Experience of Self-government Bodies at the Tula Arms Plant in the Second Half of the 18th – First Half of the 19th Centuries

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the concept of self-government at the regional level on the example of self-government bodies established at the Tula Arms Plant in the second half of the 18th century. There has been an increase in the number of studies on the elective services of Tula gunsmiths since the 1990s and this article takes the next step in the detailed research of the subject. Most of the archival documents used to prepare the article have been introduced into academic circulation for the first time. The author focuses on a number of issues: the membership and method of manning self-government bodies of Tula gunsmiths, the specifics of their activities and functions, their place in the system of self-government at the plant, and their role in the organization of the production process. The system of self-government bodies at the Tula Arms Plant included the armourers’ ratusha, the orphan court and the verbal court. Functional approach was used to analyse the activities of these bodies; it allowed us to systematize the directions of their work and reveal the hierarchy and the position of each of the elective services there. Special attention is paid to the interaction of armourers’ ratusha with other self-government bodies and the reflection of the topic of self-government in the normative legal acts regulating the work of the Tula Arms Plant (Regulations on the plant dated 1782 and 1823). At the same time, the activities of selfgovernment bodies are considered as elements of social policy carried out by the administration of the Tula Arms Plant. The formation and development of self-government institutions are examined on the example of the Tula and Izhevsk arms plants, with the identification of common and characteristic features in the development of these bodies of authority.