind and character, who raised himself.

Pavel Petrovich and Bazarov (the table clearly reflects this) are two completely different people in terms of their views and origins.

In the novel "Fathers and Sons" the author contrasts two very striking characters. Pavel Petrovich's convictions characterize him as a representative of the past. Bazarov's views are too advanced and progressive, extremely materialistic, which may be the reason for the death of this hero at the end of the work.

Counter-reforms of Alexander III

The key element of the old order in Russia was the 1860s. paternalistic role of the nobility in relation to the peasantry and rural life generally. Members of the first estate performed this role individually, as owners of serfs, and collectively, through provincial societies and officials elected by them. The virtual abolition of this role due to the Great Reforms was the main concern of the traditionalists, and most of their energy was aimed at finding ways to restore in one form or another the role of the nobility in village life.

Already in the early 1870s. General Fadeev insisted that the district administration "should be exclusively in the hands of persons elected by the nobility" or, in extreme cases, in the hands of local nobles appointed by the government. The implementation of this proposal had to wait until a favorable atmosphere arose with the accession of Alexander III. In 1884, the marshal of the nobility in Saratov, P. A. Krivsky, quite seriously put forward the idea of ​​a new type of official, appointed from among the local nobles, who would exercise guardianship in relation to the peasantry. His proposal was favorably received by a number of traditionalist-minded governors, zemstvo figures and leaders of the nobility, who were included in November 1884 in the Kakhanovsky commission on the reform of local government.

This group included A.D. Pazukhin, who, after the dissolution of the Kakhanov Commission in May 1885, was invited by the Minister of Internal Affairs Tolstoy to work on strengthening class differences in the system of local government, which Pazukhin proposed in his famous article in January 1885. Pazukhin's plan to create the post of zemstvo chief in 1886 was very close in spirit to Krivsky's proposal (the latter, by the way, participated in the discussion of Pazukhin's project at the Ministry of the Interior).

Majority State Council supported the idea of ​​maintaining a new position for the nobles, but rejected two proposals of principle for Pazukhin: the merger of administrative and judicial power in one official and its distribution only to the peasants, so that the rest of the population of the county was not affected by this power. The majority of the State Council feared that the new administrative structure would be perceived “in the sense of a measure aimed at restoring, even if in a modified form, those rights of the nobility over the peasants, which were lost by the former with the liberation of the latter from serfdom, and in any case as a law, harmful for the full rights of the peasants and their self-government” (which, in fact, was the goal of the project). Instead, the State Council, by a 3:1 majority, accepted the proposal of the Minister of the Imperial Court, Vorontsov-Dashkov, to create an institution of district chiefs, a kind of mini-governors, in charge of the entire population of the districts, without distinction of estates. District chiefs with similar powers at the district level were to be subordinate to the district chief. Neither the first nor the second were to have judicial powers. Under the influence of Tolstoy and Meshchersky, Alexander III sided with the minority of the State Council and on July 12, 1889 approved the draft law of Pazukhin.

Zemstvo chiefs replaced not only the county and provincial presences in the role of guardians of class peasant organizations, but also justices of the peace, who were elected by the county zemstvo assemblies. Each zemstvo chief was responsible for his own section, of which there could be up to five in the county. The candidate for the post of zemstvo chief was chosen joint decision the governor and provincial marshal of the nobility (the latter had to first consult with the district marshal of the nobility and members of the provincial noble assembly from this section), after which he was approved by the Minister of the Interior. In principle, candidates for this post could be former marshals of the nobility who had served in this position for at least three years, as well as hereditary nobles aged twenty-five years and older, whose land holdings amounted to at least half of the land qualification for a personal vote in noble and zemstvo elections. , as well as either graduated from a higher educational institution, or served three years as a conciliator, a member of the local presence for peasant affairs or a justice of the peace. In the absence of a hereditary nobleman who met these criteria, it was allowed to appoint a personal nobleman - provided that he met certain requirements of property, education or service. If there was no suitable candidate from hereditary or personal nobles, the Ministry of the Interior could appoint a noble from another county or province, in extreme cases even a person from the lower classes. The operation of the law of 1889 was limited to the territory of European Russia without the Baltic and nine western provinces, where the noble elections were temporarily suspended.

From the moment of its creation, the institute of zemstvo chiefs did not satisfy the most outspoken estates. "Citizen" Meshchersky insisted that Zemstvo chiefs should be appointed by the decision of the noble assemblies, and not by agreement of the governors and provincial marshals of the nobility, many of whom had a reputation for being overly liberal and therefore did not enjoy the trust of the estates. Moskovskiye Vedomosti doubted that the powers granted to zemstvo chiefs were sufficient to maintain order among the peasants.

Opponents of privileges criticized the same institution from different positions. Vestnik Evropy refuted the arguments cited in Pazukhin's 1885 article, reminding readers that in the century preceding the emancipation of the peasants, the nobility did not particularly show itself in the field of local government. In the same journal in 1887, an anonymous landowner pointed out the complete illogicality of the decision to assign local government exclusively to the nobles, while persons from the lower classes participated in the work of more high levels management. Nor did it make much sense to try to revive the monopoly of the nobility in local government, given that the monopoly on land ownership had long since been lost. Rebuilding the system of local government in the hope of stopping the exodus of nobles from the land in the way that Pazukhin proposed to do it would be worse than simply useless.

Something similar was expressed by a person who treated the issue of privileges with much more sympathy than the authors and readers of Vestnik Evropy. According to F. D. Samarin, the marshal of the nobility of the Bogorodsk district of the Moscow province and the nephew of the famous Slavophile, “it would be a big mistake to think that in this way the state can somehow support the nobility. After all, it is undoubted that, where a fairly numerous and not completely ruined nobility has still been preserved, there all county posts, substituted by choice, remain in their hands. In other localities, and under the effect of the new law, it will hardly be possible to do without the replacement of many vacancies of zemstvo chiefs by persons of non-noble origin. Even a nobleman from another county or province, appointed to a position due to the lack of suitable candidates among the locals, “in the absence of any connection with the locality ... will be the same official as anyone else,” Samarin pointed out.

A few years later, Count Witte expressed a much more cynical verdict on the whole undertaking with the Zemstvo chiefs. According to Witte, Alexander III “was seduced by the idea that… in each district there would be a respectable nobleman who enjoys general respect in the given area… In practice, it turned out that this idyll of a noble landowner who judges and rules in the Zemstvo district was an illusion. From the very beginning, such landowners turned out to be an insignificant number, and at the present time they are almost completely absent.

"Numbers" was indeed a problem. In January 1889, the emperor announced that the corps of rural magistrates would have to be disbanded "in order to ensure the availability of the necessary number of reliable zemstvo chiefs." Despite the abolition of justices of the peace, it was impossible to recruit from 2,200 to 2,300 local landowners who met the requirements of an educational or service qualification. Ultimately, these vacancies had to be filled by landowning nobles who found themselves in cramped circumstances, for whom 1,600 rubles of annual salary plus 600 rubles for official expenses were the most attractive part of the new job. Was used to fill vacancies and retired army officers, strangers to the local society and "appeared from nowhere", as well as officials, some of whom were not even nobles. By 1893, Grazhdanin wrote with contempt about zemstvo chiefs who had turned "into officials, into automatons, living from day to day, reading provincial circulars, unsubscribing, putting commas in the proper places." A survey conducted by the government in 1903 of ten provinces, in which there were 584 zemstvo chiefs, confirmed the shortage of qualified nobles: 21% of zemstvo chiefs did not have a completed secondary education, and 5% were neither hereditary nor personal nobles. According to estimates already of our time of publication, the percentage of local landowning nobles among zemstvo chiefs decreased from two-thirds or more in the early 1890s. to "well below half" in 1905, and continued to decline in subsequent years.

The creation of the institution of zemstvo chiefs in no way satisfied the desire of the traditionalists to restore the right of the first estate to control the local administration. Only the shortage of noble landowners in many districts prevented the St. Petersburg nobles in 1898 from demanding the establishment of a monopoly of the first estate on positions in local government. Instead, they proposed passing a law that only local nobles would have the right to make appointments to these positions. The lack of suitable candidates, however, did not prevent the publicist N.P. Semenov in the same year from insisting that exclusively hereditary nobles should have the right to serve in local governments, otherwise they would lose their main characteristic of the service class.

Even in 1904, the publicist Vladimir Paltov, not discouraged by the obvious difficulties associated with the lack of suitable people for the posts of zemstvo chiefs, proposed detailed plan, according to which 30,000 unpaid officials, parish chiefs, would be elected by district noble assemblies from among the nobles who own at least 200 acres of land in the corresponding parish. With a shortage of suitable candidates, the government had to create them, endowing officials from the nobility with plots from state lands or from mortgaged lands, the owners of which had lost the right to redeem them. It was supposed to entrust the functions of tax collectors, policemen, judges and administrators to the parish chiefs, to help them they should choose officials from local nobles, clergymen and heads of peasant farms. The existing police authorities at the volost and uyezd levels were to be abolished; the county zemstvo assembly was supposed to be replaced by an assembly of parish and zemstvo chiefs of the county, headed by the marshal of the nobility. Paltov's project was the purest embodiment dreams of traditionalists about the ideal arrangement of the rural world, free from the influence of merchants, kulaks and non-noble officials and entrusted to the paternal guardianship of the landlords, exercising power on behalf of the state.

After the 1905 revolution, the institution of zemstvo chiefs underwent two important changes. In May 1913, the Ministry of the Interior recognized that the decree adopted in October 1906 on the abolition of "all special privileges for occupying ... positions depending on class origin" applies to zemstvo chiefs. Thus, this position has lost its special character and has become another element of the bureaucracy. By the same decree of 1906, the zemstvo chiefs (as well as the heads of the family, rural society and volost) were deprived of power over the individual peasant. And in June 1912, the institution of rural magistrates was restored, in whose jurisdiction both the peasants and everyone else found themselves, and thereby the zemstvo chiefs were deprived of the judicial powers that had belonged to them since 1889. But the last change was carried out slowly, especially after the start of the war, so that by 1917 it covered no more than twenty provinces.

To the extent that the guardianship system in relation to the peasantry was the ideal of the traditionalists, the Zemstvo was a curse for them. Fadeev expressed the opinion of many estates when he advocated "the concentration of all zemstvo self-government in the hands of the nobility, denying any idea of ​​all-estates in modern Russia, as a blatant, composed and dangerous lie against Russian reality."

The idea of ​​restructuring the zemstvos according to the estate principle was enthusiastically approved by the traditionalists; in 1884 Tolstoy introduced them to the Kakhanovskoye commission for the reform of local government, which until then had been dominated by liberals. The resulting split among the members of the commission gave Tolstoy an excuse to convince the emperor to dissolve the Commission after the latter published a report proposing to liquidate the peasant class institutions at the level of the volost and rural society in order to replace them with all-estate volost organizations under the control of an official elected by the county. land assembly. This report was hardly "a document turned to the past, full of nostalgia for pre-reform Russia" and an expression of "noble prejudices", as it has already been characterized in our time in some monographs. The county zemstvo institutions were indeed under the control of the landowning nobility, only for the most part they were liberals, and not nostalgic traditionalists. Moreover, the estates were disgusted with the zemstvo precisely because the owners there were represented by groups according to the type of property, and not according to estate. The proposal to ignore class distinctions at the level of the volost can hardly be called reactionary or prejudiced in favor of the nobility in any sense that would suit the traditionalists.

By 1886, Pazukhin prepared a draft of a new provision on zemstvo institutions, which unequivocally fixed the traditional forms of social differences and inequality. The main points of his plan were: (1) a new definition of three curia, which would elect district zemstvo assemblies on the basis of class, and not according to the type of property, as was the case in 1864; (2) the distribution of seats in district zemstvo assemblies in such a way that the first curia (hereditary and personal nobles and non-noble officials) would have an advantage over the second (merchants and petty bourgeois) and the representatives of the third curia (peasants) would be reduced; (3) the lowering of the property qualification, which gives the individual the right to vote in the first curia, to compensate for the decline in noble land ownership in the period after 1864; (4) an increase in the area of ​​land holdings, giving the right to small landowners to participate in the election of electors to the first curia; (5) granting to district marshals of the nobility presiding at district zemstvo assemblies, membership in provincial zemstvo assemblies (previously consisting exclusively of deputies elected by district assemblies); (6) automatic granting of membership in zemstvo assemblies of both levels to owners of large (more than a certain established value) estates who have owned property for more than ten years, almost 80% of whom were nobles; and (7) replacing provincial and district zemstvo councils elected by zemstvo assemblies with executive presences of leaders of the nobility and three people, consisting at the uyezd level of vowels appointed by the governor - one each from the nobility, the urban estate and the peasantry, and at the gubernia level - from the chairman, appointed by the emperor, and from three nobles appointed by a joint decision of the governor and the provincial marshal of the nobility.

In 1887, Pazukhin's project received broad support from the noble assemblies; some of them suggested taking one more step and completely liquidating the zemstvos. In January of the following year, Tolstoy submitted a draft law to the State Council with the explanation that, by turning once again to the nobles for help in local government, the state thereby publicly acknowledges the fact that it is the estate system that remains the basis of the political and social organization of Russia. Tolstoy insisted on changing the composition of curiae, especially the first one, in the zemstvo elections, complaining that "the existing procedure for electing zemstvo vowels transfers the entire zemstvo business into the hands of the classless mass of zemstvo taxpayers." In the 1860s the first curia consisted almost exclusively of nobles, but “now a new category of landowners has arisen, mainly from the merchant class, with interests and aspirations that are completely opposite to noble land ownership, and every year the number of cases of displacement of the native nobility from the zemstvo by this newcomer element increases.”

The new regulation on the zemstvo, after passing through the State Council and being approved by the emperor on June 2, 1890, differed from Pazukhin's project only in three important points. The Regulations moved peasant proprietors from the third curia to the second, did not give large landowners the automatic right to participate in zemstvo assemblies, and retained the election of zemstvo councils at the county and provincial levels. Thus, the zemstvo institutions embodied the class principle (although not as fully as Pazukhin wanted). The zemstvos retained somewhat more autonomy than Pazukhin had envisaged, but their activities in each province came under the supervision of the newly created provincial presence for zemstvo affairs, which, among others, included the vice-governor and the provincial marshal of the nobility, chaired by the governor.

According to the regulations of 1890, 55% of the seats in the county zemstvo assemblies were assigned to the first curia; in 1883–1886 only 42% of the seats were occupied by nobles, hereditary and personal, and officials of non-noble origin. In the provincial zemstvo assemblies, the share of seats belonging to these social groups increased from 82% in 1883–1886 to 82%. up to 90% in 1897; the representation of these groups in district and provincial zemstvo councils increased from 56 to 89%, respectively, in 1883-1886. up to 72% and 94% in 1903, The statistics of the Russian Empire (9 (1890): 50–51) gives the following estimates of the participation of hereditary and personal nobles in 1883–1886: 35% in county assemblies and 70% in provincial assemblies, 44% in county councils and 74% in provincial.
But the increase in the number of nobles, despite the fact that they were already represented quite significantly, did not affect the activities of zemstvo institutions, which, generally speaking, in the 1890s. constantly demonstrated a growing dislike for class distinctions. The nobility obviously did not use their numerical superiority in the composition of the zemstvo institutions, as Pazukhin and other estates expected. Moreover, the Zemstvo continued to attract liberal-minded noble landowners, animated by ideas of service to society, while most of their classmates, including adherents of traditions, continued to ignore it.

Counter-reforms 1889–1890 they did not achieve the goals set by the traditionalists - to restore the influence of the nobles on the peasantry and rural life in general - for a number of reasons: the number of landowners who had the right and wished to serve was rapidly decreasing; the zemstvo chief was ultimately more of an official than a landowner, enjoying the respect of those below him; and even the reformed Zemstvo did not become attractive to the traditionally oriented landlords. But the problem was even deeper: the corporate institutions of the nobility themselves, which had previously been a vital element of their leading role in the countryside, were also of great concern to the estates.

Noble societies

Over the four decades that have passed since the Great Reforms, the demographic base of the provincial noble societies and the sphere of influence of the latter have sharply narrowed: the first gradually, as the noble land ownership was reduced, the second - unexpectedly, as a result of the reforms themselves. All together led to the growth of indifference, which, in general, has always distinguished the attitude of the nobility towards their corporate institutions.

The liberation of the serfs, the redistribution of land and, as a result, the reduction in the total area of ​​noble estates made it necessary to revise the property qualification that determined participation in the three-year elections of provincial societies. In 1870, in order to have the right to vote, the nobleman was required to have, depending on the county, from two hundred to eight hundred acres of land (approximately 10 thousand rubles at the prices of 1870), the same amount that was established six years earlier as a property qualification for personal voting in the first curia at county zemstvo assemblies; as an option, it was necessary to have non-agricultural real estate worth fifteen thousand rubles. In order to participate, together with other small landowners of his county, in the election of an elector, a nobleman had to have at least ten to forty acres of land. In 1877, out of approximately 88,000 landowners in thirty-seven provinces of European Russia, in which nobility elections were held, presumably 20% had property that gave them the right to personally participate in the elections, and another 50%, due to their property status, could participate in the election of electors. The remaining 30% of the nobility-landowners could vote at the meeting on all issues, except for the election of officials. The practice established at the end of the 1830s continued to operate, when the right of personal vote in elections was also granted to nobles who, by virtue of their property status, had the right only to indirect participation, but who had reached the sixth class in military service (colonel) or the fourth in civil service (actual Privy Councilor), as well as to the nobles (regardless of whether they were landowners) who served three years as marshal of the nobility.

Until 1875, not only the possession of land, but also the achievement of a certain rank or the awarding of an honorary order gave the right to vote at a meeting of the nobility. And in 1875, it was recognized that a complete secondary education, as well as a three-year term of service in one of such newly created positions as a justice of the peace, a member of a zemstvo or city council, is legally equivalent to achieving a rank. There is no doubt that the need for these changes was due to the fact that the distance between the landowners, who owned significant landed property, and the nobles, who were in the public service, continued to increase.

Between 1875 and 1889 the right to elective office could only be possessed by nobles who had a rank, who had a complete secondary education, or who had served three years in zemstvo, city, and similar local institutions; holders of elective office were not required to own land from 1831. However, in 1889, simultaneously with the creation of the institution of zemstvo chiefs, all adult male hereditary nobles again received the right to apply for elective office, as it was before 1875. But even with such an expansion in the number of possible applicants, it was difficult, and sometimes impossible, to find nobles corresponding to elective positions.

In 1890, the revised regulation on the Zemstvo lowered the property qualification for personal voting in the first (now completely landlord) curia; in 1896 the Senate extended this change also to the meetings of the nobility. From that moment on, for direct participation in the noble elections held every three years, it was enough to have from 125 tithes (in some districts of the black earth center) to 475 tithes (in some eastern and northern districts), that is, in the prices of 1890, it was enough to have agricultural land (or other real estate) in the amount of approximately fifteen thousand rubles. Possession equal to one-twentieth of this area gave the owner the right to participate in indirect elections, as it was before 1831. The lowering of the property qualification helped to keep the number of those who had the right to vote in person, but the decrease in the number of landowning nobles generally led to to a significant reduction in those who had the right to participate in indirect elections. In 1905, out of some 73,000 noble estates in thirty-seven provinces in which noble elections were held, about 25% of the estates were large enough to give their owners the right to participate in direct elections, and another 45% could participate in indirect elections. Both in 1877 and in 1905. the number of the first group was presumably 18 thousand estates, while the number of the second decreased from 44 to 33 thousand,

In 1905, these 18,000 nobles, who had full voting rights, were part of a group of 31,000 nobles from fifty provinces of European Russia, whose estates met the same property qualification, which was included in that year in the law on elections to the Duma . These 31 thousand landowners, whose families made up only 12% of the hereditary nobles of European Russia, withstood the transition from a system of production based on serf labor and in a limited land market to a market economy system in which the prices of labor, land and agricultural products were determined the ratio of supply and demand. Although this group was only a tiny part of the first estate, but this 31 thousand landowners constituted the dominant element in the group of those who owned 200 or more acres: in 1905 they owned 59% of such estates, which accounted for 69% of the total area of ​​all large and middle estates. Separated from the vast majority of nobles by occupation and lifestyle, and by no means always sympathetic to the retrospective program of the estates, this small group of wealthy landowners controlled the corporate institutions created for the entire first estate in the reign of Catherine the Great, when noble status and land ownership were practically synonymous.

The provincial noble societies, representing and serving the interests of an ever-decreasing group of the first estate, themselves experienced a period of sharp reduction in their activities after the abolition of serfdom, when they were no longer required to provide people for the local administration, police and judicial bodies, and their existence was reduced almost exclusively to narrow-class worries. For undertaken by a number of noble societies in 1859-1865. a failed attempt to play an active political role was followed by decades of apathetic existence.

Invited by the government to elect committees to work out the details of the abolition of serfdom and to send elected representatives to St. Petersburg to consult with the officialdom working on new legislation, the noble societies soon found that the government was not going to tolerate any criticism of the basic principles of the reform. The angry ban of Alexander II in November 1859 on further debate of the peasant question in the noble assemblies only stimulated in the next two years extensive discussions in many assemblies on the topics of the political, social and administrative structure of post-reform Russia, which culminated in a series of proposals for the creation of some kind of representative legislative assembly . When in January 1865 the noble assembly of the Moscow province voted to send the emperor an address with a request to create two separate chambers - one from representatives of the Zemstvo, the other from the nobility - Alexander replied with a rescript to the Minister of Internal Affairs P. A. Valuev, protesting against that that "the Moscow Provincial Nobility Assembly entered into a discussion of subjects that were not subject to its direct jurisdiction, and touched upon issues related to the change in the essential principles of state institutions in Russia." Insisting that “no estate has the legal right to speak in the name of other estates. No one is called to take upon himself, before Me, to intercede for the common benefits and needs of the entire state, ”Alexander punished him so that he would not have to“ meet any further difficulties from the Russian nobility ... ”. As a result of these instructions of the emperor, the right granted to the noble assemblies in 1831 to appeal to the government with representations regarding the abuses and shortcomings of the local administration, even when such abuses affected the interests of other classes rather than the nobility, was annulled.

Except for the Baltic provinces, where until the 1880s. noble meetings (Landtage) played a more significant role in resolving local political issues than anywhere else in the pre-reform period, and nine western provinces, where, as a result of the Polish national uprising of 1861-1863. meetings of the nobility and elections were banned indefinitely, all other noble societies after 1865 led a quiet existence and dealt with issues that could not arouse the interest of the majority of their members. Probably the most important of the class functions they performed was guardianship of the property of orphans, the mentally ill, the decrepit and, for various other reasons, legally incompetent nobles. The number of noble estates under guardianship in 1885 reached 15,670, and in 1895 - 16,429; the total value of these estates in 1895 was more than 243 million rubles, the gross income from them was 16 million, and the net income was 3.6 million rubles. In each county or group of counties, guardianship issues were handled by a Committee consisting of two to four people, elected by the Provincial Nobility Assembly, headed by the county marshal of the nobility. Throughout the last third of the 19th century, the nobility successfully resisted repeated attempts by the bureaucracy to transfer all guardianship cases, regardless of their class affiliation, to the jurisdiction of a single administrative body.

As part of the budget approved in 1890 by the Moscow Provincial Nobility Assembly, the cost of guardianship was the largest item of expenditure - 53,100 rubles, or 29% of all costs. The second most important item was the expenses for the needs of the deputy assembly, that is, for maintaining the genealogical book and entering the names of new families into it after a thorough study of their personal data, - 42,720 rubles, or 24% of budget expenditures. The next largest item (34,500 rubles, or 19% of the budget) was the cost of maintaining pensions for noble boys studying in secondary schools. educational institutions Moscow. In addition, noble societies participated in charitable activities in favor of financially needy members - they paid pensions and benefits to widows and the elderly, scholarships to students, maintained orphanages, nursing homes and places in hospital shelters. In the 1890s The St. Petersburg noble assembly spent almost 12,000 rubles for these purposes in three years, and even more than that in Moscow.

The charitable activities of noble societies were carried out, in part, on interest from the capitals of various funds established by members of these societies over a number of years. In 1898, there were six such funds in St. Petersburg with a total capital of 360,890 rubles. But approximately 90% of the budget of these societies came from a 1% annual tax on the income of urban and rural real estate in the province, which belonged equally to assigned and unassigned hereditary and personal nobles. The Moscow and St. Petersburg provinces were atypical in that they contained an unusually large amount of urban real estate belonging to the nobles of these and other provinces, and the need for charitable resources in them was unusually high. In the 1880s a number of noble householders in Moscow, still firmly connected with their native provinces, unsuccessfully tried to challenge the legality of levying a tax on them in favor of members of the Moscow noble society.

Already in the first half of the XIX century. the government was extremely concerned about the indifference of the nobility to the meetings of the nobility held every three years, but after the Great Reforms the situation deteriorated significantly. Even in the early 1860s, at the peak of the political activity of the provincial noble societies, the nobles who voted on fundamental issues in meetings often made up only a small percentage of those who had these rights: for example, 20% in Ryazan in 1859, in Vladimir in 1860 - 29%, in Tver in 1859 - 34%, and in 1862 - only 15%. Electoral activity was higher only in the capitals: in Moscow in 1862, 50% participated, and in 1865 - 43%; in St. Petersburg in 1860, 88% participated, and in 1862 - 64%.

It was especially difficult for the noble assemblies to arouse a serious interest on the part of their members in their activities after they lost their role as a supplier of local personnel for the state and the right to intercede with the government on general issues important to rural society in general. In 1869, the liberal Slavophil A. I. Koshelev used these very phenomena to explain the fact that “meetings of the nobility are as small as they are empty.” Koshelev cited several cases as an example, when in certain counties the nobles could not form a quorum for the selection of the leader or the Committee of Noble Guardianship, so that the decision on this issue had to be referred to the joint noble assembly of two counties or even to the provincial assembly as a whole. According to Koshelev, only the noble assemblies of the Petersburg and Moscow provinces, due to the fact that many nobles lived in the capitals, and the fact that these cities attracted the noble inhabitants of the province, were distinguished by good attendance. According to the data of the Special Conference on the Affairs of the Nobility at the end of the 1890s, in twenty-six provinces, out of 91% of the nobles with the right to directly participate in elections at meetings of the nobility held every three years, only 21% of the nobles used this right.

This level of participation is confirmed by available data for a number of other provinces. In the Moscow province in 1905, out of 1842 noble estates of various sizes, about 550 gave the right to direct participation in noble elections. In 1890, 283 votes were cast for the provincial marshal of the nobility, in 1899 - 312 votes, and in 1902 - 256 votes. If we amend the fact that individual nobles owned several estates and that some landowners, due to their educational level and non-participation in public service, did not have the right to vote, we get that approximately 50% of those who had it took part in the elections. full right. In Saratov province in 1905 there were 1275 noble estates of various sizes, of which about 600 were large enough to give their owners the right to directly participate in elections. At the election of the provincial marshal of the nobility in this province in 1902, 225 votes were cast, i.e., those who participated accounted for approximately 40% of those who had the right to do so. Issues less relevant than the election of officials attracted even less attention. Only half of those who in Saratov in 1902 participated in the election of the leader were present in 1896 at a meeting devoted to discussing the decline of noble land ownership in the province. When in the early 1890s at extraordinary meetings of the nobility, the issue of lowering barriers to the establishment of reserved estates was discussed, less than 15% of the noble landowners of the Penza and only 5% of the Kherson provinces took part in drawing up a petition to the government on this issue.

The leading defender of class privileges, A. A. Planson, who owned estates in five provinces and served as the marshal of the nobility in the Ufa district, complained that the government had been conducting since the 1860s. politics has so demoralized the nobility over the past three decades that "the majority take no part in the affairs of their estate and little by little become completely alien to the interests of the nobility." As an example, Planson cites his own county, where in February 1892, at an extraordinary meeting of the nobility, out of 167 nobles who had all the voting rights, only three people took part in it. Planson also complains that of the four real state councilors who participated in the zemstvo elections, all of noble origin and long-lived on their estates, only he “one turned out to be ranked among the local nobility, the rest are birds of passage in relation to the local nobility; in zemstvo affairs, they take a constant and active part because their monetary and personal interests are connected with these affairs.

And indeed: not only did most of the nobles leave the countryside in search of urban quarries, but among the dwindling number of remaining on the ground, liberally oriented nobles, until 1905, preferred the zemstvo as a forum for their social activities, leaving noble assemblies for traditionalists Planson type. The latter often used the meetings to announce their claims on such issues as conservation, noble credit and granting noble dignity to non-nobles, but most of these subjects were uninteresting, and they simply ignored the activities of the meetings. It is this lack of coherence between the views of the estates, who were in the 1880s and 1890s. the source of many petitions on the nobility issue, on the one hand, and the attitude of the overwhelming majority of the nobles who had land, not to mention those who did not, was the Achilles' heel of the traditionalist cause. And this factor distorted the goals of the estates much more seriously than far-fetched explanations such as the loss of a “sense of orientation” by the nobles or even their “social heterogeneity”.

In no way did it affect the indifference of the nobility to their collections and the symbolic act of trust in them on the part of Alexander III. In response to the petitions of several noble societies announced in 1881, the emperor, by a rescript dated April 14, 1888, restored the property belonging to the provincial noble assemblies in 1831–1865. the right to apply to the governors and the higher government with ideas "on stopping local abuses or on eliminating the inconveniences noticed in local government, even if they came from a general decision", i.e., affecting the interests of not only the nobility, but also others estates. In fact, this gesture even alarmed some traditionalists. Moskovskiye Vedomosti came to the conclusion that the nobility "now needs to think much more about their duties than about their rights", and they warned the nobles that the restoration of the right to petition should not be interpreted as the right to petition "not only on questions of estates and local (emphasis in the original), but also on matters of general importance. Others demanded further movement in this direction and wanted the noble assemblies to be granted the right to directly address the emperor on local issues affecting the interests of other estates. The Special Conference on the Affairs of the Nobility and the State Council advocated for granting such a right, and on June 10, 1902, a law approved by the emperor included this right.

In the same law, a weak attempt was made to solve the long-standing problem of increasing non-attendance at meetings held every three years: a fine of up to 75 rubles for the first non-participation and a reprimand from the provincial leader for the second (the reverse order was adopted before). The penalty for the third absenteeism remained unchanged - exclusion from the members of the meeting for a period of a maximum of one session. The Commission headed by Sipyagin at the Special Meeting was against fines for the first absenteeism, and indeed against the system disciplinary action. The Chairman of the Commission and eight members of it believed that “the reluctant attendance of meetings of the nobility, which is currently observed, is a sign of a certain decline in estate interests ...”, and believed that, “as soon as that revival of local noble life follows, which can be expected as a result of the current while the government is working to improve the economic and political situation of this class, those noble elements will undoubtedly again pour into the provincial centers, which at present do not find in them a sufficient field of activity for applying their knowledge and their work. In fact, the revival that the Commission expected did not come, and until the upheavals of 1904-1906. the nobility did not show any noticeable interest in the provincial noble assemblies.

The other two sections of the law of 1902 were the result of a discussion that took place between the class members over the course of several years about ways and means of strengthening noble societies. In one section, the law for the first time gave societies the status of legal entities with the right to own and dispose of property, enter into contracts, initiate lawsuits and be defendant in lawsuits. The second change was as follows: in order to ensure the functioning of societies in the three-year breaks between provincial assemblies, the assembly of leaders and deputies of the nobility (created in 1831 mainly to confirm the right of individual nobles to vote in elections) received a new role for itself executive committee which it informally and so on occasion carried out. Other solutions to the problem of the functioning of the noble assemblies in the intervals between elections, including the proposal for annual provincial assemblies and the use as an executive committee of either the Assembly of provincial and district leaders, or the Provincial noble deputy assembly (with one representative from each district and which is something like the secretariat of the society), the Special Meeting rejected. The law of 1902 expanded the powers of the Assembly of Leaders and Deputies of the Nobility, giving them the following rights: (1) to discuss and resolve issues raised by the government or the provincial marshal (who chaired this assembly); and (2) prepare the agenda for the provincial assembly, including any petitions addressed to the emperor.

As long as the vast majority of the nobility, including the landowning minority, did not show much interest in noble societies, the results of the structural reform of 1902 had little effect. But to a certain extent, this reform helped to prepare the noble societies for their new role after 1905, when they acted as a lobby not so much of the nobility as of the entire class of large and medium landowners, the dominant element of which was the nobility. Generally speaking, some of the petitions sent by the noble societies in the late 1880s and 1890s. Petersburg, especially those related to questions about easy credit and its availability in general, about granaries, railway tariffs for agricultural products, etc., can be seen as the first manifestations of this new role.

Leaders of the nobility

Although in the 1860s Assemblies of the nobility for the most part lost their role in political life at the level of districts and provinces, the institution of leaders of the nobility, especially its district link, developed in a different direction. In the pre-reform period, the leader was primarily a representative, spokesman for the interests and head of the nobles who elected him, although from time to time, due to the lack of his own administrative staff, the government assigned other duties to him. The administrative duties of the marshal were not so extensive as to require constant attention, and in his absence they were performed by the county judge. The latter, like the leader, was elected in the noble elections, but, unlike him, he received a salary and had to be constantly in the county town.

To coordinate the work and supervision of the zemstvo, the bodies of peasant self-government and other local organizations created in the course of the Great Reforms, the government increasingly relied on the district marshals of the nobility. Lacking a reliable representative of its power at the county level, the government made the marshals of the nobility the actual heads of the county administration. The marshal of the nobility served as chairman of the county zemstvo assembly and played an important role in the zemstvo elections as chairman in the first curia, which united landowners whose possessions exceeded the minimum established by law, and representatives from landowners whose possessions were below this minimum, as well as the congress of small landowners, on which the commissioners for the first curia were elected. In addition, the county marshal of the nobility presided over the county congress of peace mediators nominated by the nobility to carry out land management work in accordance with the abolition of serfdom, and since 1874 - in the presence that replaced it in the county for peasant affairs. When in the same year universal military service was introduced, the leader became the chairman of the county conscription presence; in addition, he presided over the county drinking affairs presence, created in 1885, and then the head of the county guardianship committee on people's sobriety, which replaced this presence in 1895. Beginning in 1887, he was also the chairman of the county appraisal commission, which established compensation to landowners for real estate expropriated to solve public needs.

An instructive example of the attitude of the government towards the leaders of the nobility in the period of reforms refers to 1873-1874. Concerned about the growing activity of populists and seeking to stop the spread of ideas harmful to the well-being of the family, society and state, Alexander II accepted the proposal of his conservative advisers to transfer supervision of elementary schools to provincial and district marshals of the nobility. In a decree addressed to the Minister of Public Education, Count D. A. Tolstoy, the emperor called on “my faithful nobility to stand guard folk school... [against] pernicious and pernicious influences", to preserve "the cause of public education in the spirit of religion and morality", recalling that members of the first estate have always served as "an example of valor and devotion to civic duty ...". And the county marshal of the nobility by the law of 1874 was made chairman of the county school council, responsible for opening new schools and maintaining order in existing ones, with the right to dismiss objectionable teachers. At the same time, the provincial leader of the nobility was entrusted with the supervision of all elementary schools in his province.

In recognition of his expanded duties, which made it mandatory for him to permanently reside in the county town, in 1878 the rank of county marshal was raised from the sixth class to the fifth, although in order to receive the fifth class it was necessary to serve three terms in this position and be re-elected to the fourth . The leaders did not receive a salary from the noble societies, but the zemstvos often paid them a monetary allowance as compensation for the time and energy that they spent outside their direct leadership functions and which became more laborious than their purely estate duties. In addition, some noble assemblies paid the leaders travel and administrative expenses. In the truest sense of the word, the county marshals of the nobility were "now not so much representatives of the nobility as bodies of the government regime, executors of its will and various administrative orders."

Since at the provincial level the bodies of state power were represented to a greater extent than at the county level, the provincial marshal of the nobility was primarily the leader and representative of the first estate, and only secondarily - an agent of the government. Nevertheless, he also turned out to be a member of various provincial administrative formations and an indispensable chairman of two bodies - a zemstvo assembly and a school council, about which the Code of Laws rightly noted that he "in the case of common presence with provincial officials, takes first place after the Governor."

According to A. Romanovich-Slavatinsky, the author of an exemplary work on the history of the nobility, before the liberation of the peasants, few nobles sought to take the position of leader, since it required large expenses, including luxurious dinners expected by the nobles, especially during meetings held every three years, and therefore “could attract only very rich, idle landowners. A small number of sufficiently wealthy and ready to serve nobles, the author writes, were re-elected several times - three terms were almost the rule, five terms were not rare, but seven or nine terms were also not unheard of. The leaders, Romanovich-Slavatinsky also notes, usually belonged to unremarkable, provincial families - without a title and not ancient origin. This characterization of the pre-reform marshals of the nobility is in good agreement with Terpigorev’s depiction of them, which refers to the first post-reform decade: “Our district marshal, who served four three years without a change, died in two months, and now it was a difficult task to choose a person who would satisfy in the same time for all "parties" and all the requirements for a leader's rank, i.e., that he be a strong and intelligent person, standing above all classes, or that he be a colorless person; but in both cases, there must be a person, if not rich, then at least with good means. Baron S. A. Korf, a legal researcher who wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century, also argued that the leaders of the nobility served for many terms in a row, but at the same time, unlike Romanovich-Slavatinsky, he explained this by the fact that a small group of prominent nobles available in each province, sought to occupy this position and practically monopolized it, attracted to it by the power and honor accompanying this position. A Soviet researcher also writes about this, stating that in the post-reform period, a third of the provincial marshals of the nobility remained in this post for more than three terms.

This generally accepted idea needs to be corrected, at least in relation to the provincial, and probably the county leaders of the nobility. Between 1777 and 1910 in forty-seven provinces of European Russia, in which this position existed in certain years, 983 noblemen served as provincial leader. Of these, 888 were elected, and the rest were appointed - forty-nine in the western provinces, where, due to the Polish uprising from the 1860s. elections were suspended, four in the Olonets province between 1812 and 1858, and forty-two appointed temporarily by the governors to fill unexpected vacancies before the end of the term, but never elected by their electorate. Significantly more than half of all leaders elected to their post were elected for only one term and more than three-quarters - for no longer than two terms (see Table 22).

Table 22.

Provincial marshals of the nobility elected in European Russia: distribution by tenure (1777–1910) (430)

(Number of terms …… Number of leaders / In % of the total number of leaders)

1 …… 521 / 58,7

2 …… 163 / 18,4

3 …… 90 / 10,1

4 …… 54 / 6,1

5-7 …… 53 / 6,0

8-10 …… 7 / 0,8

The distribution of terms of office is approximately the same for the leaders elected for the first time before and after 1861. Approximately one of the five provincial leaders of the nobility belonged to a family, among whose members one person, and sometimes more, also held the position of leader. Only in the Mogilev province for some time did this post actually become the property of one family: I. O. Golynsky, his brother and three sons held the position of leader for forty-eight years out of a sixty-three-year period, from 1781 to 1844. leaders for two or more provinces. But these were exceptions. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the post of provincial marshal did not become the exclusive property of any one family or group of families, and the regular turnover of people in this post was the norm, and not a long stay in office.

There is no similar analysis of the length of time uyezd leaders have been in office for all provinces of European Russia, but if we consider Moscow gubernia to be typical, we get a similar picture of the length of time uyezd leaders have been in other gubernias (see Table 23). In Moscow districts, more often than at the level of provinces, it happened that the position of leader passed from father to son. In two counties out of thirteen, the post of the leader of for a long time became the property of one family. And if in Moscow the frequency of replacement of district leaders was almost the same as that of provincial leaders in European Russia, here it happened somewhat more often that this post turned out to be the monopoly of certain families.

Table 23

Uyezd marshals of the nobility of the Moscow province: distribution by terms of office (1782–1910) (431)

Number of terms …… Number of leaders / In % of the total number of leaders

1 …… 189 / 61,2

2 …… 55 / 17,8

3 …… 28 / 9,1

4 …… 20 / 6,5

5-7 …… 10 / 3,2

8-10 …… 7 / 2,3

To get a typical portrait of a nobleman who was elected to the post of provincial marshal in late XIX c., I analyzed the service (formular) lists of 29 people who held the post of provincial leader in twenty-six provinces of European Russia from January 1899 to December 1904. The sample included twenty-nine (57%) from a group of fifty-one people who held post at that time in thirty-seven provinces in which the election of leaders took place. Most people in this group were first elected to the post of leader at age 45 or younger (see Table 24).

Table 24

Distribution of provincial leaders by age of first election to this position, 1899–1904 (433)

(Age…… Number / %%)

31-35 …… 5 / 17,2

36-40 …… 4 / 13,8

41-45 …… 8 / 27,6

46-50 …… 7 / 24,1

51-55 …… 3 / 10,3

56-60 …… 1 / 3,4

61-65 …… 0 / 0,0

66-70 …… 1 / 3,4

Eighteen leaders (62.1%) had some form of higher education, of which thirteen had been university students at one time or another. Of the eleven leaders with a secondary education, seven were graduates of the page or cadet corps. Twenty-two leaders (75.9%) went through public service - thirteen in the civilian bureaucracy, one in the army, and eight served in both civil and military units. The average length of service for twenty-one civilians was eleven years, and nine former military men served an average of only five years. All but five had experience of serving as honorary justices of the peace or caretakers of county schools, or, in some cases, members of a zemstvo assembly, zemstvo council, or city duma. Twenty had seven years (on average) of service as county marshals of the nobility.

All twenty-nine leaders in our sample were landowners. Only in two cases we do not know the area of ​​their possessions (see Table 25).

Table 25

Distribution of provincial leaders by size of land holdings, 1899–1904 (434)

(Area, tithes ...... Number of leaders (or their wives) / %%)

500-1000 …… 3 / 11,1

1001–5000 …… 10 / 37,0

5001-10 000 …… 6 / 22,2

10 001-20 000 …… 3 / 11,1

20 001-50 000 …… 3 / 11,1

50 001-80 000 …… 2 / 7,4

Most had between 1,000 and 10,000 acres. Twenty-five inherited their estates, fourteen bought land, seven wives owned land, and ten had land not only in those provinces where they were elected leaders, but also in others.

It follows from our sample that forty years after the liberation of the peasants, a typical provincial marshal came from a moderately rich family provincial landowner and had a university education. He started his career at civil service, rather quickly after thirty years, he retired and retired to his parental estate, which had 5000-6000 acres of land in one province. For the next ten years he served the local rural society, holding a variety of positions, after two terms as a county leader, at the age of forty-five, he was elected to the post of provincial leader, at fifty he retired. This diagram of a typical marshal's career does not support Manning's claim that the nobility often used the position of marshal as "a stepping stone to a high position in the state apparatus." Leaders, both former and in office, were often called upon to participate in government commissions, such as the Kakhanov Commission and the Special Conference on the Affairs of the Nobility, but that is a completely different story.

At the turn of the century, the provincial marshal, like the corporate organization he headed, was in no way a characteristic product of the estate, of which he was the official representative. He was a landowner at a time when most noble families became landless; he combined the service of the state with participation in the life of the rural world, as required by the duty of a nobleman, while the vast majority of other noblemen of his generation had already abandoned one of these two forms of fulfilling their estate duty to society, and almost half had abandoned both. Further, he belonged to a clear minority (less than 9% of all landowners and approximately 4% of all nobles) of those whose estates exceeded 1,000 acres. Both the office of marshal of the nobility and the entire corporate organization of the first estate became the representation not of the estate, nor even of its majority, but merely of a small minority that formed the dominant element of the new class of wealthy rural landowners.

Neither the autocracy nor the advocates of privilege recognized this change. Both Alexander III and Nicholas II began their reign with the exaltation of the leaders of the nobility as natural leaders not only of the nobility, but of the entire rural world. The leaders of the nobility, especially the district leaders, were key component of all the traditionalist plans for local government reforms that were drawn up in the twenty-five years preceding 1905. Pazukhin, who thanked fate for the fact that “the institute of the leaders of the nobility was somehow miraculously not demolished by the reform hurricane” of the 1860s, considered it as an example of a disinterested and honest service to society and the state. He argued that "of the numerous authorities of the current county administration, the marshal of the nobility is the most popular person among the peasants." His plan to make the leader the chairman of the county congress of zemstvo chiefs was crowned with success. The district marshal was also to preside over the appointed presence, with which Pazukhin (unsuccessfully) tried to replace the district zemstvo council.

In general, the traditionalists shared the Pazukha idealization of the leaders of the nobility and were preoccupied with the problem of attracting capable people to the position of leader, especially the district leader, despite the ongoing exodus of nobles from the village. They counted on achieving this by various methods, among which the following three were most seriously considered: the appointment of a salary, the appointment of an assistant, and the provision of the status and rank of a civil servant with an appropriate pension.

The idea of ​​salaries to the district marshals of the nobility was rejected by the Sipyagin Commission at the Special Conference on Affairs of the Nobility. In May 1899, the Commission recognized the ever-increasing number of nobles who fully met the requirements of this position, but were not provided with the means necessary to fulfill it. Nevertheless, the Sipyagin group continued to insist that the essence of the service of the leader, by its very nature, cannot be paid, that this is precisely what the authority of the leader rests on in local self-government, and this position should be maintained as long as possible. That is how the matter ended.

Another means of alleviating the personal and financial hardships associated with the position of district leader was the appointment of an assistant to him, who would take over the performance of routine duties. In the spring of 1900, the Special Conference approved the idea that the procedure for electing an assistant district marshal should be exactly the same as for electing the marshal himself. Unlike a similar one put forward seven years earlier by the publicist Planson, this proposal, on the recommendation of the Conference, did not promise a salary to the assistant. The Council of State in 1902 was wary of the Conference's plan, arguing that the division of responsibility would weaken the authority of the office. Therefore, the State Council decided that the assistant leader should take over his duties in cases where the leader is unable to perform them himself, but is not his real assistant. Nicholas II, however, took the side of the minority of the State Council and the Special Meeting; the law of June 10, 1902 allowed the introduction of the position of assistant to the county leader in those counties in which the noble societies considered this position necessary, and each leader was given the right to use his assistant at his discretion. In practice, only a few societies used the permission to lighten the burden of official duties for their leaders. Both the noble assemblies and the leaders themselves were suspicious of any division of the leader's power.

Although the Special Conference rejected the idea of ​​paying salaries to the leaders, it spoke out in favor of giving them rank and assigning pensions. After being elected for a fourth term, the district and provincial marshals of the nobility, who had previously had a lesser or no rank, were assigned the rank of state councilor (fifth class) and real state councilor (fourth class), respectively. The meeting recommended that county leaders be given the rank of collegiate councilor (sixth class) after two full three-year terms and state councilor after three full terms; the provincial leader, after two full terms, received the rank of state councilor and real state councilor after three terms. All leaders of the nobility were entitled to a state pension, determined by the length of their tenure. The State Council rejected all these proposals, arguing that the nobleman should serve as a leader by virtue of obligations to the estate and that it in itself is already a reward; it is impossible to consider it as a means of moving up the ladder of ranks. But in this case, too, the emperor went against the decision of the majority of the Council, and in accordance with the recommendations of the Special Conference, the law of 1902 secured the right of all leaders to receive ranks in the civil service after two and three full terms of office.

Some estates treated the leaders with astonishing disdain. As an example, one can quote A. I. Elishev, who bitterly complained about the fact that "the leader of the nobility - a radical who preaches the destruction of estates in general and his own estate in particular - is not at all uncommon in our time." It is not necessary to agree with Elishev's use of the term "radical", but one cannot deny that the position of the leaders of the nobility often ran counter to the demands of traditionalists to protect class distinctions. Far from exceptional is the example of the Novgorod provincial marshal of the nobility, Prince B. A. Vasilchikov, who in 1897, answering a questionnaire sent out by the Special Meeting, stated: “the interests of each individual nobleman are much more fully expressed by the interests of the profession to which he belongs, rather than the interests of the class ... It is not possible to wait for an awakening in this diverse mass of class self-consciousness at the end of the nineteenth century.

The most important forum for the expression of this kind of liberal, as well as traditionalist, views by the leaders of the nobility was the nationwide conferences of provincial leaders, which, starting from 1896, met regularly. Already in 1884, the Poltava noble society, with the support of the nobles of several other provinces, petitioned for the convening of a national meeting of provincial marshals of the nobility, at which, in commemoration of the first centenary of Catherine the Great's granting of the Charter to the nobility, they would act as spokesmen for the interests and needs of the first estate. The government, showing its usual hypersensitivity to the slightest threat of political rivalry, refused the proposal to crown the network of class institutions of the nobility with an organization of an all-imperial level. The Minister of Internal Affairs Tolstoy rejected the petition of the Poltava noble society on the grounds that: (1) since this proposal affects the interests of the entire first estate, it goes beyond the competence of the Poltava noble assembly, and (2) the Code of Laws does not provide for the convening of a meeting of provincial marshals of the nobility . The autocracy never allowed any social interests, including those of the nobility, to overshadow their own if it felt the slightest possibility of a conflict of interest, and it remained faithful to this principle to the end. But in January 1896, when the nobility of the St. Petersburg province once again called for a meeting of the marshals of the nobility, the government relented. Nicholas II wanted to turn his beautiful-hearted words about the leading role of the nobility into action, and, in addition, M. A. Stakhovich, the Oryol provincial marshal and a prominent spokesman for the ideas of moderate landowners, warned Nicholas that if the government did not rush to help the nobles , the members of this group will soon completely lose the opportunity to serve the state.

The Minister of the Interior, I. L. Goremykin, respectively, convened in St. Petersburg in February and March 1896, for a period of a month, twenty-seven provincial marshals of the nobility for a meeting at which various measures were discussed to support noble land ownership, as well as issues of raising representatives of the lower classes to the nobility. dignity and corporate role of the nobility in the system of local government. Goremykin closely watched the meeting and at the end of it imposed an eight-month ban on public discussion of the note presented by the leaders to the emperor. This document contained the accusation of the government that since the 1860s. his actions caused material damage to the first estate, and the later policy of encouraging and supporting industry, banks and railways was carried out at the expense of the interests of agriculture.

In the next thirteen years, meetings of provincial leaders were held in Moscow once or twice a year and lasted for four or five days. Unlike the government-sponsored conference of 1896, all subsequent conferences, attended by fifteen to twenty-five leaders, were "private, informal discussions." For the convening of each ordinary meeting, at least until 1905, they obtained the prior consent of the Minister of the Interior and usually informed him of the results of the discussions. But the permission did not mean the unconditional approval of the meetings, since the unease caused by the potential threat of these meetings to the government's monopoly on power did not leave the government. In 1902, Minister of the Interior V.K. von Plehve expressed this ambivalent attitude as follows: “... I believe that the congresses of gentlemen of the marshals of the nobility for the exchange of thoughts on questions of a class character could be useful not only for establishing a commonality of views and unity of actions, but also for ensuring proper compliance of these actions with the types of Government ... The conversations that have taken place so far in Moscow with some provincial marshals of the nobility have not provided sufficient material to conclude whether it is possible, when establishing a program for such meetings, to draw a line between estate affairs and national issues. Plehve's doubts were fully justified three years later, when the meetings of the provincial marshals of the nobility, in which people who shared the views of Prince Vasilchikov on the priority of professional and class affiliation over estate, set the tone, became an influential lobby for constitutional reforms.

Closing of the Special Meeting

The law of June 10, 1902, dedicated to the corporate institutions of the first estate, was the last major piece of legislation prepared by the Special Council for the Affairs of the Nobility. The last meeting of this Conference took place on November 24, 1901. Anticipating that after the closing of the Special Conference, attention to the needs of the nobility would weaken, Moskovskie Vedomosti in the spring of 1897 put forward the idea of ​​creating a permanent public institution, through which it would be possible to communicate with the provincial noble societies. In 1900, this idea was picked up by new minister Internal Affairs D.S. Sipyagin, who proposed to create in his ministry a special department for the affairs of the nobility. The highest rescript, which dissolved the Special Conference on January 1, 1902, also indicated that Nicholas II “recognized it as a blessing that the further strengthening of the destinies of the dominant class in the empire, remaining the subject of My special care, took its rightful place in the current activities of public administration and taught the necessary to the implementation of such My will of instruction to the Minister of the Interior.

But Sipyagin's idea quickly got bogged down, running into indifference and even opposition from the State Council. The majority of the Council felt that the intended institution would not serve any useful purpose, and feared that such an act of official patronage towards the nobility might provoke a backlash from the other estates. In addition, most were concerned about the indifference of the nobility to the new institution; the January 1902 meeting of the provincial marshals of the nobility objected that such an institution could only become a bureaucratic barrier between the nobility and the autocracy. V.K. von Plehve, who took Sipyagin's place after the assassination of the latter in April 1902, dismissed the arguments of the majority on the grounds that (1) the opposition of the provincial marshals of the nobility should not be considered as the disagreement of the entire nobility, and (2) even if the majority the nobility was really against the proposed institution, the government has every right to act in order to achieve its highest interests. The last argument reveals a lot in the relationship between the autocracy and the nobility. On June 12, 1902, the emperor approved the creation of the Chancellery for the Affairs of the Nobility under the Minister of the Interior. The new institution justified the prophecy of the Council of State: in the six years of its existence, it did not create anything but paper stationery.

A relatively intense period of public debate and legislative activity from the mid-1890s left the traditionalists in a state of division. At one extreme were figures such as A. A. Chemodurov, the Samara provincial marshal of the nobility, who in September 1902 was indignant at the fact that "A special meeting on the affairs of the nobility did not work out radical measures to save the nobility." Chemodurov called for the creation of committees of noble landowners in each province, which would discuss rescue measures, as did the provincial noble committees formed in the late 1850s. for the development of legislative projects during the period of the liberation of the peasants. For most advocates of privilege, however, interest in further government assistance in the field of legislation suddenly vanished as soon as the Special Conference demonstrated the smallness of what it could achieve in this area. And in noble societies, and in the press, the discussion of the nobility issue lost its intensity compared to the peak of tension in the late 1890s. The position opposite to Chemodurov was held by former mentor Alexander III, Senator F. G. Turner, who noted with satisfaction in 1903 that “the acute period of noble acquisitions is over; everything that the government considered possible to do to satisfy the desires of the nobility has been done, and the noble question can be considered to have received, at least temporarily, its completion.

Senator Turner was wrong. The legislative measures carried out by the Special Conference on the Affairs of the Nobility were at best palliatives, and not a panacea for the ailments that, according to the diagnosis of the estates, suffered Russian society. Even under the most favorable circumstances, these measures could not stop or even appreciably slow down the transformation of Russia from a society based on class privileges into a society based on the equality of citizens before the law. The failure of the traditionalist program is largely due to the fact that the Russian nobles, not waiting for the state to protect them from the winds of change, themselves became active participants in the process of their economic and social transformations. By the end of the century, the first estate had already lost its integrity and unity. Its place in rural life was occupied by a class of large and medium landowners who clearly understood their interests. And the revolution of 1905 accelerated this process.