Formation of a Regional Mining Management Structure in Russia in the 19th — Early 20th Centuries

The purpose of the research. The process of forming the regional structure of the mining department is considered in the context of the implementation of two reforms of the organizational foundations of the Russian mining industry in the 19th — early 20th centuries. The basis of the study is a structural and functional analysis, which allows us to dynamically trace changes in the organization of regional institutions of the mining department. The research is based on thematic scientific literature and legislative acts from the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire.

Results. The analysis showed that having emerged in its new format in 1807, the department retained it until the end of the imperial period, developing towards increasing the number of its regional bodies from two to eight, which was a consequence of the development of the sectoral and spatial organization of the mining industry. Moreover, in the 1860s the structure and functionality of these institutions changed significantly, freed from the previous «non-core» responsibilities (social, judicial and police) and aimed at managing state-owned factories and supervising private industry. It is concluded that the state of the mining department in the first half of the 19th century corresponded to the proto-industrial level of development of the mining industry with its «serf-like» social organization and relatively slow pace of development, while the appearance of the department, emerging in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries, was already correlated with the early industrial level of industry with dynamically developing entrepreneurship and its spread over the vast territory of the empire.