Proceedings of orphans’ courts in Tobolsk governorate

One of the traditional institutions for ensuring the rights of citizens guaranteed by the state in the protection of their interests is the institution of custody and guardianship, which arose as a form of accommodating orphans left without parental care. A special agency, the Orphans’ Court, established by Catherine II, was in charge of this issue. Its main tasks were to maintain, bring up, educate and protect these children. This article examines the mechanism of interaction of the court administration with guardians and trustees through the prism of written documents, which are treated as historical sources while studying the institution of custody and guardianship of the Russian Empire. The focus of the research is on the documentation templates, the requirements for their layout in accordance with the procedure for obtaining, withdrawing custody of orphans and when placing estates for sale. There are two levels of regulation: legislative, which determines the principles for organizing the activities of the Orphans’ Courts and regulates the order of filing cases; local, writing down the rules of document flow in decrees and circulars of local authorities. The paperwork performed by guardians and their trustees required constant monitoring by the court, in view of the numerous inconsistencies associated with limited knowledge of the basics of document management. The main reason was the illiteracy of the guardians and their proxies, which inevitably led to errors in the execution of both primary documents and the preparation of reporting documentation. These circumstances inevitably led to distortion of information and confusion in the paperwork of the Orphans’ Courts of the Tobolsk Governorate. The article gives examples of filled-in documents: applications for the establishment of custody of small children, refusals of guardians from the duties assigned to them, requests to place under guardianship and to come into inheritance, cover letters to other institutions, official documents of the church, valuation sheets, excerpts from parish register, announcements and lists of estates for sale, estate management reports of trustees, guardianship account books, reports of guardians to the Orphans’ Court, inventories of real estate. Based on these documents, the algorithm of procedures for obtaining custody, its withdrawal, appointment of guardianship, sale of estates in the Tyumen and Yalutorovsk urban Orphans’ Courts of the Tobolsk Governorate in the 19th and early 20th centuries was restored.

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