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«Сутяжники» на фронтирах: факторы судебной активности в позднеимперской России
This article explores the factors driving the regional differentiation of judicial activity in the post-reform Russian Empire. The historiography is currently divided between two poles: the paradigm of legal dualism, which postulates the alienation of rural and non-Russian (inorodtsy) populations from the Crown courts, and the opposing thesis of mass grassroots legalism, large- ly verified through isolated, predominantly descriptive regional case studies. The present study offers a comparative quantitative macro-analysis utilizing multiple linear regression. Drawing on data from 55 provinces (1885), it tests the hypothesis that mass appeals to the general civil justices of the peace (mirovye sudy) were driven by the emergence of “contact zones”, where traditional particularistic institutions lost their effectiveness as mediators. The results of the regression modeling (R² = 0.665) demonstrate that judicial activity was a function of the interac- tion between social demand and institutional supply. The key predictors of demand included ethno-linguistic diversity, urbanization, commercial intensity, and the predominance of males among migrants (a marker of seasonal labor migration, or otkhodnichestvo). The infrastructural accessibility of the justice system served as the primary supply factor. These quantitative find- ings are corroborated by narrative sources, including inspection records from the Ministry of Justice, judicial reports, and periodical data. The article concludes that the imperial justice of the peace evolved into a highly sought after external arbiter and an instrument of legal integration primarily on the frontiers — spaces characterized by the intersection of heterogeneous ethnic, migratory, and economic interests.