Rural Democracy Institutions in Yenisei Siberia by the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

A specific feature of the Russian state is traditionally called the historical stability of the rural community. Unlike Western Europe, where collective land ownership was transformed into private ownership already in the Middle Ages, in Russia the community survived until the 20th century. The potential of the rural community was most fully realized in Siberia, where, first of all, due to the absence of serfdom, the community maintained a high level of initiative and enterprise. In the second half of the 19th century, communal democracy was supplemented by a similar institution of volost self-government. In addition, an important element of the life of the Siberian village were the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church, which functioned in a single format of organizational and statutory norms with the rural community, forming an inseparable whole with it. The purpose of the study is to consider the specified rural government bodies as unique institutions of popular sovereignty. The paper shows the democratic principles of functioning of the rural world in various spheres of public life: economic practice, performance of national duties, legal proceedings, spiritual and cultural life. The traditions of holding Orthodox holidays in Siberian villages became a kind of reflection of the expression of the people's will. The source base of the study were documents and materials of the State Archive of the Krasnoyarsk Region, first of all, the minutes of village and volost meetings, as well as audit reports of provincial authorities. The study of democratic institutions of the peasant world is of interest from the point of view of understanding the boundaries of communal self-government in the system of public relations and the likelihood of assessing the rural world as a kind of institution of civilian society in Russian history.