The highest reports of regional heads and governors of the North Caucasus as a historical source for the study of the Russian pre-revolutionary judicial system

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the pre-revolutionary judicial system in the administrative-territorial formations of the North Caucasus based on the materials of the Highest reports of regional chiefs and governors of the last quarter of the XIX – early XX centuries. The authors offer a detailed description of the regional and all-Russian judicial system and legal proceedings typical of the post-reform period after the final annexation of the Caucasus to the Russian Empire. A special feature of the region's development was the combination of customary law and Russian legislation, the simultaneous operation of which was supposed to facilitate the gradual integration of the entire population into the unified legal space of the country. The proposed study shows the activities of Ekaterinodar, Vladikavkaz and Stavropol district courts, magistrates' courts, mountain verbal courts, village and volost courts, as well as Zemstvo district chiefs who replaced magistrates. Statistical data on the growth of criminal offenses and the number of convicted persons in the first years after the introduction of Judicial statutes in 1864 and in the dynamics for the twenty years from 1894 to 1914 are given. One of the main objectives of the article was to trace the transformation of socio-political views of the leaders of the local administration of the Kuban and Tersk Cossack regions and Stavropol province through their assessment of the criminal situation and the role of law enforcement agencies, including the courts, in stabilizing social and economic life in the region