Reform projects of Alexander II in Russia: from conception to implementation

Abstract

Background. The relevance of the work is determined by the need to consider the policy of government reforms of the second half of the 19th century in terms of their effec-tiveness through the prism of public perception of the ongoing transformations. The pur-pose of the research is to study the way of preparation and implementation of reforms from above in the Russian Empire in the 1860s and 1870s. Materials and methods. The research was conducted on the basis of the principles of science, historicism and objectivity. Formal logical and statistical research methods were used in the analysis of official records man-agement materials. The possibilities of the social method are applied in the study of diaries and correspondence of contemporaries, taking into account the specifics of the position of the estates in the Russian Empire. The principle of conformity was applied in identifying general trends in the daily life of the population of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century. When considering a number of sources, specific historical methods were used. Results. During the writing of the article, the main task was solved – based on a set of sources to study the passage of the reform project from the official cabinet to the population of a particular district of the Russian Empire in the 1860s–1870s. Conclusions. The preparation and implementation of large-scale reforms in the Russian Empire went a long way from the ministerial cabinet to the office of governors. The bureaucratic path it-self was complicated and contradictory in view of the split of Russian society into support-ers and opponents of reforms. The peasant reform, which concerned almost all representa-tives of Russian society, showed the reformers' unwillingness to implement decrees on the ground. The possibilities of the press were not used to clarify the position of the authors of the reforms. The bureaucratic method of carrying out reforms.

Keywords

• reform on the abolition of serfdom
• zemstvo reform
• judicial reform
• enlight-ened bureaucracy
• editorial commissions
• world mediators