POSSESSIONAL MINING PLANTS OF THE URALS AND ZAMOSKOVYE IN THE 19TH — EARLY 20TH CENTURY: DETERMINATION OF STATUS

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of possession law in Russia’s mining industry considered in the context of two major reforms of the organizational foundations of this basic branch of the economy. On the basis of legislation and departmental office work, it examines the problem of determining the legal status (possessory or ownership) of private plants in the Urals and the Zamoskovny region, which the authorities faced after the introduction of mining accession in 1782. It also considers the circumstances of the primary distribution of plants by status groups at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries; the motives and course of the campaigns “to analyze the rights” of factory owners in the 1830s‒1850s, designed to clarify the composition of these groups; reasons and results of removing the burdensome possession status from plants in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries. It is concluded, that these operations were the result of changes in the list of state benefits, or possessions, introduced in the course of the reform and leading either to an expansion or to a reduction in the possessory sector of industry both in the Urals and in the Zamoskovny region. It is determined that the status composition of plants was, on the whole, a reflection of the contradictory interaction between the state and factory owners regarding state property that was at the disposal of factory owners and was the object of exclusive for Russia possession rights.