III. The Russian Local Administrative Reform of 1719 and Its Swedish Prototype 1. Introduction On May 9, 1718, Peter the Great issued an ukaz with the following content:' From the law (ulozhenie) and the Swedish regulations, that which concerns the iustits-kollegiia, those affairs (dela) shall be dealt with in the college, but those which concern order in the state {gosudarstvennye rasporiadki), namely how many lants”ev”dingof" (Swedish landshövdingar, English provincial governors— translator’s note) and over how many districts {uezd) one (shall govern), and under him how many and which ranks {chin), and how they are connected in (terms of) obedience {poslushanie) and duties {dolzhnosti), this shall be copied out and submitted to the Senate, which will compare {spuskat’) with Russian customs what may be kept according to the old way and what shall be changed; all this shall be taken into consideration {stavit’ na mere) in the Senate and be prepared by next fall for a report. Thus began the preparations for a new local administrative system, which was to be tailored to the needs of the new state colleges. The directives given in the ukaz are clear; the Swedish system was to be used as a point of departure for the Russian reform, but at the same time it was emphasized that this foreign model was to be modified to fit Russian conditions. This chapter will begin with a discussion of the development of the seventeenth-century Swedish local administration up to the introduction of Caroline absolutism in 1680 and of Russian developments up to the time the reforms began to take shape in 1718. Thereafter the chapter has been divided into the following three sections: a presentation of the organization and personnel of the local administration, a textual analysis ' ZA (no. 50), 60.
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