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Honored Citizens and the Creation of a Middle Class in Imperial Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2017

Alison K. Smith
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Abstract

In 1832, an imperial manifesto established a new social estate (soslovie) of “honored citizens.” The new status was granted to successful merchants, professionals, and artists, and gave them permanent (and sometimes inherited) privilege. Honored citizens have been largely forgotten or discounted, both by literary authors of the nineteenth century and by historians. They were, however, a conscious effort on the part of the imperial state to create a middle class in the context of an estate-based social structure, an effort that followed several decades of previous experimentation and discussion. Thousands of subjects of the Russian Empire took on the new status, to the point that by 1897 honored citizens outnumbered merchants. They understood themselves as having an honorable place in the social structure, and were understood as a sign of the status of Russian towns. Honored citizen status gave a certain amount of stability to the new middle class, although not every honored citizen prospered. As a social estate, honored citizens were unique, for they were not unified in opportunity, and because they did not have a collective association—they were individuals in the law. They were, as a result, present and important but paradoxical: while defined by estate law, they were closer to individual subjects or even citizens than almost anyone else in imperial society. In addition, their lack of a collective voice muted their radical potential, masking them from contemporary and historical view.

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Slavic Review , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , Summer 2017 , pp. 327 - 349
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 2017 

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39. SIRIO, vol. 74, 159, 164, 485.

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43. SIRIO, vol. 74, 176, 182.

44. Polnoe sobranie zakonov, ser. II (hereafter PSZ II), vol. 7, no. 5284 (April 10, 1832).

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46. Ibid., § 12.

47. RGIA, f. 1343, op. 39, d. 1464, ll. 9ob–10 (O pochetnom grazhdanstve Voznesenskogo posada pervoi gil΄dii kuptsa Evsigneia Durdenevskogo, 1866).

48. PSZ II, vol. 7, no. 5284 (April 10, 1832), §§ 5–6.

49. Specifically, they could not have had status revoked for loss of funds, nor been brought into legal conflicts. Ibid., §§ 7–9.

50. Ibid., § 15, and on the regularity of other access, §§ 12–14.

51. Ibid., §§ 5, 10.

52. Ibid., §§ 16, 18.

53. Ibid., § 18.

54. Mullov, Istoricheskoe obozrenie, 120.

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56. RGIA, f. 1343, op. 39, which covers petitions for hereditary honored citizenship, 1832–1890, includes 6053 files, some duplicates, some including more than one petition (or 5821 unique names of petitioners). Op. 40, covering petitions for hereditary honored citizenship from 1890–1917, includes 6061 individual files. Op. 41 covers petitions for personal honored citizenship from 1833 to 1917, and includes 415 files. Op. 47 covers 1897–1917, does not indicate whether petitions are for honorary or personal honored citizenship, and includes a further 1109 files. Not all of these petitions were successful; the application of Konstantin Efimov Durdenevskii was rejected because he had not submitted the proper fees. RGIA, f. 1343, op. 39, d. 1465, “O pochetnom grazhdanstve Voznesenskogo posada pervoi gil΄dii kuptsa Konstantina Efimova Durdenevskogo.” In addition, according to Panov, Fedor Nikolaevich, Russkoe gosudarstvennoe pravo (St. Petersburg, 1889), 96Google Scholar, those who sought personal status based on their father's service applied not to the Senate but “to those government organizations, where their fathers served, or from provincial administrations.”

57. Materialy dlia istorii Moskovskogo kupechestva, 9 vols. (Moscow, 1889), 8:287–98. Based on comparison with the Senate files held at RGIA, by 1850 the descendants of some of the initial petitioners had split into several households each listed separately in the Moscow records. So, Vasilii Sergeev Zubov and Trifon Sergeev Zubov each headed separate households (294), and appear to be the two sons of Sergei Zubov, who took on honored citizen status in 1834 (RGIA, f. 1343, op. 39, d. 1749).

58. “Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis΄ naseleniia Rossiiskoi Imperii 1897 g. Raspredelenie naseleniia po sosloviiam i sostoianiiam,” Demoskop Weekly, at http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_sos_97.php (last accessed February 22, 2017). On the erosion of merchant status at the end of the nineteenth century, caused in part by laws that allowed more people business opportunities without the need to take on merchant status, see Brower, Daniel R., The Russian City between Tradition and Modernity, 1850–1900 (Berkeley, 1990), 54–56 Google Scholar.

59. Rubakin, Nikolai Aleksandrovich, Rossiia v tsifrakh: Strana. narod. sosloviia. klassy (St. Petersburg, 1912), 53Google Scholar.

60. Numbers do not add to 100 due to rounding.

61. There were in addition 1.9 percent honored citizens, usually personal, apparently reaffirming or changing the nature of their status; 1.1 percent meshchane; .7 percent “residents” of primarily non-Russian towns; .3 percent inorodtsy (non-Russians with their own soslovie identity); .2 percent peasants; .2 percent other (artisans and foreigners accepting Russian citizenship).

62. PSZ II, vol. 10, no. 8419 (September 20, 1835); vol. 11, no. 9097 (April 24, 1836), § 8; vol. 14, no. 11971 (January 27, 1839); vol. 23, no. 22257 (May 10, 1848); vol. 26, no. 25269 (June 5, 1851); vol. 37, no. 38439 (July 3, 1862), § 28; Polnoe sobranie zakonov, ser. III (hereafter PSZ III), vol. 23, no. 22819 (Aril 21, 1903).

63. PSZ II vol. 14, no. 11934 (January 15, 1839). Later laws include vol. 19, no. 18290 (October 10, 1844) (service to the Russian-American Company for at least ten years); vol. 19, no. 1848 (November 28) (various kinds of chancellery work); vol. 20, no. 19085 (June 11, 1845) (military and state service); vol. 20, nos. 19227–28 (July 22, 1845) (merchants who received the Order of St. Vladimir or St. Anna); vol. 24, no. 23022 (February 16, 1849) (doctors, pharmacists, and veterinarians); vol. 34, no. 34480 (May 11, 1859), § 8 (senior surveyors of the Ministry of State Domains); PSZ III, vol. 14, no. 10387 (February 28, 1894) (musicians certified by the Conservatory of the Imperial Russian Musical Society).

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68. Rieber argues that this was, in fact, “the most reliable road to honorary citizenship,” in Merchants and Entrepreneurs, 124.

69. For examples, see Iakov, Slovo preosviashchennogo Iakova, Episkopa Saratovskogo i Tsaritsynskogo, proiznesennoe pri pogrebenii Saratovskogo Kuptsa, pochetnogo grazhdanina Ivan Andreevicha Kanina, skonchavshegosia 12 Noiabria 1836 goda (St. Petersburg, 1842); Pokrovskii, Peter Evdokimovich, Slovo pri pogrebenii pochetnoi grazhdanki, Verkhoturskoi 1-i gil΄dii kupecheskoi zheny, Aleksandry Andreevny Bronnikovoi, urozhdennoi Temerinoi, govorennoe Paraskevievskoi Tserkvi, chto v Okhotnom riadu, protoiereem Petrom Pokrovskim Iiulia 6 dnia 1847 goda (Moscow, 1847)Google Scholar; Mikhailovskii, Mikhail, Rech΄, govorennaia pri pogrebenii glavnogo proizvoditelia rabot na S. Peterburgo-Moskovskoi zheleznoi doroge, Valdaiskogo 1 gil΄dii kuptsa i pochetnogo grazhdanina Ivana Gerasimovicha Sharvina, Valdaiskogo Troitskogo Sobora Sviashchennikom Mikhailom Mikhailovskim, 19 Noiabria 1845 goda ([St. Petersburg], 1849)Google Scholar.

70. Kostrov, Timofei, Nadgrobnoe slovo, skazannoe pri pogrebenii pochetnogo grazhdanina, borovitskogo kuptsa Nikity Ivanovicha Salamanova, 1847 goda dekabria 4 dnia sviashchennikom magistrom Timofeem Kostrovym (St. Petersburg, 1848), 6Google Scholar.

71. Baranov, Ivan Fedorovich was noted for all of these characteristics. See Nekotorye cherty iz zhizni Aleksandrovskogo 1 gil΄dii kuptsa i pochetnogo grazhdanina Ivana Fedorovicha Baranova (Moscow, 1849)Google Scholar.

72. RGIA, f. 1287, op. 38, d. 350, ll. 1–1ob (O nepravil΄nom vozvedenii Nizhegorodskim gorodskim deputatskim sobraniem raznykh lits v mestnoe pochetnoe grazhdanstvo). The report came on plain paper from one P. Mel΄nikov, addressed to the head of the Economic Department of the MVD by name, not by title.

73. Ibid., ll. 9ob-10.

74. Ol΄ga Zakharova, “Pochetnyi grazhdanin g. Ivanovo-Voznesenska,” Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Ivanovskoi oblasti, posted September 8, 2010 at www.ivarh.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=386 (last accessed March 21, 2017).

75. PSZ III, vol. 29, no. 32759 (December 4, 1909); no. 32816 (December 20, 1909); vol. 31, no. 35672 (July 23, 1911).

76. RGIA, f. 1287, op. 38, d. 350, ll. 15–16ob.

77. PSZ III, vol. 22, nol. 21764 (June 24, 1902).

78. Ostrovskii, A. N., “Pravda khorosho, a schast΄e luchshe,” in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v dvenadtsati tomakh, 12 vols. (Moscow, 1975), 4:279Google Scholar.

79. PSZ II, vol. 8, no. 6107 (April 12, 1833), § 2. Other laws, though, emphasized heredity, including the very next law listed in the Polnoe sobranie zakonov, which stated that although merchants possessing honored citizenship could exclude sons from their families for disrespect, they could not revoke their sons’ now hereditary honored-citizen status. PSZ II, vol. 8, no. 6108 (April 12, 1833).

80. PSZ II, vol. 24, no. 23239 (May 11, 1849); vol. 26, no. 24862 (January 22, 1851).

81. On tutors, PSZ II, vol. 9, no. 7240 (July 1, 1834); on entry into the Institute of Mining Engineers, PSZ II, vol. 9, no. 7298 (July 25, 1834); on entry into the Institute of the Transportation Corps, PSZ II vol. 11, no. 9739 (November 27, 1836); on becoming surveyors, PSZ II, vol. 18, no. 17048 (July 20, 1843).

82. PSZ II, vol. 11, no. 9231 (May 27, 1836); vol. 14, no. 12768 (October 16, 1839); vol. 46, no. 49460 (April 10, 1871).

83. PSZ II, vol. 33, no. 33907 (December 15, 1858).

84. The apparent solution was to force them into the military if they did not choose alternative ways of making a living and/or serving the state. PSZ II, vol. 28, no. 27123 (April 2, 1853).

85. For example, Pavel, Vasili, and Petr Fedorov Afans΄ev; only Pavel still held merchant status. Materialy, 8:288, 290, 291.

86. The household was headed by his widow, Natal΄ia Frantseva; the entry has enough detail to make it certain that it is the household of Nikolai Polevoi. Materialy, 8:296.

87. SIRIO, vol. 74, 486.

88. Smith, Alison K., For the Common Good and Their Own Well-Being: Social Estates in Imperial Russia (New York, 2014), 14–36 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89. PSZ II, vol. 26, no. 25481 (August 8, 1851). There were, however, certain regions (including Siberia) where access to state service was more open.

90. PSZ II, vol. 35, no. 35469 (February 22, 1860); see also vol. 30, no. 29855 (November 25, 1855).

91. PSZ II, vol. 30, no. 29425 (June 14, 1855); vol. 31, no. 30942 (September 7, 1856); vol. 33, no. 33001 (April 15, 1858); no. 33528 (September 14, 1858). vol. 34, no. 34565 (June 5, 1859); vol. 35, no. 36140 (September 10, 1860); vol. 37, no. 38659 (September 10, 1837). Another law noted that those sons were allowed to continue their service if they so desired. PSZ II, vol. 37, no. 38392 (June 22, 1862).

92. PSZ II, vol. 39, no. 40512 (January 20, 1864).

93. On this, see particularly Panov, Russkoe gosudarstvennoe pravo, 93, 97, who notes that the status itself did not give rights to trade or service, but those of merchant origin could join merchant guilds, and those of service origin could enter the civil service. See also Ianovskii, A., Brokgauz, in F. A. and Efron, I. A., eds., “Grazhdanstvo pochetnoe,” Entsiklopedicheskii slovar΄, 86 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1890–1907), 9A: 523–24Google Scholar.

94. Zakony o sostoianiiakh, vol. 9, Svod zakonov rossiiskoi imperii, poveleniem gosudaria imperatora Nikolaia Pavlovicha sostavlennyi (St. Petersburg, 1833), § 2.

95. See, for example, Ziablovskii, Rossiiskaia statistika, 47–66 or Korkunov, Nikolai Mikhailovich, Russkoe gosudarstvennoe pravo: Posobie k lektsiam, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1909), 1:303Google Scholar.

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102. Blumenbakh, Evgenii Gustavovich, Grazhdanskoe sostoianie (soslovie) v Rossii, a v chastnosti v Pribaltiiskikh guberniiakh, ego prava i obiazannosti (Riga, 1899), 13Google Scholar.

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