https://doi.org/10.23859/2587-8344-2024-8-8-1

Abstract

The article is devoted to the activities of Ivan S. Aksakov as an inspector of the zemstvo and uyezd courts of Astrakhan Governorate, a subject to which historians have paid little attention. Referring to the reports prepared by titular counselor Aksakov according to a special system, which he devised himself, allows us to see how the novice jurist official presented the program for reforming provincial courts during the pre-reform period. Aksakov’s working documents and literary legacy clearly show the progressist logic of the capital’s officials who looked down on the “benighted” province, considering Western ideas and institutions as better developed. The article presents specific measures proposed by Aksakov in order to direct provincial justice in line with the law and the consequences of those initiatives, which reflected in his fate.

Keywords

• judicial reform of 1864
• uyezd court
• zemstvo court
• ivan aksakov
• senatorial inspection
• bureaucracy