Samara provincial board: creation and activity in the second half of the XIX century

Abstract

The article analyzes the creation and activities of the most important institution of the local administrative
apparatus — Samara provincial board, established in 1850 during the formation of the
administrative bodies of the established Samara province. The author studies the legal regulation of
the provincial government, shows the process of increasing its dependence on the authority of the
governor. On the basis of archival materials, the article explores in detail the main lines of activity
of the branches of the Samara province government and the changes in its internal structure in the
mid-1860s. It shows the process of increasing the office work of the institution, the general expansion
of its work, and this process was accompanied by an increase in bureaucratization and a decrease in
the institution’s independence. The work gives assessments of the functioning of provincial boards,
made by historians of state administration of Russia. As a basis for the study, business-production
materials of the Samara provincial government, from the fund of the Central State Archive of the
Samara Region, appear.