Kyiv City Communities of the Early 1880s in the Context of Alexander Polovtsov’s “Diary”

Abstract

The article examines the life of urban communities of Kyiv in 1880–1881 in the perception of an imperial official, senator Alexander Polovtsov (1832–1909). The author`s concept based on the opinion that an important part of historical urban studies is the analysis of the activities of urban communities. They represent the state of urban life at a particular historical stage. The article uses excerpts from the “Diary” of Alexander Polovtsov, the Head of the Senatorial Revision Commission, dedicated to his stay in Kyiv in the autumn of 1880 and early 1881. This source is valuable mainly because the author, who did not live in Kyiv (wider — in Ukraine), looked at inhabitants of the city from “outside”. Such a detached view allows us to see Kyiv citizens, firstly the officials of the administrative and administrative apparatus, clergy, landlords, intellectuals — from conservatives to liberals — through the eyes of an “outsider”, a representative of imperial power. At the same time, the article presents diaries and memoirs of representatives of the Kyiv national-democratic intelligentsia, where the events described by Alexander Polovtsov are shown from a different perspective. This perspective of the study deepens the ideas about the peculiarities of the social and cultural life of Kyiv at a crucial moment in history — on the eve of the death of Alexander II and the accession of Alexander III and the change in the political course of the Empire. The informative character of Polovtsov`s diary is determined by its genre specificity. The text is full of facts, descriptions of events, meetings with people. From the position of the imperial high official represented a diverse range of beliefs, opinions, and attitudes of Kyivans in the field of politics, economics, land tenure, education, urban development, etc. The diary is full of succinct descriptions of the individuals contacted by the author. Polovtsov`s assessments help to understand not only how the tsarist government dealt with pressing economic, social and political problems in Ukraine. It helps understand the actions in resolving urgent economic and sociopolitical problems of Ukrainian provinces, the tsarist official`s own attitude to the people in whose milieu he found himself.