| Project/Area Number |
04620033
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Politics
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| Research Institution | Osaka University |
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Principal Investigator |
TAKENAKA Yutaka Osaka University, Faculty of Law, Associate Professor, 法学部, 助教授 (00171661)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1992 – 1994
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 1994)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000)
Fiscal Year 1994: ¥300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥300,000)
Fiscal Year 1993: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 1992: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
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| Keywords | Russia / liberalism / nobility / the Great Reforms / political development / 官僚制 |
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| Research Abstract |
Though the Imperial Government attempted to use landed nobles to improve the poor conditions existing in the local administration and the peasant control mechanisms in the post-reform era, Russia's nobles proved incapable of fulfillling such tasks. The corporate institutions of the noble estate and zemstvo institutions did not have the power to create a new stratum of independent social leaders in the countryside. The government did not want the formation of independent social forces in the early stage of modernization. Neither did landed nobles themselves appear willing or able to form a new political class. As they became increasingly preoccupied with their own narrow interests, their historical role weakened, and was finally entirely submerged in the October Revolution.
Russia's nobility was too weak to emerge as a political class and coordinate conflicting interests in the countryside. They were really no less isolated than the state officials from the peasantry --too isolated to influence the peasantry for common local interests. This helps to explain to a considerable extent some of the difficulties that the Russian society underwent in the process of political development in this period.
It was after the rapid industrialization and the First Revolution that Russia started a new political life with the set-up of the Duma. This newly established political organ had to manage the sharp conflict of the society in great flux, which Japan had tackled after somewhat more practice and experience with representative government.
It seems certain that the study of the Russian nobility is useful to elucidate various aspects that have been sufficiently noticed in the history of Imperial Russia, and that we, Japanese historians, might be able to use our knowledge regarding the Japanese modern period for deepending the understanding of the Russian nobility and its role in Russia's political development.
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