Misplaced Pages

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "Governorate" Russia – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2012) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (January 2021) Click for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Russian article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Misplaced Pages. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Misplaced Pages article at ]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|ru|Губерния}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Misplaced Pages:Translation. You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Ukrainian. (January 2021) Click for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Ukrainian article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Misplaced Pages. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Ukrainian Misplaced Pages article at ]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|uk|Губернія}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Misplaced Pages:Translation. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A governorate (Russian: губе́рния, romanized: gubérniya, pre-1918 spelling: губе́рнія, IPA: [ɡʊˈbʲernʲɪjə] ) was a major and principal administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire. After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, governorates remained as subdivisions in the Byelorussian, Russian and Ukrainian Soviet republics, and in the Soviet Union from its formation in 1922 until 1929. The term is also translated as government or province. A governorate was headed by a governor (губернатор, gubernator), a word borrowed from Latin gubernator, in turn from Greek kyvernítis (Greek: κυβερνήτης).

Selected governorates were united under an assigned governor-general such as the Grand Duchy of Finland, Congress Poland, Russian Turkestan and others. There were also military governors such as Kronstadt, Vladivostok and others. Aside from governorates, other types of divisions were oblasts (region) and okrugs (district).

First reform

This subdivision type was created by the edict (ukase) of Peter the Great on December 18, 1708 "On the establishment of the gubernias and cities assigned to them", which divided Russia into eight governorates.

Second reform

In 1719, governorates were further subdivided into provinces (Russian: провинции, romanized: provintsii). Later the number of governorates was increased to 23.

Changes from 1775: Namestnichestvo (Vice royalty)

By the reform of 1775, subdivision into governorates and further into uezds (Russian: уезды), was based on population size, and the term guberniya was replaced by the synonym of Russian origin: namestnichestvo (наместничество), sometimes translated as "viceroyalty", other times as "vicegerency". The term guberniya, however, still remained in use. These viceroyalties were governed by namestniki (наместник) (literal translation: "deputy") or "governors general" (генерал-губернатор, general-gubernator). Correspondingly, the term governorate general (генерал-губернаторство, general-gubernatorstvo) was in use to refer to the actual territory being governed. The office of governor general had more administrative power and was in a higher position than the previous office of governor. Sometimes a governor general ruled several governorates.

By the ukase of the Russian Senate of December 31, 1796, the office of governorate general was demoted to the previous level of governorate, and Russia was again divided into governorates, which were subdivided into uezds, further subdivided into volosts (волость); nevertheless several governorates general made from several governorates existed until the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Governorates in Poland and Finland

The governorate (Russian: губе́рния, Polish: gubernia, Swedish: län, Finnish: lääni) system was also applied to subdivisions of the Kingdom of Poland ("Russian Poland") and the Grand Duchy of Finland.

Post-revolutionary changes

After the February Revolution, the Russian Provisional Government renamed governors into governorate commissars. The October Revolution left the subdivision in place, but the governing apparatus was replaced by governorate soviets (губернский совет).

Actual subdivisions of the Soviet Union into particular territorial units was subject to numerous changes, especially during the 1918–1929 period. Because of the Soviet Union's electrification program under the GOELRO plan, Ivan Alexandrov directed the Regionalisation Commission of Gosplan to divide the Soviet union into thirteen European and eight Asiatic oblasts, using rational economic planning rather than "the vestiges of lost sovereign rights". Eventually, in 1929, the subdivision was replaced by the notions of oblast, okrug, and raion. Oblast as a unit was used even before the revolution, although unlike governorates it designated remote areas that usually incorporated huge swaths of land.

In post-Soviet states such as Russia and Ukraine, the term Guberniya is considered obsolete, yet the word gubernator was reinstated and is used when referring to a governor of an oblast or a krai.

Governorates in Ukraine

The Russian Empire had nine governorates in modern-day Ukrainian territories: Chernigov, Kharkov, Kherson, Kiev, Podolia, Poltava, Volhynia, Yekaterinoslav, and Taurida. Additional lands annexed from Poland in 1815 were organized into the Kholm governorate in 1912.

After the events of 1917, which led to the declaration of independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic, these governorates became subdivisions, which also annexed Ukrainian-inhabited parts of Mogilev, Kursk, Voronezh and Minsk governorates in 1918. By the end of the Soviet–Ukrainian War in 1920, the Bolsheviks had made them part of the Ukrainian SSR. Soviet Ukraine was reorganized into 12 governorates, which were reduced to nine in 1922 upon the Soviet Union's founding, and then replaced with okruhas in 1925.

The West Ukrainian People's Republic in former Austro-Hungarian Empire territory was not subdivided into governorates, and would be annexed by the Second Polish Republic from 1920 until the Soviet invasion of 1939.

Other uses

There is another meaning of the word as it denoted a type of estate in Lithuania of the until 1917.

See also

• History of the administrative division of Russia
• List of governorates of the Russian Empire

References

1. Ekonomicheskoe raionirovanie Rossii, Gosplan, Moscow 1921
2. ^ Kohut, Zenon E.; Nebesio, Bohdan Y.; Yurkevich, Myroslav (2005). "Administrative Divisions of Ukraine". Historical dictionary of Ukraine. Bohdan Y. Nebesio, Myroslav Yurkevich. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-5387-6. OCLC 57002343.
3. ^ Zadorozhnii, Oleksandr (2016). International law in the relations of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Kyiv: Ukrainian Association of International Law. pp. 54, 60. ISBN 978-617-684-146-3. OCLC 973559701.

External links

• (in Russian) Ignatov, V.G. "History of state administration of Russia" (История государственного управления России) Archived 2019-12-23 at the Wayback Machine
• (in Russian) Иванов В. В. Глава субъекта Российской Федерации. История губернаторов. Том I. История. Книга I. — М., 2019. — 600 с.
• (in Russian) Иванов В. В. Глава субъекта Российской Федерации. История губернаторов. Том I. История. Книга II. — М., 2019. — 624 с.

• Governorates
• Governorates of the Russian Empire
• Governorates of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
• Local government in the Russian Empire
• Types of administrative division