ARAKCHEEV V.A. Corruption in the Local Government System of the Russian State (According to Investigative Cases of the 1590–1630s)
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu4.2024.5.2
Vladimir A. Arakcheev,
Doctor of Sciences (History), Associate Professor,
Director, RussianState Archive of Ancient Acts, Bolshaya Pirogovskaya St, 17, 119435 Moscow, Russian Federation;
LeadingResearcher, Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dmitriya Ulyanova St, 19,117292 Moscow, Russian Federation,
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ,
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8389-3806
Abstract. Introduction. The purpose of the article is to study how corruption was understood in the Moscow state and how the fight against it was carried out in the system of local government to show the vector of institutional shift in the Russian state of the late 16th – first third of the 17th century. Methods and materials. The subject of the analysis is three investigative cases of corruption revealed during the 1590–1630s in three regions of Russia: Veliky Novgorod, Pskov, and Sviyazhsk. The investigation of cases was carried out using searches, which consist of questions from detectives and consolidated answers from people being interviewed, sealed with their assault. Analysis. During the study, a reconstruction of the corruption networks created by the clerk and governors was carried out, the methods and forms of obtaining illegal profits were studied, and an assessment was made of its volume and the scale of corruption in the Russian state. Administrators integrated into corrupt networks were punished with confiscation of their movable property and money savings and deprivation of office; sometimes the abuses they committed were not considered grounds for holding them liable. Results. Estimated calculations of corrupt profits do not convince that widespread ideas about the total corruption of the Russian administrative apparatus are justified enough. Corruption income of officials during the performance of their official duties and at the expense of the governed was illegal; by producing these laws, the state apparatus lost its patrimonial features and acquired a bureaucratic character, and the state became absolutist.
Key words: Russian state, Veliky Novgorod, Pskov, Svijazhsk, corruption, administrative apparatus, governors, clerk.
Citation. Arakcheev V.A. Corruption in the Local Government System of the Russian State (According to Investigative Cases of the 1590–1630s). Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya 4. Istoriya. Regionovedenie. Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya [Science Journal of Volgograd State University. History. Area Studies. International Relations], 2024, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 15-27. (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu4.2024.5.2.
Corruption in the Local Government System of the Russian State (According to Investigative Cases of the 1590–1630s) by Arakcheev V.A. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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