The November 1930 Polish uprising rippled across Right-Bank Ukraine, causing a radical change in the imperial government’s policy toward the nobility, the majority of which was in opposition to Russia. Part of the nobility supported the liberation movement financially, if not by immediate participation.
Three southwestern gubernias (provinces) of Right-Bank Ukraine were merged into one territorial, administrative, and political entity — the Kyiv general-gubernia (1832-1914). It was governed by a dignitary who was the emperor’s personal agent, resided directly in the gubernia, and had to determine the policy of eliminating local color and incorporate the territory into the Russian empire’s general expanse. The first two governor-generals fell short of the emperor’s expectations, and it was only the third one who fully complied with the new government policy.
The third governor-general was Dimitrii Gavrilovich Bibikov (1792-1870), a 45-year-old senator and head of a finance ministry department. By the time of his appointment he had completed 10 years of service as the vice-governor in the central gubernias and had already mastered the art of ruling a province.
He embarked on his civil career by accident, after being wounded near Borodino, which is why he always looked at this service through the eyes of a professional military man. After he visited the key political and cultural centers of the region, the new governor-general briefly conveyed his main impressions to Tsar Nicholas I, noting that every class is different in its national character, religion, division of labor, and is “more under Polish than Russian rule.”
Thus, he proposed some practical measures, including the legislative formulation of the new political direction. In 1840 the Russian tsar issued a nominal rescript entitled “Directives to the General-Governor of Kyiv, Podillia, and Volhynia Gubernias,” which incorporated the proposals that Bibikov had elaborated. This document enabled the governor-general to invest his office with considerable authority and broad political functions: to implement and consolidate the Russian polity in the so-called “former Russian lands” through the orders issued by his vicegerent. The ultimate administrative goal was formulated in military style, briefly and to the point: “Try to merge this territory with Great Russia.”
The main prerequisite for this task was to overcome the corporate spirit and regionalism of the Polish elite. To this end a revision of the nobiliary rights of noble families was proposed in order to create a loyal stratum; some these families had to be assimilated through civil service, while for the rest, who were labeled disloyal, access to local government would have to be limited. In this undertaking Bibikov actively cooperated with the government’s Central Committee for the Western Gubernias (1831-1848), which the emperor had created for the express purpose of facilitating integration activity on the annexed western territory.
In 1840 the governor-general set up the Central Revision Commission for evaluating meetings of the gubernia’s nobility-in his opinion, they were slow in dealing with cases related to the local nobility. Bibikov reported three times on the activity of the commission, which had replaced three inefficient gubernia commissions and was subordinated to the governor-general’s supervision for the purpose of ensuring, over a four-year period, that pretenders to noble ranks had sufficient legal grounds.
After the Magdeburg Law was repealed in 1835, the legislative and judicial reform was complete-a major step in switching the gubernia from the Lithuanian Statute to the Russian Code of Laws. Although Bibikov was wrong in thinking that the Lithuanian Statute was part of the Polish Code of Law, he clearly perceived its differences from Russian laws. He reported to the Committee on the Western Gubernias that the abolition of this statute would convince the population that their laws were not self-sufficient and would eliminate this reminder of the former republic (Rzeczpospolita).
On the other hand, Bibikov tried to assimilate the nobility through civil service in Russian institutions. A number of measures were adopted to attract young people with a fairly good home education, who were not rushing to enlist for state and military service to the Russian crown: lists of young noblemen, which were sent to the emperor from Kyiv, were updated and it was decided to enlist as many young people as possible. Bibikov believed that the Polish nobility did not appreciate the “granted mercy,” and its majority did not serve the Russian throne or fulfill any duties before the Russian state. Instead, this class used its money to undermine the foundation of the state.
Bibikov categorized the nobility into ancient magnate families and the lower nobility. In his opinion, the former served the latter instead of putting itself at the service of the state. The former group received the same rights as the Russian nobility but nonetheless evaded military and civil service. Neither group served Russia. The governor-general believed that the members of wealthy noble families (those who owned more than 1,000 peasants) had to be sent to serve in government bodies in Great Russian provinces, while the impoverished nobility would gradually assimilate on its own.
Although the governor-general’s martinet-style proposals were passed over by the central government, nevertheless they led to several legislative acts. In 1847 permission was granted on the governor- general’s personal responsibility to enlist for service the participants of the 1930-31 uprising. The 1852 edict obliged the sons of non-Orthodox landlords who owned more than 100 peasants to serve as ensigns or Junkers (officers of the lowest grade) in any Great Russian gubernia except St. Petersburg. An exemption could be granted only in the case of injury, provided it was confirmed by the local authorities.
In shaping the policy of Russification, the governor-general understood with increasing clarity that he would not find a common language with the nobility. It was only at the early stages that Bibikov sought to assimilate the Polish nobility by engaging it in civil service as much as possible. On numerous occasions he solicited awards for functionaries of Polish descent and facilitated the return of insurgents from exile.
However, the traditional cooperation with the elite on the annexed Right-Bank Ukrainian territory did not have an immediate continuation because the nobility, which had supported the uprising and thus demonstrated its disloyalty, fell out of favor with the government. After he failed to establish cooperation with the elite, Bibikov proposed that the government integrate Right-Bank Ukraine with the help of a tactic that had not been employed in other national regions: remove the local nobility from power and focus the government’s efforts on the polyethnic peasantry.
The idea of vanquishing the nobility’s clout by relying on a non- elite class of “Orthodox” peasantry (which was Ukrainian to a large extent) identified as belonging to the Russian ethnos was suggested to Bibikov by the Russian Slavophile Yurii Samarin, who came specially to Kyiv and began working in Bibikov’s chancery. Earlier, when he was on the governor-general’s staff in Riga, his attempts to spread the Russian idea and reach an understanding with the Latvians and Estonians led to a conflict with the dominant German elite.
After this failure he tried to put his ideas and convictions into practice in Kyiv because in the Ukrainian peasantry he saw not only an oppressed mass but also the guardians of “Russian” national traditions. Bibikov himself must have understood that security in the region could be ensured only by keeping the nobility on its toes with the help of the peasantry (with which he tried to establish closer relations).
He began working along this line by enhancing the material well- being of the peasantry. First of all, he proposed his personal supervision of the process of switching state-owned peasants from the more burdensome corvee to a tax with an accompanying prohibition against the transfer of proprietary rights to state-owned property. This proposal encountered strong resistance from the government, especially the Minister of State Property.
The governor-general defended his policy by arguing that the proposal was forward-looking and would guarantee peace in the empire. He even referred to the 1830 promise by the commander of the Russian troops that, in exchange for supporting the government’s efforts to quell the uprising, peasants would be granted freedom from their Polish landlords. Only Nicholas I’s intervention made it possible to implement Bibikov’s project: 220 villages were switched to taxes (1844).
A more significant step was the adoption of the “Rules for Managing Estates according to Inventories Approved by the Governor-General’s Office in Kiev.” Bibikov saw that his appeals to the leaders of the nobility in povits (districts) to avoid abusing the peasant’s serf status did not bring the anticipated results. To bolster his position, he continued gathering data on landlords’ cruelty and as a result recorded cases of suicide among peasants. These data finally convinced the government of the need to limit the authority of Polish landlords over Orthodox peasants. Historians concur that Samarin was instrumental in writing the final version of the text.
At the beginning of the year every peasant family received a book signed by their landlord. The book listed the exact figures for designated work days and production norms, and contained fields for entering confirmation records. From this time onward landlords in Right-Bank Ukraine could not enlist peasants in the army or exile them to Siberia without permission, nor could they interfere in the private life of their subjects and punish them without trial. The rules regulated landlord-peasant relations and led to a decrease in the number of punishments.
Although the rules also helped peasants acquire public lands, they failed to alleviate the situation of peasants who owned little land. Peasants were enraged by the unfair division of land in favor of landlords, but it was impossible to ensure the legal procedure on landlords’ estates, especially because their owners often bribed officials who inventoried the lands. Therefore, as a legislative act these rules failed to reach their original target.
To be continued in Ukraine Incognita
*The nickname that Taras Shevchenko gave to Governor-General Bibikov in his poem “The Idiot” (Yurodyvy). Bibikov was missing an arm
