241 service nobility’s interests was established between the local landowning class and the administrative organs, thus giving the nobility a better chance to look out for its interests. Here one might recall, too, that the rights of the nobility as landowners were reinforced that very year (1714) when allodial estates (votchina) and service estates (pomest'e) were recognized as being equivalent to one another before the law. This ukaz united the hereditary estate {votchina) and the service estate {pomest'e) under the common classification of “real estate” {nedvizhimye veshchi), and thereafter the same rules of inheritance were to apply to both.®^ In 1716, the office of provincial governor was opened up to officers who had left their military posts for reasons of age or because of injuries suffered in the line of duty and who at the same time had no estate to which to retire.^' With this change came a revival of the opinion prevalent during the previous century that positions in the local administration constituted a formof reward {dlia prokormleniia) for previous meritorious service. Thus, the principle that there should be a congruence between the ownership of land and the local administration was abandoned. Parallel to this, the salary system was changed in a significant way. Uniform and permanent salaries for each service category in the local administration were introduced in 1715, and it was decreed that these should be paid partly in kind and partly in cash out of the local revenues. In addition, a special tax of ten kopecks per peasant homestead was introduced to provide for the salaries of the provincial councillors.®^ Peter issued an ukaz forbidding his officials from acquiring any extra incomes and admonishing them to be satisfied with their appropriate salaries.®® The old system of letting the voevodas exploit their positions for their own economic benefit, a system which had led to serious excesses during the seventeenth century, was thereby abolished. The introduction of permanent salary scales also led to a situation in which the local officials were placed in a more dependent relationship vis-a-vis the central authorities.®® The guberniia was to be governed collegially by the governor and the provincial councillors, with the latter enjoying one vote apiece and the former enjoying two. The governor was encouraged to act “not like a 93 PSZ, V, no. 2,789, pp. 91—94. Bogoslovskii (1903), 88. Demidova, 227. A governor’s annual salary was 1,200 rubles and 600 chetverti of grain; the provincial councillor was to receive 120 rubles and 120 cheverti of grain. 1 chetvert’ =2,099 hektoliters. Demidova, 230; Mrochek-Drozdovskii, 71. 9® ZA (no. 252), 212. 9® Demidova, 230; see above, p. 97. Iti - Peterson 04
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=