Elections to the Fourth State Duma of the Russian Empire as Assessed by the Newspaper Arkhangelsk

Abstract

The article deals with the issues of coverage of the election campaign to the Fourth State Duma of the Russian Empire in Arkhangelsk Governorate. For the first time in historiography, the author reconstructs the process of the 1912 elections in the territory of Arkhangelsk Governorate on the basis of the publications in the Kadet newspaper Arkhangelsk. The author shows the attitude of the newspaper editors to the current electoral legislation and the initiatives for its development (disenfranchisement of the clergy, women’s suffrage). The author provides a comparative analysis of the number of voters in the elections to the Third and Fourth State Dumas by uyezd and considers representation of each group of voters in the governorate electoral assembly. In the agenda of the newspaper Arkhangelsk, the author highlights the following key issues in the coverage of the elections: participation of the clergy in the elections, influence of the authorities on the course of the election campaign, of the elections in uyezds, election campaigning, and forecasting the election results. Specific attitude of the newspaper editors to the results of the elections to the Fourth State Duma is shown.

Keywords

• fourth state duma
• newspaper arkhangelsk
• arkhangelsk governorate
• election
• kadets
• nikolai mefodiev