ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SYSTEM OF PROPERTY MANAGEMENT IN THE APPANAGE DEPARTMENT OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN THE LATE 18th CENTURY
This article deals with two aspects concerning the early period of the existence of the Appanage Department, established by Paul I to maintain financial support for the House of Romanov. Firstly, the author examines the process of the initial formation of the system of appanages and, secondly, studies the establishment of the local appanage management bodies. The research is based on documents of the Appanage Agency, stored at the Russian State Historical Archives. Some of these materials are introduced to scientific use for the first time. The author of this paper believes that the system of appanages, created within a short space of time without adequate preparation, was rather imperfect. First of all, it had to do with appreciable territorial fragmentation, which, despite the awareness of the Department's officials, was not dealt with by the Emperor's wish. Moreover, the Appanage Offices, established to govern all these distant estates, had to manoeuvre between the local authorities and the central Appanage Department. The text of the “Instructions for Appanage Offices”, scrutinized here, demonstrates that issues concerning property management of the newly created agency were taken extremely seriously: much attention was paid to the record and control of various types of real estate, from croplands to concessions. While the former were insufficient for the implementation of the plan to replace head-money by land-tax, the latter faced the problem of local initiative limitations and approval requirements. These problems were gradually solved during the reign of subsequent emperors.