Election Campaigns for the Post of Heads of Large Cities in the Samara Region 1994–2005.

The article analyzes such a little-studied phenomenon in Russian history as election campaigns of the heads of cities of Russian provinces in the period 1994-2005 on the basis of normative-legal acts and periodicals on the materials of the Samara region. This topic is a rather large field for historical research and is covered for the first time in the Russian historiography. Appeal to the historical development of Russian local selfgovernment seems to be significant not only from a scientific point of view, but also has a social demand. The study provides a tool for a citizen to find the most effective forms of participation in local politics for active inclusion in the construction of civil society. In order to disclose the topic, the article implements an interdisciplinary approach, which involves the use of comparative and descriptive methods, as well as applied terminological and idiographic analysis. The source base of the study includes an extensive corpus of periodicals, normative and legal acts. The authors systematized the election campaigns of the candidates for the heads of the cities of Samara, Syzran and Togliatti and on their basis made a conclusion about the correlation between the lack of experience of political elections in the region. In addition, that period can be characterized as a time of real political competition, during which the development of election campaigns took place. The presented material is an opportunity to consider the genesis and development of local selfgovernment in Samara Oblast in 1994-2005, as well as the main methods that candidates used to achieve their goals