Assessment of the condition of landowner economies in Ryazan Province by the members of the Commission for the Exploration of the Current Situation of Agriculture and Agricultural Productivity in Russia in 1872-1873

The article is dedicated to the characteristic of landowner's economies in Ryazan Province in the 1870s. It proves that the main purpose of the Commission for the Exploration of the Current Situation of Agriculture and Agricultural Productivity in Russia was the identification of the degree of agricultural makers' adaptation to new post-reform conditions. The study confirms (based on historiographical materials) that the main document for studying the functioning of the Commission in Ryazan Province is The Reports of Respondents Invited to the Commission. The author comes to a conclusion (based on the materials of the central and local archives) that the post-reform decade became a transition period for the economy of Ryazan Province, when the consistent system of economic organization had not been formed yet and agricultural makers had not been adapted to the new post-reform conditions. The author shows that local commons (high-income landowners and farmers) denoted basic regional economic problems: land scarcity, traditional managing methods and nobility's absenteeism. The commons' opinions were sometimes personal, but they could elucidate the main agrarian problems and find out Ryazan Province's specificity: staged transition of noble lands to the peasants, redistribution of farmlands to the merchants, ground lease as the unreliable way of making profit. The author demonstrates that the task of prime importance in Ryazan Province that had been shown by the Valuev Commission's commons was the formation of the free labor market. The region's peculiarity was peasants' unwillingness to get a job in their region, and the shortage of skilled laborers and the deficiency of regulatory environment made it difficult to apply disciplinary actions. The author also draws attention to Ryazan commons' proposals of their own measures to improve landowners' estates: technical modernization and development of the regional agricultural education. The author concludes that most of the Ryazan commons negatively evaluated the development of landowners' economies in the 1870s. Their point of view reflected not only the local economic targets, but widespread economic woes of the Russian Empire. For the Ryazan commons, the participation in the Commission was an important stage in identifying local economic problems, when the zemstvo council's commons could exchange their ideas and experience from the regional to the all-Russian levels. The Commission for the Exploration of the Current Situation of Agriculture and Agricultural Productivity in Russia paved the way for further transformations in the country.

Keywords

Authors

References