“He Does not Take - and Does not Give to Others”: about the Struggle of the Kursk Governor V. I. Den with Ransom Arbitrariness

Relevance. A lot has been written about the imperfection of pay-offs, but the struggle of governors with pay-off arbitrariness on the eve of the wine reform of 1863 was almost not considered. The article highlights the original steps of the owner of the Kursk province, V. I. Den, in setting up pay-offs on legal ground.
The purpose of the article is to reveal the essence of the struggle of the Kursk governor V. I. Den with pay-off arbitrariness.
Objectives: to indicate the reasons for the confrontation of the Kursk governor with the tax collectors and their accomplices; to explain the severity of the contradictions; to find out the consequences of V. I. Den's anti-corruption actions.
Methodology. The article is based on analytical methods, supplemented by problem-chronological, ideographic methods and the method of content analysis.
Results. General V. I. Den was the governor of Kursk on the eve of and after the replacement of the wine taxes by the excise system for collecting alcohol tax. During this period, pay-off arbitrariness reached the highest limit: payoff bribery flourished, the Treasury Chamber was supported by crown attorneys. The honest and principled governor undertook all possible, sometimes very original, methods of combating the evil of the payoff and the bureaucracy that supports it. He independently conducted audits of distilleries and drinking establishments, arranged interrogations and punished bribe takers. His tough temper led to the suicides of a number of officials, which may have been one of the reasons for the governor's imminent resignation.
Conclusions. V. I. Den – one of the brightest figures of the governor's corps of the mid-XIX century. He was an honest, principled, active "governor of the province". But he was never able to come to terms with the duality of government requirements in relation to farming, expressed, on the one hand, to grant to the Governor by the formulation of the payoffs on the legal ground and, in pointing out the need to endure farming "mishaps" because according to the state budget from taxed amounts. The governor covered the lack of the granted power with personal autocracy, which led to suicides in his early retirement.

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