Vladimir Governorate, formed in 1796 by personal decree of Emperor Paul I and existed with minor changes until 1929, had a long history, inextricably linked with the annals of the life of Russia itself. Even in the time of Ivan the Terrible, its administrative center - the ancient Russian city of Vladimir - was ruled by governors appointed directly by the sovereign. It retained its significance in subsequent years.
The era of Peter's reforms
Peter I, in an effort to comprehensively strengthen the vertical of state power, in December 1708 issued a decree on the basis of which the entire territory of the Russian Empire was divided into eight provinces, the rulers of which have since been called governors. At that time, the city of Vladimir, which had not yet received the status of an independent subject of the federation, became part of the newly established Moscow province, becoming the center of one of its chief commandant provinces two years later.
Very prolific in administrative reforms, Peter I in 1718 issued a new decree, according to which the territory of Russia was subject to an even finer division into fifty provinces that were part of the formerestablished provinces and ruled by governors. As part of this decree, Vladimir became the center of the province, from which the Vladimir province was formed in the future.
Despite the fact that formally the provinces were part of the provinces, the governors who led them were not subordinate to the governors and had complete independence in their orders. The only exception was the recruitment and all other issues related to the provision of the army.
The influence of the two empresses on the fate of the Vladimir province
The reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna gave a new impetus to the spiritual life of Vladimir and the entire vast province, of which he was the center. This was primarily due to the revival of the previously abolished diocese of Vladimir, as well as the creation of a theological seminary in the city, from which many prominent figures of Russian Orthodoxy came out.
Vladimir Province owed its official birth to the nominal Decree of the next Russian Empress, Catherine II, who in March 1778 transformed the former province into an independent administrative and economic unit and endowed it with the proper status.
However, six months later, the empress found it necessary to transform the newly established province into a governorship, divided into fourteen counties. In this form, it existed for eight years, until Paul I returned her provincial status in 1796.
The bright but short era of PaulI
According to the Supreme Decree, the districts of the Vladimir province were divided into Yuryevsky, Suzdal, Pereslavsky, Melenkovsky, Vyaznikovsky, Shuisky, Pokrovsky, Murom, Gorokhovetsky and central - Vladimirsky. In total - ten independent administrative units on an area of almost forty-three thousand square miles, sufficient to accommodate several European states.
In the bright but short era of his reign, Paul I established the creation of medical boards in all Russian provinces, which in those years were the first medical and administrative institutions in the history of the country. This was a very important step in public he alth, thanks to which medical care was brought under the control of the state.
From that time on, not only the cities, but also the villages of the Vladimir province fell into the field of view of the administrative bodies that controlled the work of hospitals, the activities of private practitioners, and also monitored the observance of proper sanitary standards. Since that time, the history of zemstvo doctors of Russia has begun, later adorned with many famous names.
In 1803, the next emperor, Alexander I, who succeeded his murdered father on the Russian throne, also established the Kovrov, Sudogodsky and Aleksandrovsky districts of the Vladimir province, bringing their total number to thirteen. All of them were divided into two hundred and twenty-two volosts.
Map of Mende, Vladimir Province
Since the main stage of development of this very large subject of the federation fallsto the 19th century, modern researchers have a significant amount of materials related to its history. In particular, you can learn about how the Vladimir province looked at that time thanks to the work of one of the leaders of the Imperial Cartographic Department, Lieutenant General Alexander Ivanovich Mende. Among the documents stored in the state archives, there are atlases of eight Russian provinces compiled by him, among which is Vladimir.
Her geographical outlines
The map of Mende of the Vladimir province, made more than a hundred and fifty years ago, with a few exceptions, is similar to the map of the contemporary Vladimir region. Its northern borders extended to the Kostroma and Yaroslavl provinces, the eastern to Nizhny Novgorod, the western to Moscow, and the southern to Ryazan and Tambov.
Judging by the data presented in the atlas and remained unchanged until 1929, the total territory of the province reached forty-five thousand square kilometers in the second half of the 19th century. From east to west, it extended for three hundred and forty-eight kilometers, and the maximum length from north to south was about two hundred and fifty-six kilometers.
Large industrial region of Russia
In the years before the October Revolution, the province ranked third in Russia in terms of industrial production. On its territory there were four hundred and seventy enterprises, where about one hundred and sixty-five thousand people worked.workers.
As a result, this region of the country became one of the most active centers of the Bolshevik movement, which largely determined the path of its further development. In 1929, by decision of the government, the Vladimir province as an independent administrative unit was abolished, giving way to the newly formed Ivanovo industrial region.
