Chigireva E.M. The Impoverishment of the Nobility at the End of the 19th – Beginning of the 20th Centuries (on the Example of the Voronezh Governorate)

Abstract: The article is focused on describing the adverse trends of the economic development of the nobility's property and the objective indicators of the impoverishment of the nobility at the end of the 19th–beginning of the 20th centuries on the example of the Voronezh governorate. The author examines the objective reasons for the deterioration of the nobility's material position and the crisis indicators of the evolving estates of the nobility. The author further analyses the changes in the quantity of land owned by the nobility from the moment of the abolition of serfdom up until 1906, examines the amount of debt accumulated by the nobility of the Voronezh governorate and the number of properties mortgaged by the nobility. The article provides information about the governorate’s richest nobility members and the amount of property they possessed on the basis of archival documents. In writing this article the author applied the principle of historicism and objectivity, used the comparative-typological and concrete-historical methods, as well as the methods of historiographical and source study analysis. On the basis of the various examined sources, the author presents the broad summarising statistical material that allows as accurately as possible to depict the changes in the material welfare of the nobility in the Voronezh governorate. The analysis of the nobility's state of land ownership has allowed to determine the development dynamics of the economic position of the class as a whole. The generalisation and systematisation of the material from unpublished archival sources allow to obtain the most reliable information regarding the impoverishment of the richest class in the Russian Empire.

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