MAYOR: A RETROSPECTIVE IN THE CONTEXT OF FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE BOOK REVIEW: AGEEVA, MARGARITA (2020), UFA MAYOR ALEXANDER MALLEEV: A STORY IN LETTERS, INFORMREKLAMA LLC, UFA, RUSSIA, 448 Р.: IL.

Abstract

The new book by Margarita V. Ageeva presents the family correspondence of the Ufa mayor A.A. Malleev and studies his biography. The epistolary finding and the specific historical context of the story introduce different aspects of the history of urban administration and the everyday life of the provincial nobility in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The book has become an original contribution to regional historiography, and its author has revised some of the conclusions of his predecessors, based on a metahistorical narrative. Information about the origin and genealogical relations of the family surname sheds light on the formation of the official elite in the eastern provinces as a result of the industrial development of the region in the 18th century and the reforms of local government and the court system in the post-reform period. The epistolary material recreates a portrait of personal qualities of the modernizers and testifies to the formation of new personnel in the provinces – the carriers of a genuine democratic culture. The author analyzes the influence of ethical views of officials on managerial decision-making as a central problem poorly developed in institutional history. The author traced it on the example of the events of the 1905 revolutionary crisis in Ufa. The discourse of private correspondence contains a lot of valuable evidence on the family life of the Malleevs, their religious identity and methods of raising children, on cultural and everyday life of the urban elite of a provincial town. The style and spelling of the letters, as well as the turns of phrase and the accepted spelling of certain words at that time, have remained unchanged, which increases the value of the source. The literal capture of the smallest details of everyday history make the book a practical tool for museum workers, fashion historians and other professionals.