The History of the Aginsk Steppe Duma in the Documents from the State Archive of the Republic of Buryatiya (1839-1904) Has Been Published

Abstract

The review of an anthology on the history of the Aginsk Steppe Duma published by drs. B.V. Bazarov, B.T. Zhalsanova, L.V.Kuras notes that hundreds the new archival documents offer a holistic view on the governmental politics concerning one of large ingenious peoples of East Russia. The composers have identified and presented documents reflecting various aspects of local self-government of the Aginsk Duma created on the basis of M.M. Speransky’s Statute on the Inorodtsy of 1822. The review contains a brief characteristic of the archival documents corpus systematized in volumes and argues their information value. The documents contain data on the officials of the Duma, personnel structure in dynamics from its foundation to its termination. The edition offers an array of documents on tax policy pertaining to indigenous population, public censures, correspondence on administrative and land disputes at the turn of the 19th century. Authors-composers have published family lists of the Aginsk buryats. The review underscores the information value of the commentary included in all volumes of the edition, the nominal indexes numbering hundreds of surnames. The illustrative component of this three-volume edition is also emphasized: there are rare photos of officials of the Aginsk department, meetings of tsesarevitch Nikolai Aleksandrovich in Transbaikalia in 1892, deputy of the State Duma, descendants of families from the Transbaikal steppes in the Soviet period. The review emphasizes the importance of such edition for studying governmental policies concerning ingenious peoples, balance of government and local self- government, social and economic and cultural development of East regions in the Imperial period. Materials of the three-volume edition open numerous unpublished documents to researchers. The review notes its value for historians, local historians, archivists, museums employees, and those researching their family tree.