Commercial and Industrial Interests of Landowners in the Field of Sugar Beet Production (XIX – early XX centuries)

The article examines the development of the sugar beet industry during the XIX -early XX centuries.The materials of the State Archive of the Tambov Region were used to study the problem at the micro level.The methodological tools of the work were the principles of objectivity and historicism.The principle of objectivity made it possible to analyze the history of sugar enterprises outside the ideological context of Soviet historiography, to show the positive role of the industry in the development of latifundia.The principle of historicism was aimed at studying the historical context of the development of industrial beet processing in post-reform Russia.The pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern historiography of the development of sugar and refined landlord enterprises in the Russian Empire in general and the Central Chernozem region in particular is considered.The influence of the abolition of serfdom and other legislative acts on the development and concentration of the sugar industry is analyzed.It is shown that the state policy of supporting sugar growers at the end of the XIX century led to a high concentration of sugar beet enterprises and encouraging the export of their products.The transfer of beet fields from individual vegetable gardens to the general structure of the owner's crop rotation, the purchase of new machines and equipment for planting and harvesting beetroot, the active involvement of agricultural artels in the work is analyzed.The internal agreements of the owners of enterprises, which were formed within a semi-legal syndicate of refiners, whose association actively dictated its conditions in the domestic market, are characterized.In particular, restrictions on the production of refined products on the Russian market are considered, as well as how Russian landlords were forced to reduce the acreage of beetroot in order to maintain high sugar prices.