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Честолюбие «полупадишаха» или энтузиазм царского администратора? Организатор местного самоуправления в Ташкенте К. П. фон Кауфман
In 1877, Konstantin von Kaufmann, Governor-General of Turkestan, established municipal government in Tashkent, which implemented Alexander II’s reform of local government in the territories recently joined to the Russian Empire. The principles of the formation and activity of the Tashkent City Duma provoked contradictory opinions among contemporaries and later researcher. The author aims to analyse the terms of the development of local government in Tashkent, its correspondence with imperial principles and specific local features (based on centuries-old traditions of local government in Central Asia), and the evaluations of the adherents and opponents of Kaufmann’s project. In order
to achieve this goal, the author studies the position of the Turkestan governorgeneral, the legal institutions of local government in the Russian Empire in general and in Turkestan in particular, and opinions of contemporaries, i. e. Russian imperial officials, representatives of the Turkestan administration, and members of the Tashkent City Duma. Additionally, the author refers to works by Soviet, Russian, and foreign scholars in the 20th and early 21st centuries. The most criticised aspects of the reform are the disproportional representation in the City Duma of “Russian” and “indigenous” parts of the Tashkent population, the active intervention of the governor-general in the activity of the Duma, and his freedom in spending municipal funds on projects outside the competence of the local government. The author establishes that von Kaufmann’s reform was a declarative imitation in Tashkent of reforms implemented in European Russia. At the same time, he considered the City Duma an additional instrument for the realisation of his own projects in Tashkent and the Turkestan region in general, which was reflected in his Regulations, an “adaptation” of the City Code of 1870 to Central Asian realities. As a result, it is not surprising that the organisation and activity of the Tashkent City Duma during Kaufmann’s rule in Turkestan was criticised not only by central officials (who reacted negatively to Kaufmann’s activity from the very beginning), but also by the representatives of the Turkestan administration who had deep respect for Kaufmann.