Sergey V. Starikov
Key words
Kazan governorate gendarme department (KGGD), Kazan governorate, poly-confessional and multi-ethnic region, legal bases of activities, resource support, organizational bases of functioning, political police, World War I, revolution, Police Department, Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Russian Empire, post-reform period, pan-Turkism, pan-Islamism
Annotation
The review provides a detailed assessment of the monograph, which, based on published and mostly unpublished materials, highlights the problem of political police functioning in a Russian governorate on the example of the activities of the governorate gendarme department in Kazan governorate in 1880-1917. It is noted that the authors pay great attention to the issues of solving the legal foundations for KGGD functioning and the resource support of the activities performed by gendarme structures. The monograph reveals the features of the activities carried out by the GGD in the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional region, which was the Kazan province in the period under study. The author of the review dwells in detail on the difficulties noted in the book, in particular, on the fact that governorate leaders failed to assess the importance and the scale of the changes that took place in Kazan governorate in terms of forming general ethnic values of the Tatars, the Mari, the Chuvash and the Udmurts, and to determine the role of the religious factor. The rise of ethnic identity was perceived by law enforcement agencies as a threat to the integrity of the state. According to the reviewer, since the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century, the situation with pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism began to occupy a significant place in the work of the KGGD. During this period, especially during the First World War, the government feared for the spread of influence from pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism, which received support from Turkey. However, as it turned out, the real situation did not give grounds for such a conclusion. During the First World War, new duties were added to the main areas of KGGD functioning: monitoring prisoners of war and foreigners, search for deserters, etc. A number of laws appeared that restricted the rights of Germany and Austria-Hungary nationals. The duties of gendarmes included monitoring the implementation of newly introduced laws by foreign citizens. The personnel policy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Police Department in relation to the gendarmes’ corps can be qualified as sufficiently well-thought-out and effective. However, all together they could not resist the objectively developing crisis situation in the country by the beginning of 1917, which led to the czar’s demise.
Information about the author
Sergey V. Starikov – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department of Russian History, Mari State University, Russia, Yoshkar-Ola (sv.starikov@yandex.ru).
For citations
Starikov S.V. REVIEW OF THE MONOGRAPH BY BOYKO S.I., PETRENKO N.I., SOKOLOVA V.I. “KAZAN GOVERNORATE GENDARME DEPARTMENT IN 1880–1917: ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITY IN A MULTI-ETHNIC-CONFESSIONAL REGION”. – CHEBOKSARY: CHUVASH STATE INSTITUTE OF HUMANITIES, 2016. – 208 p. (13.0 p. l.). Historical Search, 2021, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 101–107. (in Russian).
