If necessary, the government be divided into provinces..." (implementation of the new control scheme, the Transbaikal transboundary, 1775-1784)

The article discusses the history of the introduction of the province as an administration and management scheme new for the Transbaikal cross-border region. To manage the new territorial unit the Provincial Office was established, headed by the governor, subordinate to the governor of Irkutsk. The aim of the work is to highlight the basic information about the institution, the structure and the competence of the administrative body of Udinsk Province - the Office and the magistrate. The author uses archive, previously unpublished material stored in the regional archive to examine the Office personnel, the main directions of its activities, the structure of divisions and their competence. The paper gives a brief historiography of the study of the topic which indicates its insufficient study. The paper describes the progress of the formation of the province and its administration system. The author identifies the main functions of the provincial authorities: administrative, fiscal, judicial, police and land management functions. According to the author, the few employees of the Provincial Office were not enough for the effective management of the region. All Transbaikal administration scheme is briefly discussed, from commissioners managing individual divisions to peasant self-government in the form of hut clerks. The archive materials indicate numerous abuses by the administrative officials of the province, but due to the small number of staff even convicted officials could again take part in managing the region. This situation often gave rise to open public protests and provoked riots. The establishment of the province in the Transbaikal region, therefore, is the first attempt to make administration of the distant cross-border region autonomous. Despite the fact that for the European Russian the provincial administration system was outdated and had been canceled, for the border regions of Russia bordering this scheme was new. The author concludes that the policy of resettling the Siberian outskirts of the Russian Empire neither was innovative for the development of the region, nor adapted to the local socio-economic, geographic, ethnic, climatic and other features. Besides, the implemented scheme did not undergo any significant changes and amendments based on the experience of its functioning. The province lasted for less than ten years and was abolished, according to the author, because of its complete inconsistency with the local conditions and the actual worthlessness of the scheme as a whole.

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