TAMBOV GOVERNING ELITE IN THE CONDITIONS OF POST-REFORM TRANSFORMATION

Abstract

The article examines the period (1861-1898) after the abolition of serfdom in the region of Central Russia. This period is characterized by a difficult situation for the further development of the country in the new realities. Despite the modernization message from the upper echelons of power, in the depths of the regional elite, serf attitudes and customs were preserved, which were supported by peasant’s patriarchal psychology. In this article the information on the adjustment of the nobility and landowners to the post-reform realities, on actions to realize their interests is supplemented. In carrying out the research, general scientific and special historical methods were used. The work is based on the archival sources of the State Archive of the Tambov Region. According to the results of the study, it can be noted that the local administrative elites were inclined to expand the boundaries of their own power. The modernization impulses directed from the capital, although caught by the Tambov leadership and the nobility, were implemented in a refined manner, drawing from the local interests. With the economic crisis, the "crisis of the management elite" also grew. Local authorities were increasingly distanced from the process of agricultural modernization in the Tambov province, not realizing that the agrotechnical backwardness of the region, which was aggravating over the years, was actually turning into a hotbed of great tension and threatened with serious conflict situations.