E. G. ISTOMINA. Waterways of Russia in the second half of the XVIII-beginning of the XIX century. Moscow, Nauka Publ. 1982. 277 p.

The book by E. G. Istomina, a senior researcher at the Institute of History of the USSR of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Candidate of Historical Sciences, is the result of a comprehensive historical and geographical study on a topic that has not been subjected to monographic study. The author considers the waterways of Russia (within the borders of the European part of the country) in connection with the peculiarities of the natural geographical environment, the state of social production and the formation of transport links as an important factor in the development of socio-economic processes characteristic of the late feudal period. The book focuses on, on the one hand, the location of waterways and the formation of their regional systems based on the largest river arteries of the country, the technical condition of both the routes themselves and the river fleet, and the availability of its personnel; on the other, the volume of cargo flows that reflected the role of river freight and passenger transportation; finally, the policy of and the role of government in the development of river communication systems.

With such a broad approach to the problem of e. G. Istomina was able to identify and use a huge, diverse and versatile, mainly archival material. It has attracted documentation from the funds of various institutions responsible for the operation and improvement of waterways. Among these materials, the author makes particularly extensive use of topographical descriptions containing the most systematic physical and economic-geographical information about different provinces, as well as an appendix to the "Economic Notes" - "Description of rivers, streams, lakes and islands", describing the conditions of navigation. The author also used the published notes of travelers in Russia of the XVIII-early XIX centuries (N. Ozeretskovsky, S. Gmelin, P. Pallas, I. Lepekhin, I. Falk, V. Zuev), which are essentially also processed, of course, at the level of their time, the results of scientific and practical research. Another group of sources used by E. G. Istomina are handwritten maps and plans depicting the hydrographic network of Russia. The complex of these sources from the central archives of the country has a huge scientific, educational and general cultural value. They are based on numerous maps-schemes available in the book.

Describing the state of roads in the European part of the country since the middle of the XVIII century, E. G. Istomina showed that the development of horse-drawn transport did not keep up with the growth of market relations and production in the conditions of the emergence of capitalist relations and did not meet strategic objectives. According to the author's observation, "by the 60s of the XVIII century, the government course aimed at developing waterways had acquired even more distinct forms" (p.26). Indeed, the study provides a concrete picture of the significant scope of the Government's efforts in this direction and shows that it understands the need for systematic development of communication routes.

E. G. Istomina notes a specific feature of the socio-economic situation at that time, when the government took on the main costs of maintaining and improving water communications, and left the organization of transportation to private initiative, which was already based on methods typical of the manufacturing stage of capitalist management (pp. 67, 250, 251). As a result, one of the main conclusions of the author is proved that "shipping and rafting together with horse-drawn transport in the period under review created the material and technical basis for the formation and further evolution of stable transport and economic ties, thereby contributing to economic zoning" (p.248).

Developing the author's position, we can conclude that only the state authorities in Russia were able to ensure the formation of the water transport system throughout the country. However, describing the activities of the state, E. G. Istomina does not always achieve convincing analysis. Rightly noting that a broad program of transformation of transport was implemented by the bureaucratic apparatus of the feudal-feudal state, the results of which often did not correspond to the plans (p. 30), E. G. Istomina emphasizes the crisis state and neglect

page 136

In her opinion, the lack of a single waterway management body until the very end of the XVIII century, abuses of the administration, and the level of hydraulic structures were determined by other negative phenomena (pp. 31-35, 41, 252).

Of course, all these phenomena were the reality of that time. Moreover, bribery was part of the system of feudal exploitation, since the very apparatus of power claimed a share of rent, raising the bribe to the rank of a strictly observed "custom". Nevertheless, it would be more objective to emphasize that individual water transport systems were not developed synchronously at all. Therefore, the formation of a unified state management of waterways did not happen by chance in 1798-1809 (p. 39-43), i.e., when all the basins of the largest waterways (including the Dnieper and Neman) formed certain transport systems and was completed (or was being completed) construction of most of the canals that connected these systems together (see map I). In addition, the centralization of management could help improve the conditions of operation of waterways, but it did not change the existing socio-economic conditions of that time, the structure of public relations between the administration, shipowners and workers. It would seem natural to bring to the fore not the "state of crisis", but the growing discrepancy between the technical capabilities of the XVIII - early XIX centuries. and the needs for the operation of waterways, as mentioned in the conclusion (p. 263).

The central place in the study is occupied by the chapter "Placement, development and transport use of waterways", which makes up half of the book. The author describes in detail all the water basins (Volga-Kama, North-Western, Northern, Baltic, Southern and South-Western) and their state and creates an impressive picture of the grandiosity of water transport routes that provided 16 main directions of cargo flows (p. 261) and played an extremely important role in the development of the economy. E. G. Istomina described in more detail the most important routes in the Volga-Kama basin, as well as in the basins of the North-West, where she highlighted the role of the Vyshnevolotsk hydrotechnical system, the largest in Europe.

Noteworthy is the author's attempt to trace not only the dependence of the development of waterways on the location of productive forces, but also the inverse relationship - the role of these routes in involving individual territories, settlements and industries in the established system of economic district, regional and regional relations. In particular, this connection is well argued when describing the Kama basin, the presence of which led to the existence of Ural factories and the possibility of exporting their products, as well as routes along the Don and Dnieper (especially in their middle and lower reaches), whose basins began to be intensively developed only in the XVIII century. The characteristics of individual routes are most interesting when the author consistently seeks to determine the preferred direction of transportation of the most important goods (timber, grain, iron), which was reflected in the specialization in the transportation of ship caravans that passed along the Kama, Volga, through the Vyshnevolotsk system, etc. (p. 239, 240).

Of course, the organization of trade by waterways within individual regions and its scale is a special problem, and the author touches on it to a large extent illustratively, but the structure of river transport in the study is considered in great detail, so that centers for the formation and concentration of goods, their transshipment from one route to another can be traced throughout the European part of the country, shipbuilding centers, the procedure for providing transportation with working personnel, i.e. phenomena that characterise the level of production, division of labor, internal economic relations, and in general - the process of formation of the All-Russian market.

The book consistently presents the idea of the development of economic zoning in the second half of the XVIII century, and therefore the author focuses on domestic trade, noting, of course, that most of the river systems were connected to seaports. However, the relationship between the formation of regional water systems within the country and the establishment of Russia in the XVIII century on the Baltic and Black Sea-Azov coasts was deeper than noted in the book. With access to international sea routes, the evolution of domestic routes has become more determined.-

page 137

It should be determined not only by internal economic processes, but also by the demands of foreign markets. The materials of the book allow us to judge the specifics of the orientation of river routes, the role of the Port of Riga in exports, which attracted river caravans from Belarus, Western Russian and central provinces with hemp, timber, and oats (p. 189-191), and the importance of the Port of St. Petersburg, which attracted caravans with Ural iron, grain, and timber despite the unique geographical location of the capital the Black Sea and Azov ports, which already in the late 18th and early 19th centuries played a primary role in the export of grain abroad (pp. 191, 202, 205, 223).

Of interest are the author's observations on the system of organization of transport enterprises that could function only on the basis of capitalist entrepreneurship, with significant creditworthiness of shipowners, the use of freelance labor and the presence of large labor markets (p. 250, 251). Given that E. G. Istomina has done considerable work on determining the costs of shipowners (p. 249, 250), it is desirable that in the future their profit should be specifically identified; then it will be possible to judge the degree of efficiency of capitalist entrepreneurship in the conditions of late feudal Russia. In this connection, the author's observation is interesting that the Volga shipping industry was provided with labor mainly by the tax-paying peasantry. His departure for work gradually turned into a professional one, and thus a significant part of the peasantry broke with agricultural production. It can be assumed that, firstly, this phenomenon was widespread, and secondly, it was supported even by landlords. It is known that the Stroganovs in their" Position " of 1837 the administration of Permian possessions prescribed that river caravans should be provided only with people selected from tax-paying families .1
E. G. Istomina wrote a necessary and useful book that gives an idea that it was from the second half of the XVIII century that a new stage in the history of transport communications in Russia began, when a whole system of interconnected waterways was formed on its vast territory. This general conclusion is essential for further understanding of the socio-economic processes that took place in late feudal Russia.

1 TSGADA, f. 1278, op. 2, d. 4232, l. 136.

page 138

Permanent link to this publication: