All objects of the administrative-territorial division of Russia are multicomponent, throughout history they have undergone numerous transformations. We will follow the course of state work in the field of territorial administration, as well as transformation in the structure of the Russian Federation.
Term definition
Administrative-territorial division - a representation of the territory of the state in the form of a set of administratively managed units, or subjects of our state. The administrative-territorial division of Russia is legislatively fixed. It is fully reflected in the basic law of the Russian Federation - the Constitution. Russia as a complex consists of such conditional components — subjects: regions, republics, autonomous regions, territories, autonomous okrugs, cities of federal significance. All subjects of the Russian Federation possess a certain degree of sovereignty and are completely equal.
Territorial Administration Transformations
Let us single out the main processes in changing the administrative-territorial division of Russia:
- changes in the total number of administrative units;
- accession or separation from subjects of sections of their territory;
- enlargement and reduction of the territory of the subjects.
The features of the subjective division of a state, including Russia, are primarily determined by the physical and geographical spatial characteristics, historical and cultural-traditional prerequisites, established by policy models and some spectrum of economic factors.
State tasks
The main tasks of the state regarding the objects of the administrative-territorial division of Russia:
- confirmation of the unity of the subject territory and the dynamics of the progressive development of the sovereign unit of the state;
- determining the number of managerial levels in each subject;
- differentiation of responsibilities for life management in each administrative-territorial unit between state power and administrations of subjects.
Territorial Administration Reforms
A policy aimed at determining and establishing a rigid power vertical and developing the institution of local self-government throughout the entire state history required a series of reforms in Russia in the area of administration and territorial structure. Here are some examples:
- initiative on the part of the public or government structures to unite or create new regions;
- creation of federal districts;
- development of regional association projects;
- reorientation from the three models of territorial division that existed at the beginning of the century to a two-tier system of organizing local self-government on the territory of the state.
Analysis significance
The development and implementation of any reforms insistently requires a very thorough and rigorous analysis of the possibility of positive or negative consequences. The same situation is happening in the area of territorial administration. This determines the relentless relevance of work in this area.
Active research is ongoing on evolutionary processes in the administrative-territorial division of Russia over the past three hundred years. It also analyzes the implementation of each individual reform in detail. The main goal of this work is to identify and understand the problems, confirm the prospects of transformations of the administrative-territorial division of the country.
The history of the administrative-territorial division of the Russian regions. 18 century
In its evolutionary development, the history of the administrative-territorial division of Russia has thirteen stages leading from the very first reform of the Peter days to the present. Until the reign of Peter the Great, that is, until the seventeenth century, the territory of the then Russian kingdom (later it was renamed the empire) was divided into one hundred sixty-six counties. According to Peter's reform in the sphere of territorial administration, Russia on December 18, 1708 was divided into eight provinces, which, in turn, consisted of orders, ranks, and cities. In 1710-1713, the units of the administrative-territorial division of Russia recognized the shares (then they were called administrative-fiscal units).
The development of evolutionary processes led to the introduction of Tsar Peter’s poll tax. The second Petrine reform in territorial administration was put into effect on 05.29.1719. By that time, the total number of Russian provinces had already increased to eleven. The shares approved in accordance with the first reform were canceled, and nine of the eleven provinces were divided into forty-seven provinces, and the provinces, in turn, were divided into districts.
Everything new - well forgotten old
The new administrative-territorial division, like everything, is a well-forgotten old. This is exactly what the Supreme Privy Council decided, proclaiming on behalf of Empress Catherine I in 1727 the elimination of districts and the division of provinces into provinces and counties (even the number of counties was reproduced - one hundred sixty-five). The number of provinces themselves was also increased to fourteen: Novgorod was allocated from a seriously reduced St. Petersburg province, and Belgorod from Kiev.
By 1745, there were sixteen provinces in the Russian Empire. Now the Baltic provinces were divided into districts. Four more new provinces were added to the existing in 1764-1766, and by 1775 the number of provinces in the country was twenty-three, along with them there were sixty-five provinces and two hundred and seventy-six counties. However, the changes in the administrative-territorial division of Russia could not end, since the subjects remained too vast, very different in population size, and therefore were extremely inconvenient in terms of tax collection and management.
Actions opposing the further enlargement of the provinces were already taken by Catherine II in the course of her reform of 1775-1785. In the fall of 1775, the empress signed a law, according to which, the size of all provinces was reduced, and the number of subjects doubled. The elimination of provinces was also established (in some provinces, regions were introduced as a replacement), the system of counties in the Russian Empire changed.
Under the new administrative-territorial division of Russia, an approximate mandatory number was established for all administrative-territorial units. For the province, it was equal to an indicator of three hundred and four hundred thousand people per subject; for the county, a bar was set in the region of twenty to thirty thousand. Most of the provinces were renamed governorships.
As a result of the reform, by 1785, forty governorates and provinces were functioning in Russia, two regions existed as governorates, all of these units were divided into four hundred eighty-three counties. The size and boundaries of the governorates were so well selected that most of the values did not change until the 1920s and were extremely close to the sizes of modern subjects of the Russian Federation. In the following 1793-1796, a lot of lands were annexed, eight new governorates were formed on them. Accordingly, their total number throughout the country reached fifty; there was also one region.
The son of Catherine the Great, Paul I, as is known, did not support the mother's undertakings. In the course of his counter-reform on 12.12.1796, thirteen provinces were removed. The emperor also introduced an updated division into counties, while the number of counties themselves was reduced. Governorates again began to be called provinces. In the finale of Pavlov's reign, the number of provinces was reduced from fifty-one to forty-two.
19th century
Alexander I was entirely for his grandmother's endeavors. With his reforms, he restored the previous administrative-territorial division of Russia. Some changes were nevertheless made: Siberia was divided into two governor generals, this action was carried out in accordance with the Speransky project. In 1825, there were forty-nine provinces and six regions in Russia.
In 1847, the number of provinces and regions increased to fifty-five and three, respectively. In 1856, the Primorsky Region was established. The Black Sea army in 1860 was renamed the Kuban, and the territory of its functioning became the Kuban region. New elements of territorial administration appeared in 1861, when the counties were divided into volosts. In the second half of the 19th century the rudiments of local self-government were introduced in the form of zemstvos in the predominant number of provinces.
It can be concluded that, despite various transformations, the administrative-territorial division of Russia in the 19th century had a rather stable structure. The empire included the region, the governor general and the province. Their total number was eighty-one units. The lower link of territorial administration was uluses, communes, villages and, of course, volosts. Large port and metropolitan cities were in some ways the prototype of the current cities of federal significance and were separately managed from the provinces.
20th century
The civil war in Russia of the twentieth century led to the emergence of autonomy among regions of the country with a predominantly indigenous population (on the banks of the Volga and in the Urals). This process continued until 1923.
the USSR
The first reform of territorial administration in the USSR took place in 1923-1929. She was guided by the creation of self-sufficient economically, large, independently managed by economic councils entities, which were adapted to the economic areas of the state plan. In the USSR, there were forty administrative-territorial units instead of the previously existing eighty-two. Seven hundred and sixty-six counties were replaced by one hundred and seventy-six districts, and volosts - by districts. Village councils have become the lowest link.
As a result, all units were disaggregated due to poor controllability of large areas and territories.
The reduction in unit size did not stop in 1943-1954. Some autonomies of deported peoples were abolished. Regions were created in the Bashkir and Tatar republics in 1952-1953, and in the winter of 1954 five regions were formed in the central region of the country. Regions in Bashkiria and Tatarstan were abolished after the death of Joseph Stalin, and in 1957 the number of five regions formed in the central part of the country was reduced to three, all autonomies, except for the Volga Germans, were restored.
In 1957, the economic councils were created and already in 1965 liquidated. They detailed the areas of the State Planning Commission, they could consist of one or several administrative and territorial units, but did not change them. An interesting fact is that special interregional book publishers (for example, Priokskoye, Verkhne-Volzhskoye) were designed inside the economic councils. Such an unusual division was used in statistics, science, planning documents, and even for weather forecasts and the media in general. In accordance with the 1977 Constitution, there was a renaming into autonomous national districts.
Russian Federation
Full-scale administrative and territorial changes began in the last decade of the 20th century. From 1990 to 1991, the previous names were returned to some areas, almost all autonomous SSRs lost the letter “A” and became simply Soviet socialist republics, most of the autonomous districts became the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Soon these districts were returned to the composition of regions and territories.
The real revolution took place in 1990–1994, when the words “autonomous”, “socialist”, “Soviet” were excluded from the names of the subjects (the districts retained their first status), in addition, names appeared on a national basis: Tatarstan, Altai, Sakha, Mari El and so on. In the summer of 1992, a border appeared between Chechnya and the Ingush Republic, although it was not yet officially fixed. Chechnya along with Tatarstan went further and declared themselves independent states.
